Social Media and the UEFA Champions League

Tonight marks the start of the UEFA Champions League and undoubtedly, a major step for Football Social Media. Arguably the most entertaining and star-studded competition in world football, the UEFA Champions League sees Europe’s top 32 clubs battle it out for the historic Champions League trophy. Whilst the competition is a platform for the best players to display their skills, it also highlights the worlds largest and most commercially successful football brands and how they are using social media to engage with fans, create ROI and market their brand to a global audience.

Sports Social Media site Sportwist.com has provided some valuable analysis into who is currently winning the social media game. The data shows that last season Champions League clubs amassed a total of 95 million social media users, this year this has grown to a staggering 185 million – a clear sign of how Football Social Media has grown in the last season.

• – The supporters of the 32 teams in the Champions League 2012-13 totals 185 million fans 2.0 (158 and 26.5 on Facebook on Twitter). A year ago the figure was 95 million.
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• – Barcelona dominates Champions League with 47.3 million
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• – FC Barcelona and Real Madrid have a combined total of 85.6 million, which equates to 46.39% of all clubs social media following in the Champions Leagues
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• – Every team but Manchester United (who are missing from Twitter) have a social media presence on both Facebook and Twitter

Facebook continues to dominate as the primary choice of channel for football clubs – with an astonishing 158 million of he 185 million users coming from Facebook.

Sportwist even take  a look at how UEFA have begun to user social media as a way to promote both the Champions and Europa League. UEFA’s current Facebook presence sits at 3.1 millions whilst their official Twitter presence @UEFAcom has a rather low 163,000 followers. Meanwhile, the  newly launched Twitter account for the Champions League has just 53,000 followers – with the channel being used to largely broadcast news articles rather than engage.