Social media has proven to be a golden way for fans and sporting organisations to engage with each other.
In the first of a new monthly series, Sport for Business in association with our partners Sportego will be tracking the Facebook and Twitter social media accounts of all the four Rugby provinces and the IRFU as well as the FAI, SSE Airtricity League, GAA governing councils and counties and Cricket Ireland.
The initial findings show Rugby has the biggest mainstream social reach of all Irish sports, with the IRFU’s official account and the four provinces reaching an audience of 1.67 million people.
This is likely to grow through the build up to the Rugby World Cup next month and into next season’s RBS 6 Nations.
The IRFU official accounts have the biggest reach of any official governing bodies, reaching almost 785,000 people across Facebook and Twitter, more than three times the reach of the FAI and double the reach of the official GAA account.
The GAA has the second biggest reach, with the total of the official GAA account, the provincial accounts and the individual county teams reaching 1.427 million people, the FAI and the SSE Airtricity league meanwhile reach 550,000 people.
Leinster Rugby and Munster Rugby lead the way in the individual team’s accounts with respective reaches of 302k and 239k while Ulster and Connacht both come in with a bigger social reach than the most popular GAA team.
Dublin leads the way in the GAA inter county numbers coming in just short of 100,000, a number that will doubtless be breached should they continue to another All Ireland final.
Cork lie second in the table with potential All Ireland winners Mayo, Tyrone, Donegal and Kerry filling the next four places and Monaghan coming in 13th.
Longford, Westmeath, New York and Antrim trail in the social table, while of the provincial accounts, the Ulster council have almost three times the social reach of their Leinster counterparts.
Cork are also second when it comes to the SSE Airtricity league, with Shamrock Rovers the dominant force with a social reach of just over 60,000. Sligo Rovers work their social media channels well using the ‘Bit o Red’ branding and they come third in the standings ahead of Drogheda and defending champions, Dundalk.
Cricket Ireland has enjoyed tremendous success in recent times and this is reflected on their social accounts which have an impressive reach of 385,000 with their Facebook account almost three times the size of the FAI and GAA official accounts.
This report and associated graphs was compiled by Sportego using data as at the 30th July.
