European Football Clubs have shown increasing efforts to enter Chinese Social Media and connect with Chinese fans online. Today, Mailman Group released findings to show which footballer superstars have made the most effort to impact their Chinese fans online. The study was conducted over a 7 day period (ending May 1st) and evaluates the top 25 footballers on Sina Weibo, China’s no.1 social network by usage.
“These results demonstrate that individual footballers’ pages are much more effective than the team pages themselves” said Andrew Collins, CEO of Mailman Group “we believe this to be a key area of growth for football clubs, the advantages of launching your top players on Weibo as well as having an official club presence, are overwhelming.”
Key insights of this study include:
The top 3 players on Sina Weibo play in Spain’s La Liga and together have a total following of 29M+.
La Liga players dominate Sina Weibo, with 8 times more followers than the English Premier League players.
Tottenham Hotspur star and Weibo newcomer Gareth Bale’s fan numbers and engagement have skyrocketed in just 3 months after his outstanding season.
Michael Owen is one of the most followed players in China, despite retiring this season, due to his dedication to his Weibo page.
Barcelona are leading the way with 5 players sporting their own individual Weibo pages.
To download the infographic in PDF just click here.