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Premier League Instagram followers surpasses 40 million - Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news

Premier League Instagram followers surpasses 40 million

premier-league-instagram

Recent data acquired from acuity digital shows that the combined total of all followers on Instagram for every Premier League has surpassed 40 million. More surprisingly, Instagram is just 2 million followers away from becoming the 2nd most popular Social Network – a crown currently held by Twitter.

Data from the digital marketing consultancy based in Leeds showed that as of November 5th, there are 42.1 million Instagram users following a Premier League account. On Twitter for comparison there are a total of 44.3 million users following a club. However, this pales in comparison to Facebook that boasts an accumulated total of 236 million Likes.

Instagram Followers by Premier League team (November 2016)

ClubFollowersPhotos/Videos
Manchester United14,419,4555,217
Arsenal FC8,188,3953,595
Chelsea FC7,737,4002,429
Manchester City3,963,2014,478
Liverpool FC3,513,4055,601
Leicester City1,384,3132,340
Tottenham Hotspur919,4952,241
Everton324,4001,820
West Ham United313,1432,860
Southampton FC246,5643,515
Stoke City FC204,070765
Crystal Palace F.C.152,0271,046
Swansea City AFC135,3711,048
Sunderland AFC124,2013,070
Watford FC110,8761,432
AFC Bournemouth105,5361,292
West Bromwich Albion105,5181,446
Burnley FC69,4701,089
Hull City51,956815
Middlesbrough FC48,2061,020
TOTAL42,117,00247,119

Unsurprisingly Manchester United dominate the table with 14.4 million followers on their official Instagram account, just as they top both the Twitter and Facebook league tables. What is interesting is that the Red Devils have some 5 million more followers on Instagram than they do on Twitter.

Noticeably, the United team have put substantial investment into Instagram with only Liverpool FC beating them on the sheet volume of media content posted on Instagram. On Twitter in comparison, Man United appear third from bottom for volume of tweets – though they were notably the last Premier League side to join Twitter in July 2013.

In the coming months we can expect to see the Facebook owned platform overtake Twitter. With a focus on rich media across mobile devices, Instagram has allowed the Manchester United social team to communicate to their fan base with historical footage, photos of what players used to look like and repurpose imagery and video shared by past and present members of the squad.

In addition, the team at Old Trafford have done a great job of monetizing the channel to just the right level. This season saw them quite heavily promote the launch of EA Sports FIFA 2017 game through Instagram. The marketing however was quite subtle and allowed EA Sports to piggy back on United’s enormous marketing platform. As Instagram continues to grow, more and more sponsors and brands will look to ways to leverage their commercial agreements with football clubs to amplify their own marketing activity.

Sean Walsh

Founder of Digital-Football.com and leading Football Social Media expert.

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