This morning we are pleased to bring you an exclusive first sight of the Irish Sport Social Media Review covering the last quarter of 2016.
This month’s report, produced by our partners Sportego now includes data on twenty sports, up from only four at the start of 2016 and gives insight into the world of social media inhabited by our sporting bodies.
Before we delve into the numbers it is worth taking a look back on where Social media has come from in sporting terms.
In July 2015 Irish Cricket, the GAA, the FAI and Irish Rugby between them had a social reach on Facebook and Twitter of 1.7 Million.
The IRFU enter 2017 just 400 thousand of that combined total, achieving 68% growth in that period.
Read more of Sport for Business’ Coverage of Social media
It is not the biggest growth number however.
Darragh McGinley, Ian Mallon and the rest of the team at the FAI deserve huge credit as they have grown an incredible 130% during the last 18 months. Good content off the field aided by strong performances on the pitch has seen Irish soccer governing body close the gap on Cricket Ireland and the GAA.
Neither of those bodies can complain either with Cricket Ireland continuing to impress with 64% growth while the GAA just failed to break the 60% market coming in with 58% growth.
Right, history lesson over. Looking back at the last 90 days of Irish sport there has been impressive growth numbers. The IRFU and FAI grew by over 6% and 5% respectively, however the biggest growth of all came from Basketball Ireland.
The resurgence of the sport in Ireland has been fantastic and the good work behind the scenes to re-establish Basketball Ireland, aided by results on court, has seen social growth of over 8%, the most of any NGB over the quarter.
While slam dunks showing that white men can jump catch the eye, success such as victory for the U18 national team in the Haris Tournament are what really captures the imagination.
Basketball Ireland produced the second most posts during the period, with 1.32k pieces of content; below the 1.58k created by the GAA. Of that over 1,000 posts were on Twitter which has over 2 times less engagement than Facebook and was also less than Instagram, which amassed over 7k engagements from just 28 posts.
Engagement wise, announcements, bids and competitions led the way with the FAI’s Robbie Brady giveaway reaching over 16% of their Facebook audience, the highest engagement total in December. Zooming in on December on its own, Badminton Ireland had the third biggest engagement total with 14.1% engaging with an Instagram post about the new National Arena hosting its first event.
When it comes to engagement relevant to audience size, Gymnastic Ireland leads the way with the FAI second. Athletics Ireland and Badminton Ireland also deserve credit.
The FAI’s engagement total is impressive given their audience size especially when rivals such as the GAA, Irish Rugby and Cricket Ireland are nearer the bottom, their audience size hindering their engagement percentages.
This could down to seasonal focus, content not being relevant, dormant accounts/followers and incentivised participation.
We finish up by looking at the eyeballs, effectively those that saw the shop window but without buying. Irish Rugby led the way with a reach of over 7m with Paralympic Ireland achieving an impressive 1.3m eyeballs and Sport Ireland amassing a reach of 886k.
Key mentioners for Irish Rugby were British and Irish Lions, Leinster Rugby, World Rugby, SportsJoe, Rick O’Shea, Italy Rugby while Joe.ie, Dublin Airport and the official Paralympic Games account helped Paralympic Ireland spread their reach.
This report and the data included is produced by Sportego.ie and first appeared exclusively on www.sportsforbusiness2.ab6z.com
Join us on Friday, January 20th for a morning of learning, networking and insight on the sporting year ahead and the sponsorship and social media trends that will impact upon us over the next 12 months. Reserve your place now.
