Real Madrid and Barcelona are the two most popular clubs in the world on social media, while Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Bayern Munich attempt to keep pace.
Real Madrid has 13.8 million followers, followed by Barça with 13.5 million, while Arsenal has nearly five million.
Barcelona has more Facebook likes with 79.1 million, ahead of Real Madrid (77.7 million), Manchester United (61.6 million), Chelsea (38.3 million) and Arsenal (30.7 million).
As Tim Bridge, a consultant at football finance experts Deloitte, says: “Quite simply, clubs cannot afford not to. For many, social media has become their default source for information. If clubs don’t engage with their fans using the most modern and popular methods they may be open to criticism, or even lose fan support. The use of social media is only going to increase – the modern day fan’s connection with his or her club comes as much from an online video clip from training as it does from attending a match on a Saturday. Clubs know they must embrace this.”
Josh Cowls, of Oxford University’s Oxford Internet Institute, which examines societal implications of the Internet, offers analysis of how clubs subtly harness digital presence.
He believes potent psychological triggers are being pressed. “Clubs – particularly top clubs in England and Spain – have tapped into residual support around the world, using these social tools to open up lucrative markets. Social media are particularly effective in this sense because they play upon the social and emotional aspects of supporting a club, particularly for supporters who are geographically far away from their team’s base.
“Declaring your support for Barcelona on Facebook, for example, is a more socially visible act than visiting a club’s website or even shouting support in a pub. This obviously opens up huge commercial potential for clubs, although they have shown sophistication in their use of these platforms: the focus seems to be on building long-term communities rather than taking the first opportunity to hawk shirts.
“As a result, many or most posts from clubs to followers are informational or entertaining rather than acutely commercial in nature. And even where commercial impulses are more apparent, this seems just as likely to involve selling virtual content, eg premium video on a club’s website – as physical merchandise.”
Whether clubs actually generate revenue from their social media efforts is in question.
“While clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona have over 10 million followers on Twitter of their [first language] accounts, there is little or no evidence of any direct revenue from this. We can assume clubs will see some indirect revenue as they release information to their followers of how to buy tickets or merchandise. However, it is difficult to assess whether social media has provided an increase in these revenue streams, or whether those fans would have made those purchases via the more traditional routes anyway.”