Welcome to the Irish Sport Social Media Report for February 2018. In this report for Sport for Business, Sportego looks at how active our Irish Sporting organisations were in the past month, the social platforms used and the engagement achieved.
This month welcomes two more organisations to the report, with Ladies Football and the Camogie Association joining the fold.
The total Irish sport social following for our 25 sporting bodies across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter now stands at 4.46m, up by 200k in the month of February, representing a 1.04% increase.
When you discount the two new additions to the review, the remaining 23 organisations increased their following by 70k approximately.
Not surprisingly, Irish Rugby were the biggest movers in February, with their participation in this year’s Six Nations Tournaments driving high levels of national interest.
Cross-Channel Audience with Percentage Increase – End of February ‘18
February saw a big increase in the activity of many of Ireland’s sporting organisations, including the Irish Amateur Boxing Association (+84%), Irish Rugby (+86%), Horse Sport Ireland (70%), Olympic Council of Ireland (+337%) and Special Olympics Ireland (+90%).
The GAA (+86%) topped the charts in terms of output in February, beating out the usual leader, Basketball Ireland. As you will see from the graphic, Instagram was used for only 0.5% of the GAA’s 1000+ February posts, with their social team preferring to concentrate on their Facebook and Twitter audience.
Ladies Gaelic Football and the Camogie Association come in at 4th and 5th respectively, ranked between Irish Rugby and Go Racing in terms of output.
Cross-Channel Posts – End of February ‘18
Irish Rugby were again best for Cross-Channel Engagement for a second consecutive month, and not by a small margin. Their figure of 1.06m engagements was almost 5 times their January total.
Engagement increased for most bodies this month, with only really Basketball Ireland and Cricket Ireland showing a marked decrease in Engagement, with February being a quiet month for both organisations.
Cross-Channel Engagement Totals – End of February ‘18
In February, Irish sporting bodies created a daily average of 9.41 social posts, with Twitter enjoying 60% of the attention, Facebook 30% and Instagram again the neglected child, with only 10%.
That actually represents a significant increase for Insta, up from only 0.37 posts per day in January. Hopefully, that trend will continue in coming months, with the resulting organic increase in engagement we see time and time again for those who utilise the platform.
We can see below that Instagram provides engagement at a rate of 2.87%, far outstripping the alternative networks. It is worth taking the time to put suitable content on the platform. The benefits can be very easily seen when you look at February’s big performer, Rugby Ireland.
The IRFU posted 21% of their content on Insta, and those posts contributed 80% towards their engagement total. Organisations who focus their attention on the platform will reap the benefits. It is a drum we continuously beat at Sportego, but the beat will go on.
Posts Per Day & Engagement Rates – February ‘18
Irish Rugby dominates the potential eyeballs on Twitter this past month as you would expect, both with the NatWest 6 Nations ongoing, and their own significant reach.
However, more significantly there were 6 additional Irish sporting organisations with a potential reach of more than 1 million people in February.
The 7th organisation is one of the new organisations being tracked in this report, the Camogie Association. They achieved a reach of almost 1.1m in February, despite having only 17.2k followers of their own. An excellent achievement.
Top Twitter Mentions of Organisations – February ‘18
You can see in the following graphic, many of the top mentioners are from the usual sources; international governing bodies such as FIFA and the ICC, and news organisations such as Sky, the Guardian and RTE.
However, there was one unexpected source of mentions for Irish Rugby this past month. Piers Morgan’s tweet congratulating Irish Rugby and Jonny Sexton following their last gasp win over France was the 4th widest reaching post for Irish sport in February.
Top Mentioners – End of February ‘18
This report and insight was produced exclusively for Sport for Business by Sportego. They work with sporting organisations to gain insights from their social media presence and also their data. Check them out at Sportego.ie or get in touch @WeAreSportego on Twitter.
Join us later this month for the 2018 Fan Engagement Conference at the Aviva Stadium when we will be able to explore live some of the themes we have been looking at over the past year with Sportego and some of the winning influencers in fan engagement from across Europe.
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