FC Barcelona is the most popular sports team on the social web, according to a new report by ZenithOptimedia and Sponsorship Intelligence. With 43 million Facebook fans and 9.1 million followers on Twitter the Spanish football team comes in ahead of its arch soccer rival, Real Madrid, which landed the number two spot on the list.
The top four sports teams on social media were all soccer brands, with Manchester United and the Chelsea Football Club taking the number three and four spots. Basketball teams also fared well, with the LA Lakers and Chicago Bulls both cracking the top 10. Each of the top five sports brands on the list had over 15 million fans on social, providing them with a massive audience to deliver marketing messages to.
The study, called The Social League, was created to showcase a new research and analysis product ZenithOptimedia built to help its clients better understand how their brands are faring online. Socialtools, a live tracking app, pulls in what consumers are saying about brands on sites like Twitter and Facebook and then compares the sentiment of those conversations to what consumers are saying about competing brands.
“The launch of the Social League demonstrates the power of Socialtools,” ZenithOptimedia global managing partner Belinda Rowe said in a release. “It gives our planners around the world comprehensive insights about brand performance in the social space, helping them to devise highly engaging social strategies that deliver ROI.”
