Guest Post from Trev Keane, CEO of Sportego
We begin our monthly round up with a look at Twitter. The social platform has recently inked a deal with the NFL to stream games and while Irish sport has yet to reach that level the network still continues to enjoy growth among Irish sport fans.
Irish Rugby continued its huge growth on social as the IRFU became the first Irish sporting body to pass the 500,000 follower mark on twitter.
The IRFU’s official account grew 14,000 to hit 510k followers. Their twitter total is greater than the combined reach of the GAA, FAI and Cricket Ireland, and shows just how much Irish rugby is intertwined in Irish society.
Munster Rugby had a strong month on twitter, matching the growth of Leinster Rugby while Connacht broke through the 45,000 follower mark in the same period.
Despite launching a kick for your club campaign, the Ulster Bank league failed to continue the growth shown in March, failing to hit the 1% growth mark in twitter followers.
Paralympic Ireland broke through the 10,000 follower mark while Special Olympics Ireland, Basketball Ireland and Cycling Ireland climbed through the 12k, 6k and 9k marks respectively.
In all, Irish sport grew by over 56,000 on twitter with the GAA adding 26,189 new followers across all accounts, including provincial and country accounts.
When it came to social conversation engagement, the FAI led the way in April. John O’Shea showed his value to the Irish team as his 35th birthday proved to be a social success.
The FAI’s happy birthday message to the Sunderland defender had 4.44k engagements with 3.8k likes. The post beat out the announcement of the 16/17 away kit which had 4.07k engagements.
Social applause’s, or likes and favorites was dominated by Irish rugby as they broke the 100k mark.
On the club and country front, Louth GAA passed the 10k likes on Facebook. Their 3.16% growth means that of the 34 counties playing GAA, including New York and London GAA, 15 now have followings in excess of 10,000.
