Obviously, this isn’t a perfect engagement calculation but it does offer us a quick insight into the value of followers and activity.

The table did show some surprising results, one being that Liverpool had only an engagement rate of 18.8% despite having a sizable following. Arguably one of the best results went to Arsenal who command a mammoth 3.1 million Twitter followers and still managed to hold a respectable 44.6% engagement rate in November. Our quick engagement figure may not be perfect, but it does quickly allow us to see how effective clubs are being with their content coupled with how often fans engage with the official Twitter properties.

Twitter Engagement Table (November 2013)

As football clubs invest more heavily in Social Media, now that they are seeing more demand, we can expect to see more metrics like this becoming more important and common online. Judging growth solely on follower statistics is slowly losing relevance, where engagement is growing in importance. With clubs looking to monetize their Social Media presence to potential sponsors, metrics like this can help place a value on the club’s Social Media, as well as help create internal benchmarks to measure against.

Furthermore, such engagement metrics can add value for projecting not just future Social Media engagement, but aligning with marketing campaigns such as season ticket strategies. These figures can be used and installed into the marketing funnel to help project how much traffic Social Media can generate for the club website, and in turn – conversions.

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Just twelve other clubs have more Twitter followers, with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City all sitting higher than United. La Liga giants Barcelona and Real Madrid continue to dominate with some 19 million followers combined, with Galatasaray sitting third with just over 3 million followers.

However, in terms of engagement Manchester United have been king – with over 798,863 retweets and 636,857 mentions on Twitter – the highest of any club in the English Premier League (data from SocialPundit.co.uk).

Follower figures might be important to brand managers or directors, but ultimately it is engagement that counts in the Social Media world and undoubtedly United have been incredibly successful at nurturing engagement from their fans with behind the scenes photography and interviews. Last month the side also held it’s first Google+ Hangout interview with Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverly as the club are clearly trying to take on (or at least keep up with) Manchester City in the Social Media sphere – who have the highest Klout score in the EPL according to statistics gathered by Sports Social Media company Social Pundit.

Manchester United were notably slow to adopt Twitter, originally preferring to delay joining the platform,

“There will be no official Twitter site until we have satisfied ourselves that we have determined a role for Twitter.” – Jonathan Rigby, Head of Marketing at Man United

Data sourced from the brilliant folos.im website shows the current worldwide Twitter follower standings:

1	Barcelona Spain	FCBarcelona	10,056,798
2	Real Madrid Spain	realmadrid	8,855,594
3	Galatasaray Turkey	GalatasaraySK	3,095,335
4	Arsenal England	Arsenal	2,792,326
5	Chelsea England	chelseafc	2,784,344
6	Fenerbahçe SK Turkey	Fenerbahce	2,394,219
7	Liverpool England	LFC	1,989,797
8	AC Milan Italy	acmilan	1,466,502
9	Corinthians Brazil	Corinthians	1,425,222
10	Manchester City England	MCFC	1,190,176
11	Chivas CD Guadalajara Mexico	Chivas	1,125,650
12	Flamengo Brazil	CR_Flamengo	1,106,309
13	Manchester United England	ManUtd	993,377
14	São Paulo Brazil	SaoPauloFC	923,540
15	Paris Saint-Germain France	PSG_inside	813,660

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At the moment, the official Twitter feed @ManUtd has just 49,000 followers but this number is expected to sky rocket in the next few weeks as United aim to match their impressive Facebook following. The Red Devils currently have 34 million Facebook Fans – putting them in the top 100 Facebook Pages worldwide. United will have some work to do though, chasing the current EPL Twitter leaders Arsenal who have 2.5 million followers and Chelsea who have 2.3 million (And also hold the most engagement this season).

Why have they been absent for Twitter for so long?

Jonathan Rigby, Head of Marketing at Man United

United’s absence from Twitter was very briefly explained in 2012 by Jonathan Rigby, Head of Marketing at Manchester United, who stated,

“There will be no official Twitter site until we have satisfied ourselves that we have determined a role for Twitter.”

That being said, United fans have long asked for a Twitter account – some to engage with the club better, some simply out of sheer rivalry (as generally Manchester City are viewed as being hotshots at Football Social Media presently). Undoubtedly United have taken their time to formulate a business case and strategy for the channel – which of course is sensible.

But, one has to question why it’s taken them nearly 3 or 4 years to get with the trend, potentially missing out on engagement (and driving traffic to their website) from EPL, Champions League and Cup match days. Furthermore, the lack of an official and verified Twitter account has lead to much confusion as unofficial fan accounts have taken the opportunity to build significant followings in their place.

Have United been planning this for over a year?

Last year we reported a story found tucked away in the Manchester Evening News that suggested United might be looking to start using Twitter. In a comment which has subsequently been removed since the story was posted, the MEN said they understood that United would,

‘ensure commercial partners were happy before they launch an account’

This perhaps suggests that United wanted to make a real business case for the channel and try integrate a commercial element into their Social Media strategy with advertising opportunities for sponsors. A clever move, and something we have seen all to often in recent months in the US, as established sporting brands now look to try monetize their channels (as we predicted earlier this year in our 2013 Sports Social Media predictions).

Why have they chosen to launch it now?

Perhaps the recent Social Media noise around Sir Alex Ferguson‘s departure (which generated nearly 1.8 million tweets in 24 hours) was a sign that the club was missing an opportunity to utilise Social Media. Certainly  the Mancunian side have been keen to promote hashtags for #SirAlexThankYou and #UnitedContinued on their website, around the stadium and in marketing collateral in recent weeks.

However, things are clearly still in development stage as United also showed some of the hazards that can come with Social Media, when they accidentally jumped the gun and announced the appointment of David Moyes as the new manager on Facebook prematurely.

Nevertheless, it’s a positive sign to see United finally join Twitter and it will be exciting to see them take on other European clubs Social Media activity – particularly if they have a sizable budget behind them.

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The tweet and the Facebook tab were deleted incredibly quickly, perhaps less than a minute – but this wasn’t fast enough to stop Twitter going into a fury as the news continues to spread online.

The slip up just goes to show the sheer speed and power of Social Media and particularly it is notable that Social Media is becoming the primary source for breaking news over television for such events.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement caused a buzz on Twitter yesterday with over 1.75 million tweets being sent out in relation to the news, again demonstrating how close Football and Social Media are entwined. However, it also shows how important it is on Social Media to make sure information is kept private and no Social Media managers “jump the gun”.

The news was also tweeted by @FIFAcom, who deleted the tweet just as quickly.

As of yet, there has been no official confirmation (well, that hasn’t been deleted!) from the club.

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According to data from Topsy, the official #ThankYouSirAlex hashtag set up by the club (and plastered across their website) generated a very healthy 220,000 tweets in the last 24 hours with a plethora of journalists and players using it in their tribute tweets.

The second highest ranking hashtag was quite simply #fergie, that continued to trend throughout the day and perhaps was being used by opposition fans who probably didn’t want to publicly thank their longest standing nemesis. Notably, it was the choice of long time Arsenal fans and super Twitter troll Piers Morgan. The #fergie hashtag generated just under 30,000 mentions.

A simple search for mentions of “Ferguson” yesterday revealed an astonishing 1,442,772 mentions on Twitter yesterday alone – as the news broke via Twitter, it was full of tributes and speculation around who will be the next manager to take reign at Old Trafford.

Noticeably, the Manchester United Press Office account was considerably more active than usual, as it tweeted out tributes, quotes and website updates about the United legend. Furthermore, the account reverted from its usual RSS feed style broadcast posting of website news and began to retweet player reactions to the news. However, due to United not currently having an official account (and being the only club in this years Champions League and Premier League to not have an official Twitter presence), this was probably only reaching a small 169,200 followers – which begs the question, why are Manchester United not using Twitter?

Yesterday, the Press Office account @ManUtd_PO only saw growth of around 5,000 new followers from their activity. Arguably, if they had a proper official club account (and by official – regularly updated, engaging with fans, promoting content and being used on a matchday) they may well have capitalised on the Twitter buzz and seen a higher engagement level for the official #ThankYouSirAlex hashtag.

United’s 33 million fans on Facebook surely must be a good indication that they see the value in Social Media and understand how it can help promote their brand. Whilst United have been coy about joining Twitter until they have a proper strategy in place, surely it’s time they get involved before the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal and Chelsea get too far ahead?

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United’s highly publicised listing in the NY Stock Exchange earlier this month was promoted on the back of a strong social media presence, citing the impressive 27m fans on Facebook, where they are way ahead of their English rivals and only narrowly behind Spanish giants Real and Barca. However, social media is tool to engage with fans and the fairly passive nature of a Facebook page seems a bit of a cop out for a club who claim to have 659m global fans.

So noticeably, when the official UEFA Champions League twitter page listed the 32 top European clubs, who will be drawn into groups for the competition late last month, United stood out sorely as the only team not to be linked to an account. The only credible ‘official’ MUFC account is @ManUtd_PO, which has amassed 61,000 followers yet offers very little. This account, which states through its background picture, that is it the ‘Official Account of Manchester United’ distances itself from any fan or player based engagement, following only a selection of journalists, and simply tweeting news stories from the clubs official site.

There is another account which offers more club ‘insight’ and encourages fan engagement, and this is @DHL_ManUtd. Followed by only 5,000 users, the DHL account claim to provide ‘behind-the-scenes access to the club’ including a stream of exclusive pictures (notably of players all wearing the club’s DHL branded training kit). As the clubs ‘official logistics partner’ DHL manage to promote themselves through this lucrative partnership, whilst offering United fans a somewhat small chance to engage officially. However, for a company who are a leading delivery company it is interesting that they can’t send users offsite for more engagement, with a defunct link in their Twitter bio.

The Manchester Evening News have suggested that United are now considering the launch of an official twitter accounts, pointing out in their story that as well as being a noticeable absentee amongst Europe’s elite, they are also the only PL club without a presence. In a comment which has subsequently been removed since the story was posted on Wednesday night, the MEN said they understood that United would ‘ensure commercial partners were happy before they launch an account’. Considering the current @DHL_ManUtd set up, it is not inconceivable for United to remain absent from twitter, instead allowing their vast number of new commercial partners to instead conduct their own activities on the back of the Manchester United ‘brand’. However, for fans who want to get involved in club and players Q&A’s, conducted so well by top teams such as across-town rivals Manchester City, their engagement may be limited to commercially focused activity which fails to follow the simple and effective campaigns of so many other clubs.

Manchester United, so often a leader in the past, are falling behind their rivals with their failure to act. Sir Alex Ferguson has often spoken of his own failure to understand the point of social media sites such as Twitter, but someone at the club must surely see the potential that a no-strings-attached, official page could bring to their worldwide fanbase?

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The tunnel cam is an exceptionally great piece of content as it allows fans to under the skin of the club and fosters a deeper affinity with the players. City are successful in social media because they understand the passionate nature of fan identity. City’s own Digital Director Richard Ayers told Digital-Football.com a few weeks ago that the club create their content as if they were an entertainment brand – this is spot on.

Tunnel cam goes against the grain of what most football clubs are doing at the bottom – broadcast sales messaging or dry RSS news stories.

The Manchester Derby tunnel cam plays to the curiosity of football fans, it shows:

• >> unseen pre-match rituals
• >> a sense of what it would be like to be a player (e.g. the noise of boo’ing as United take to the pitch for pre-match warm ups)
• >> the hub of activity in the sacred tunnel (including a quick visit from Diego Maradona)
• >> the tension, passion and gamesmanship of the players in the tunnel as they wait to step onto the pitch before kick-off
• >> the elation from the City players post-match

Tunnel Cam is a wonderful content idea for Football Social Media as it gives fans “fly on the wall” access to areas of the game and club that they would love to experience, but so rarely see.

It also demonstrates that Football Social Media doesn’t need to be arduous or costly, a man with a flip cam and a bit of editing can go a long way…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90xoWo5Eah8

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