FC Barcelona, You Name it — They Have it!
FC Barcelona Is Constantly Using New Technologies to Find Ways to Reach and Engage Its Fanbase.
This article is a part of the report series on the research conducted on matchday fan engagement during the 2018 International Champions Cup. To learn more about fan engagement in social media, read the other articles to learn more.
Intro: The Perfect Matchday / Trends
Team Specials: Real Madrid / Borussia Dortmund / Chelsea FC / Bayern Munich / ManCity
Social Media Specials: Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
KEY TAKE-AWAYS:
# FC Barcelona has a Viber chatbot with over 4.8 million subscribers, but no official Facebook Messenger bot.
# Barça’s highest engagement rate for a post was on Instagram with 13 % (compared to FB with 2.3 %, and Twitter with a 0.7 % engagement rate)
# Barça’s social media team is very creative, which can be seen through specials like “Morning Goal”, “Fan-of-the-Day”, and social games like the “Treasure Hunt” at Levi’s Stadium)
Overall, Barcelona ranks #2 among all football teams analyzed with 195.86 million followers on its social media platforms. (Hint: If you are looking for creative ways to engage with your fanbase, then I suggest you keep a close eye on Barcelona.)
#Facebook (102.9 Million Likes)
FC Barcelona has posted 9 times on average when the team won, and 8 times when it lost — making the number of postings fairly equal. It was interesting to see that all of the posts were done either pre or post-game, with the majority of postings happening pre-game. During the live-action game, there were zero posts created on FB, since Barca primarily covers the game on Twitter. During the International Champions Cup, Barca’s top engagement rate on FB was 2.2 %, which seems quite low, although Barcelona was more active on FB than some of the other teams. (ManCity was leading this social channel with 18 posts on average when winning).
The Barça Treasure Hunt at Levi’s Stadium
During the game against AC Milan, Barca organized a “Treasure Hunt” with fans directly in the venue and then posted a short video on FB during the live game. This interactive treasure hunt was a fun surprise for fans that awarded the first fan to find the “treasure” with a signed pennant. (For More, Watch This Video). This is a perfect example of an engaging social game that mixes online as well as offline engagement that was put into action by FC Barcelona.
#Twitter (29.4 Million Followers)
FC Barcelona had its highest activity level among all its social media channels on Twitter, with an average of 35 tweets when winning and 28 tweets when losing. Despite Barça’s high activity on Twitter, they had the lowest retention rate with 0.6 % at maximum. Although Twitter is Barcelona’s smallest social media channel, it is significantly used during live games.
It was interesting to see that FC Barcelona started a campaign called ”GOAL MORNING” where every morning they post a short video with a previous highlight goal scored by a Barça player. This unique format engages fans on a daily basis, however, the total views were below 1 % of total followers.
#Instagram (57.7 Million Followers)
Instagram is the trendiest and fastest growing platform in sports. It is no surprise that high flying Barça actively uses this channel. From the three games observed at the International Champions Cup, Barcelona won just one game during which they posted 14 photos and 21 stories in total. When losing, Barcelona posted on average 7 photos and 17 stories. On this platform, Barça saw the highest engagement with 9.9 % of views over all other social media channels.
One of the attributes that set FC Barcelona apart from other teams is that they are s early adopters of new trends. That’s why Barça was one of the first teams to take advantage of the live story trend on Instagram. They had two special commentators, namely a woman and a man who interviewed players, trainers, and fans before the game.
#Fan of the day is another unique social media strategy from FC Barcelona. Barça posts a story or video of a die-hard fan who is highly committed to the team on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #Fanoftheday.
#Messenger chatbot- FC Barcelona does not have its own FB messenger chatbot, but there is “FC Barcelona Live”, a separate chatbot created by a sports media group. “FC Barcelona live” focuses on Barça and has about 3 million followers. The bot has no interaction tools, but it provides fans with the latest news, articles, statistics, facts, results, and videos about FC Barcelona. The fans can subscribe to the bot and receive news and stats live.
#Viber Chatbot- In addition to its other creative social media initiatives, FC Barcelona has developed a chatbot on Viber, which is owned by Barcelona’s main sponsor Rakuten. Barça´s originality can be seen on this platform with their Fan of the Year campaign. As they launched the chatbot, fan experience and interaction was taken to another level with several modes of interactive games.
(Playersvote implemented the Interaction part of Barça`s chatbot on Viber)
As a part of Barça’s official chatbot, developed in cooperation with Inscouts, Opta, and Chat Leap, voting users will help decide the player with the most Man of the Match awards throughout the season. That player will then be named the official “BarçaViber Player of the Year.” The chatbot enables users to rate their excitement levels before the game begins, predict game results, and vote for their choice of the best player as well as rate the team’s performance throughout the game. (Source: Viber Blog)
Read more about :
Intro: The Perfect Matchday / Trends
Team Specials: Real Madrid / Borussia Dortmund / Chelsea FC / Bayern Munich / ManCity
Social Media Specials: Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
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