UEFA Men Top Leagues Football Social Networks Ranking

You look all around when you go through the streets or have a coffee, dine out, etc, and there's a common denominator, a large percentage of the persons present, 70 to 80 percent, are looking at their smartphones, either constantly or checking it from time to time, but often. It's the 21st century addiction and it's widely related with the social media. You may see people working and using the online to do so, remotely, but mostly it's just using the social networks, which should tell all companies, all professionals, how significant they are and should be very well tendered and worked.

Football is no different from the other activities. Cristiano Ronaldo is the most followed one in the social media, something that brings even further light into the importance of working this side of communication in order to reach people, to touch the aimed target, to broaden the presence, influence and to get higher return. 

It's always difficult to assess how big you are, what's your real impact to the audience. The former measurements aren't as trustworthy as these ones, regardless of the fake followers, that can amount to tens of thousands, perhaps millions in some cases, depending on the investment, it's a better judgement of presence, even higher than tv ratings, based on a very small sample, although it would be very interesting to mandate the cable distributors to publish the boxes tv channel ratings, that would give a real knowledge of what people see.

The measurement of the social media presence, in terms of followers/likes, can be compared to a sales department, to the sales of newspapers, it's measurable, so it's a nice way to understand the impact of the clubs in the virtual - and also physical - world.

It was difficult to find some clubs, to assess whether the the pages/profiles were official or not, as well as for the leagues, so bare with this ranking if it has some mistakes related with that or if it didn't share some values.

These rankings will be shared in four stages here, the accumulated numbers, the facebook numbers, the instagram numbers and the twitter numbers. The date states the day those values were retrieved.

You can search your club, your league, the sides you enjoy the most. Remember that this ranking only searched the clubs present in the top divisions of each country belonging to UEFA. The winter leagues, already finished and with demotions and promotions from 2019 to 2020, have the sides demoted and promoted included because of that.

The two Spanish giants lead the numbers, ahead of Manchester United and the two major world leagues, Premier League and La Liga. Juventus comes 6th, followed by Chelsea, PSG, Bayern Munich and Liverpool. Galatasaray comes in 14th, Fenerbahce in 19th and Besiktas 22nd. Ajax comes in 26th, FC Porto and Benfica come in 32nd and 33rd respectively, Celtic is the 45th, Zenit 50th, Basel 51st, FCSB 56th, Shakhtar Donetsk 63rd, Legia Warszawa 72nd, Olympiacos 75th, Anderlecht 76th, Crvena Zvezda 79th and Lech Poznan 94th are the leaders of each leagues that make the top 100 in the accumulated numbers throughout these three main social media networks. 

There are several others, with the Eastern European vk (v kontakte), where the Russian and Ukranian teams have a lot of followers, however we decided to restrict this search and comparison to the three ones considered the bigger and most present worldwide.

 

As it is possible to confirm, there are too many leagues without a known digital presence and that partially justifies the absence of more knowledge on it, even a better financial return, if they develop their digital presence on social media with virtual stores linked to each club, with memorabilia and collectors itens, so sought everywhere. We are at ease to write this as we have already seen hundreds of matches from the Kazakh league - with youtube channels offering the matches and highlights, from the Andorran, the Moldovean, the Cypriot, the Albanian, the Montenegrin or the Turkish leagues, most clubs are followed by us and it's with some sadness that we witness their absence from these so important means of communication.

At each social media ranking positions were added, so you can see the ranking from each one in the specific social media network.

Concerning facebook, the most regarded and followed, still, social network in the world. La Liga overpasses Premier League in the followers and Bayern gets to the Top 5. Juventus falls to 8th, PSG to 9th, Galatasaray to 18th, FC Porto gets into 28th, Ajax drops to 32nd, Celtic 43rd, Basel goes up to 44th and FCSB to 46th while Shakhtar Donetsk is 47th, Zenit drop 10 spots to 60th and Anderlecht gets to 61st, Legia Warsaw 63rd, Olympiacos 65th, Red Star Belgrade to 70th, Dinamo Zagreb 77th, Red Bull Salzburg enters the top 100 with a 90th spot.

This list was compiled ordering the likes and not the followers, it's a choice made also in the Portuguese football clubs ranking already posted here previously.

Instagram is a facebook owned social media, however it's growing on its own and it is the elected social media network to the younger generations, calling facebook their parents network, old, etc. This should tell the networks and communication managers and developpers that with a different core public a different, lighter, graphic, depicted and videographic approach is needed, it is mandatory.

As usual, there are clubs unlisted in the instagram app, also a lot not present at twitter and just a margin doesn't own a facebook page.

Real Madrid and Barcelona lead the social media in all platforms, but Juventus climbs to 3rd in the instagram one. PSG also climbs, 6th just behind Manchester United and the Premier League. Bayern closes the Top 10.Galatasaray is 15th, Ajax 21st, Benfica 30th, Zenit 45th, Celtic 53rd, Red Star 61st, Olympiacos 64th, Lechia Gdansk climbs circa 60 spots to be the 70th and most followed Polish side, Shakhtar Donetsk is 72nd just behind the Portuguese league official profile, Azeri team Qarabag also grows highly, as Lechia, getting into 88th, Dinamo Zagreb is 90th, Basel is 95th and Anderlecht 99th.  

Twitter started as a basically gossip social media, trending a lot with US TV series and it's much more used in the American continent, although Europeans are paying grower attention to it and the network itself evolved from the 'I'm in the toilet' tweeting to a form of communication, still limited in letters quantity, but adding the video possibility, the linked messages to allow people to present an idea, with all its purposes, growing from teen tweeting to a professional network used as first in the politics world, by the entertainment prime stars, in all US professional sports leagues and in the cycling world. This means it can reach alternative public, targets, allowing also to escape the facebook inc rulings and definitions. Twitter shouldn't be disregarded and grow the number of companies and in this particular case clubs that understand it.

The most significant change from the other social media followers' ranking is the entrance of Galatasaray in the Top 10, ahead of giants like Juventus or magnats like Manchester City and PSG. Bayern drops to 14th and the Spanish La Liga to 15th. Ajax is 33rd and Benfica 34th, Zenit SP 43rd, Celtic 48th, the French Ligue 1 drops over 40 places to 69th while the Portuguese Liga Portugal is 77th, Legia Warsaw is 89th. 

Note on the Russian sides, which have a much higher ranking on twitter comparing to instagram or even the others here present.