As we know, the Serie A football championship has ended.
Championship, finally, much more fought than in previous years, especially as regards the positions that guarantee access to the European cups, with different teams separated by a few points of gap, and Napoli burned to the wire by Juve and Milan for access to the Champion.
So if the championship ended with the victory of Inter, how did the other championship go, that of communication on social media by the twenty teams registered in the 2020/21 championship?
To answer the question ANSA and DataMediaHub analyzed the number of fans / followers, the interactions and the interaction rate (or engagement rate if you prefer) for each team, on the two social platforms with the largest audience, with the largest number of users: Facebook and Instagram.
The analysis was conducted from 19 September 2020, the first day of the championship, to 23 May 2021, the last day of the first round.
Having to make the extreme synthesis of the emerging results we could say that there is Juventus, and then all the other teams at a great distance. But in reality the reasons of interest go beyond the overwhelming power of Juventus.
On Facebook, Juventus has an extraordinary figure of over 46.3 million fans (there were 43.5 at the end of the first round). A very high number, which is just under double the two pursuers on the most populous social network on the planet, but which compares with the 125.1 million fans of his most famous player: Ronaldo.
The two Milanese teams follow, respectively, with 28.0 and 24.7 million followers: Inter and Milan. Milan, who were winter champions, have lost about 400 thousand followers since January 2021. Obviously their fans / followers were disappointed, hoping for the championship victory until a few days from the end. Far away, just under ten million followers, Rome is about double the Naples at about 4.6 million.
Of the twenty teams participating in the championship, only seven exceed one million fans.
In the queue one of the newly promoted, the Spezia, with only 68 thousand and odd fans.
But of course, the population basin for this team must also be considered, which in the language of football of the past would have been called a "provincial", and which, beyond the rosiest predictions, saved itself from relegation several days in advance .
If even as regards the number of interactions, the panorama substantially changes little, even if about 98% of the interactions on the Juventus fanpage, in front of everyone with 51.7 million interactions, are made up of "likes" and other reaction, while comments and shares weigh only 2%.
Beyond the absolute values, the surprises come from the interaction / involvement rate. Here it is no longer Juventus but Spezia that wins. In fact, the team coached by Vincenzo Italiano has the highest interaction rate of all, 0.653%. Almost ten times that of the team led by Pirlo. Of the 408 thousand interactions on the La Spezia fanpage, 84% is made up of likes and other reactions. Of these, 7.34% are reactions of love. 11.23% from comments and 4.72% from shares.
For a correct reading of the summary data of the presence on Facebook of the twenty football teams, please note that the rate of interaction, and therefore of involvement, is given by the total of interactions (like + reaction + comments + shares) for each post divided by number of followers.
On Instagram, the distance between Juventus and the other football teams is even greater. In fact, Pirlo's team has 48.8 million followers. About five times as many as those of the second team by number of followers: Milan at 9.8 million.
The ranking is therefore reversed compared to that of Facebook with Inter in third position with 6.7 million followers. Instead, the fourth and fifth positions occupied by Rome and Naples respectively, as for Facebook, remain unchanged.
La Spezia, which has just over 57,000 followers, is also in last position. Obviously we must not forget that, according to the latest Istat data available, the inhabitants of Spezia and its province are just over 221 thousand. Therefore, assuming that the vast majority of those who follow the football team on Instagram are resident in this province, the result is far from despicable being 57,000 followers over a quarter (25.8%) of residents.
On the other hand, Bologna is surprisingly positioned much lower in the number of followers on Instagram than its position on Facebook.
It might be surprising that around 15% of the resident population "love" the football team coached by Mihajlović.
But we know that football faith often goes beyond the punctual results obtained by the team that each fan has in their heart.
As for Facebook, Juventus also tears up its opponents on Instagram, reaching over 412 million interactions.
Gigantic numbers that, however, in relation to the number of followers of the Agnelli-Elkann family team are not so extraordinary.
And in fact, Milan reduces the gap to less than one in three, in terms of number of interactions, compared to Juve.
Champion for involvement rate is one of the three relegated teams: Benevento. The interaction rates of Spezia, Cagliari and Lazio are also very good. In this regard, it is interesting to note that for all the Serie A teams the engagement rate on Instagram is significantly higher than that obtained on Facebook. Evidently, all things being equal, the Instagram algorithm increases the reach, and therefore the visibility of the posts compared to that of Facebook.
It is equally interesting that it emerges that compared to the average interaction rate, reported in the summary infographic, for practically all the teams, contrary to what perhaps one might have expected, the videos generate a lower engagement rate than that generated by individual photos and / or from albums, or carousel if you prefer, of photos. Below the average interaction rate also IGTV posts, those with a video lasting more than sixty seconds.
In short, in conclusion, if the champion of the 2020-2021 season is Conte's team, on social media it is Juventus who dominate, thanks above all to the fact that the football club is sixth in the world with just under 100 million fans only on Facebook and Instagram, which make it the most popular Italian team in the world, thanks to the extensive expansion work, of what is in effect a brand, in the foreign market by the football club.
A work that can still have considerable room for improvement, especially as regards the involvement of its public, as we have seen.