In the last few days 3 European football giants have made their mark on the Football Social Media world. Arsenal, Chelsea and AC Milan all surpassed the magic 10 million Facebook Likes number to join Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United in the 10mil+ club.<\/p>\n
It’s no surprise that these clubs in particular have reached the landmark, they are after all some of the very elite in world football and brought in a combined total of\u00a0\u20ac735 million in revenue last year alone. With 30 million Facebook fans, surely these clubs are doing a good job of engaging on Social Media? Surely, they are making the most of \u00a0this massive online presence? Surely they are using this awesome feat to improve their brand?<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n URL:\u00a0http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Arsenal\/<\/a><\/p>\n BEFORE: Arsenal’s pre-10 million tactic involved a Facebook competition in which fans could win a signed jersey or match tickets before the counter hit 10 million. It’s a fairly run of the mill idea but I can’t help but feel that they would’ve done a lot more? Maybe open an executive box for 10 lucky Facebook fans, done some blogger outreach<\/a>, or even a bit of basic PR in the industry news?<\/p>\n AFTER: Arsenal promoted the 10 millionth Like with a special albeit 18 second video with Thomas Vermaelen thanking fans for their support and announcing the winners of the competition (there were only 4). Ok, it’s something, but surely the club has archives of historical footage, club ambassadors, unlimited access to its fans (who could be content creators<\/a>) and so much more. 18 seconds seems rather…dull. Oh, and the video isn’t even on YouTube (no search equity).<\/p>\n STATS: 7,333 Likes on the announcement update<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n URL:\u00a0http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChelseaFC<\/a><\/p>\n BEFORE: As far as I can tell there didn’t seem to be any “call to arms” content, though to be fair Chelsea were perhaps more focused on the FA Cup final and recent victory to put them into the Champions League final. So, I’ll let them off…<\/p>\n AFTER: Chelsea went a little bit further than Arsenal and are by far the best of the lot. They put up multiple status updates when the 10,000,000th fan liked the Page, as well as a customised Timeline Cover image to celebrate the event. This was supported by a video on their excellent YouTube channel – which was 54 seconds long. The video was mildly better than Arsenal’s in that it had 3 players say something (Mata, Cech & Luiz) and it was interspersed with some old footage of players and fans. However, yet again, it seemed a bit rushed and didn’t really do much to sell the club as an entertainment brand. The London club also ran a brief 10% discount on club merchandise for 24 hours only… hardly generous.<\/p>\n STATS: 28k video views & 17,002 Likes across 3 announcement updates<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\nChelsea<\/h3>\n
AC Milan<\/h3>\n