If the World Cup were decided by social media fans, then England would once again need to beat Germany on penalties to win the tournament, according to new research.
The research, from RadiumOne, analysed the number of stories shared about each team in the top 16 ranked FIFA teams across Facebook and Twitter, combined with fan interactions.
England and Germany come out as joint leaders in fan engagement, thanks to their consistent and efficient interactions and engagement levels with their respective fans.
England have 3,342,779 Facebook followers, post 160 times per month and receives the most amount of monthly likes of any team (333,221).
Germany are equally engaged with their fans, posting 201 times a month to their 2,480,403 fans. This approach has led to 15,409 fan comments, putting Germany on top of this particular table.
Host nation, Brazil, would be knocked out of the competition in the quarter-finals. It’s a surprise for the five time winners, as they have the largest overall audience (4,969,106 followers on Facebook and Twitter combined). However, when it comes to interacting with their fans, they are left well behind, only posting 54 times per month, ranking them only 11th, and dragging them out of the top four teams.
Given the extra attention since their entire Football Association team resigned, Uruguay would still fail to progress from the round of 16. The shock news has made Uruguay the most shared team in the last 30 days, but a very limited Facebook presence (145,887 followers and only 57 likes per month) and a limited Twitter following, means they are only 10th in the league.
Two of the top five ranked teams, Argentina and Columbia, prop up the social league. Despite their footballing prowess, the former has no Twitter following and, although they have a healthy number of followers on Facebook (827,296 fans), there is zero interaction. Columbia has only 604,000 followers on Twitter and no Facebook presence whatsoever.
The league, based on the number of stories shared about each team in the top 16 ranked FIFA teams, across Facebook and Twitter, combined with fan interactions, looks as follows:
Abeed Janmohamed, Commercial Director at RadiumOne comments: “There are some big footballing nations clearly overlooking the importance of fan engagement as part of their commercial strategies but it’s an opportunity they should not waste. Engaging a community is a hugely powerful ‘twelfth man’ for the team and the brands supporting them. With their respective reputations, it’s not a massive surprise to see England and Germany fighting it out at the top of the table, thanks to their consistent approaches to fan engagement.”
http://www.radiumone.com
