November’s analysis saw a record 4.6 million engagements across the Sport for Business member organisations. High profile fixtures across football and rugby drove the increased conversation, and as we approach the end of the year and Awards season there were a plethora of exceptional performances to reflect upon and enjoy.

Olytico analysed over 8,000 posts for us last month, from our member organisations in the Irish sporting world across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

The number of posts at 8,648  was down 23 per cent on the previous month but was obviously high on quality generating 4,609,201 engagements.

This was an increase of 35 per cent on October and the fourth consecutive substantial monthly increase.

In the infographics below, we have ranked each of the organisations across a range of metrics on each network, including the most active, the most engaged with, and the most engaging content.

It is important to note that this analysis is based on publicly available data. It does not include any analysis or insight on paid or promoted content. When % figures are used (unless otherwise stated), they refer to the previous month’s figures.

 

November 2021 Highlights on Twitter

 

 

Following October’s record-breaking activity on Twitter, it was always going to be a challenge to match that in November, but whilst activity fell 31 per cent (6,399 to 4,418 tweets) we saw the second-highest ever number of engagements for the platform, increasing 20 per cent from 355,241 to 427,745

The record remains the 497,659 engagements that were achieved in July.

Thanks to fixtures for both the men’s and women’s teams, Irish Rugby topped the activity charts for the first time since February (458 tweets, +67 per cent), and they were followed by Ladies Football (371, +11 per cent) and Basketball Ireland (350, +45 per cent).

Despite an 18 per cent reduction on their previous month’s activity, Horse Racing Ireland rose three places into fifth (236 tweets) as they announced the nominations for the 2021 HRI Awards.

Special mentions this month go to the Ireland Women’s Cricket account which rose to its highest position of twelfth (161, +18 per cent) as they kept fans up to date with their World Cup Qualifiers against the West Indies and the Netherlands, and IWA-Sport (38, +46 per cent) who continued their #RollWithUs and #LetsGetBack campaign.

The FAI completed three months at the top of the Twitter engagement charts (360 engagements per post,  up one per cent) as the Men’s and Women’s teams went unbeaten against Portugal and Luxembourg, and Slovakia and Georgia respectively.

Top content included Chidozie Ogbene’s Player of the Match performance against Luxembourg (link) and the Women’s record-breaking night in Tallaght (link).

Irish Rugby finished in second (344, +346 per cent) with the Autumn Series of Internationals taking centre stage, followed by Munster Rugby in third (138, +73 per cent) as they kept fans informed of their ongoing situation in South Africa.

Badminton Ireland (23, +167 per cent) launched their first session as part of their Women in Sport Fun, Fitness & Footwork campaign in conjunction with Dublin City Council and Vision Sports Ireland (14, +100 per cent) wrapped up their 2021 VI Rugby training sessions.

Irish Rugby took the top prize for Twitter content in November, thanks to the Men’s team beating New Zealand 29-20 at the Aviva Stadium, the full-time post generated over 14,400 likes and 2,600 retweets as Andy Farrell’s team head towards the Guinness Six Nations in fine form.

 

 

November 2021 Highlights on Facebook

 

 

Facebook activity decreased for the third month in a row with an 18 per cent drop in the number of posts recorded in November (from 3,132 to 2,569 posts).  This resulted in a 7 per cent decrease in engagements (from 566,543 to 529,178).

There were some though who bucked the trend.

For the second month in a row, the Ladies Gaelic Football account topped the activity charts (310 posts, +3 per cent), as they celebrated the announcement of the 2021 TG4 All-Star team, which included eight of Meath’s title-winning team.

The League of Ireland (185, +10 per cent) climbed to their highest position in second as Shamrock Rovers were crowned the 2021 SSE Airtricity League Premier Division champions.

 

 

The FAI came in third (168, +4 per cent) celebrated a record-breaking night for the Women’s National Team as they beat Georgia 11-0.

Basketball Ireland in fourth (144, +44 per cent) made an impressive return to FIBA EuroBasket with a pre-qualifier victory over Cyprus and Athletics Ireland in 11th (92, +59 per cent) announced the Irish team for the SPAR European Cross Country Championship taking place at the Sport Ireland Campus on 12th December.

 

Special mention to Volleyball Ireland (46, +84 per cent) as they became the first sporting organisation to win the prestigious Annual Report Good Governance Award.

Irish Rugby topped the Facebook engagement charts for the first time since June (1,296 engagements per post, +411 per cent) as they completed a clean sweep during November, with the Men’s team beating Japan, New Zealand and Argentina in the Autumn Nations Series, and the Women’s team beating the USA and Japan.

The FAI in second (751, +42 per cent) welcomed back fans to the Aviva Stadium for the 0-0 draw with Portugal and Cricket Ireland in third (575, -56 per cent) announced a successful co-hosting bid with England and Scotland for the Men’s T20 World Cup in 2030.

Paralympics Ireland in fourth (532, +167 per cent) congratulated Michael McKillop on his 16-year career, as the four-time Paralympic Champion announced his retirement,  and Horse Sport Ireland (117, +32 per cent) celebrated Ireland’s win in the Portuguese Nations Cup.

Content from Ireland’s victory over New Zealand featured heavily in the most engaged with content for the month, and the full-time post generated over 31,300 reactions, 2,300 comments and was shared close to 6,000 times.

  

November 2021 Highlights on Instagram

 

 

November was a record-breaking month for the platform.

Whilst the overall number of posts declined one per cent from the previous month (from 1,673 to 1,661), engagements on the platform skyrocketed 46 per cent from 2,502,046 to 3,652,279.

This record number of engagements broke the previous record set in March 2021 (3,527,312) by 3.5 per cent.

As was the case in March 2021, the IRFU topped the Instagram activity charts (222 posts, +129 per cent), with the FAI (199, +4 per cent) in second and the League of Ireland (181, +8 per cent) in third place.

Basketball Ireland rose five places into fourth (127, +84 per cent) and Badminton Ireland (56, +22 per cent) entered the top ten for the first time since December 2020 as they hosted the AIG FZ Forza Irish Open.

Special mentions to the Women’s National League (39, +39 per cent), Gymnastics Ireland (34, +113 per cent), and the Camogie Association (28, +56 per cent).

The Women’s National League crowned Shelbourne FC as Champions and announced Wexford Youth’s Ellen Molloy as November’s Player of the Month.

Gymnastics Ireland celebrated medal success at the 2021 European Apparatus Finals in Cardiff, including a Gold medal for Ewan McAteer and the Camogie Association launched their Self Care Series.

The top ten for Instagram engagement in November was dominated by six Rugby accounts. Irish Rugby in first (7,391 engagements per post, +136 per cent), were joined in the top ten by Leinster Rugby (3rd with 2,628, +21 per cent), Ulster Rugby (4th with 2,179, +13 per cent), the URC (5th with 2,095, +1 per cent), Munster Rugby (7th with 2,037, -16 per cent) and Connacht Rugby (9th with 1,178, +29 per cent).

The FAI in second (4,990, +4 per cent) broke up Rugby’s dominance, their top content came from the Portugal game as Player of the Match, Callum Robinson picked out his father in the crowd.

Special mentions also to Rowing Ireland (469, +134 per cent), Ireland Lacrosse (250, +42 per cent), and Irish Sailing (187, +20 per cent) who scored significant improvements on their engagement with followers.

The IRFU’s post after victory over the All Blacks completed a clean sweep of chart topping engagement after their victory over the All Blacks.

Featuring the Autumn Nations Series’ Player of the Series Caelan Doris, the post generated over 54,000 interactions in the form of likes and comments.

 

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