This morning we are pleased to bring you once more an exclusive first sight of the Irish Sport Social Media Review covering November 2016.
This month’s report, produced by our partners Sportego includes Horse Sport Ireland, Sport Ireland and Tennis ireland in the figures, bringing the number of sporting organisations tracked now to 20. The figures though are still dominated by the events of a weekend in Chicago…
American novelist Norman Mailer once said “It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.” As a business that track sentiments, we have to agree. Good content becomes great content when the actions behind it is historic.
November 2016 will go down in history for a number of reasons, it was a month when Donald Trump defied the odds to become US President, when Conor McGregor showed that the Irish really were taking over as he become a two-weight champion in UFC and it was also the month when Irish rugby ended their 111 year wait to beat the All-Blacks.
Their stunning success in Chicago was an historic occasion. One for folklore; a real ‘I was there’ moment in Irish Sport, up there with the Ray Houghton goal in Stuggart, when Paul McGrath turned into 11 men and when Katie Taylor won gold in London. The result on the field deserves its place in folklore but there are some online stats that, even if they don’t make tales by a fire in the future, still paint a very vivid picture of that day.
In November, Irish Rugby became the first Irish sporting body to achieve social engagement over 1 million. They had growth of over 247% on the previous month; they became a global phenomenon.
Their most influencing mentions came from JK Rowling, Piers Morgan, Vice President Biden and the Gazzetta in Italy. Harry Potter author Rowling’s congratulatory tweet to Ireland led to over 1,500 retweets and 6,700 likes.
It made for an impression’s reach, or eyeballs on Irish rugby, of almost 94m. Hugely impressive and 10 times more than that of their nearest rivals, the FAI.
The past is known but Irish Rugby will be equally pleased to see that the most engaging post they themselves published during the month though was one looking forward.
The post revealing the Liam Neeson voiced promotional video behind the Rugby World Cup 2023 bid managed 17% engagement on Facebook, the same amount as what Basketball Ireland achieved for their Instagram announcement that Ireland had won the bid to host the 2017 FIBA Women’s U18 European Championship.
While larger governing bodies catch the headlines; smaller ones can sometimes struggle for space without major international tournaments.
That can be overturned though and it was fantastic to see both Irish Badminton and Gymnastic Ireland enjoy superb Novembers.
Gymnastic Ireland increased their social activity by 183% in November and had an average engagement rate of 0.90 per post, the highest of them all, while Badminton Ireland saw social engagement increase by almost 25%, despite a drop in the number of posts.
So what type of content works well for Irish sport? Irish sporting bodies favour photos above all else with on average 3.20 posts per day. The average engagement rate for pictures across all the sporting bodies is 0.33%, but it is valuable to note that this is just under half the 0.62% engagement rate video achieves.
As you would expect links and status updates struggle to make an impact on their audiences; showing the importance of visuals. Links had the lowest engagement with 0.037%, marginally ahead of status updates at 0.039%.
With December now upon us, the time for sporting bodies to reflect is here. Pats on the back are due but the plans put into action for next year will ensure that the continued social growth of Irish sport.
Here is the state of the sporting nation when it comes to social media followers heading into the final month of the year…
This report and the data included is produced by Sportego.ie.
Image Credits: Sportego and Inpho.ie / Dan Sheridan
