December 6 – Weekly Twitter growth again held strong across the Premier League with the top four clubs of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea all adding impressive numbers and leaving Manchester City a little bit behind, nursing the headaches of lower numbers and loss in the league.
Chelsea continued their social media rehabilitation as they topped the Premier League table with a win over Manchester City – a match with a multiple punchline finish. The Londoners are winning new friends under new manager Alberto Conte having halved their social media growth under former manager Jose Mourinho.
The more toxic Mourinho became – over the Eva Carneiro incident and various touchline and media indiscretions – and a corresponding slump in team form, the more this communicated through to a dramatic drop in the club’s rate of Twitter growth.
Having been on a par with Arsenal in terms of weekly gains and total followers through 2014 and the first half of 2015, Chelsea are now 1 million followers behind. Although still losing ground on the Gunners, the weekly growth gap has been closed as Conte makes the club more lovable.
Liverpool gained more followers than Chelsea this week with 30,600 new followers compared to Chelsea’s 29,500. This was a flip over from last week when Chelsea 21,800 new followers compared to Liverpool’s 20,100. This effect ties in with Liverpool having a busy week producing 310 tweets.
Manchester United once again increased weekly growth from 0.54% to 0.77% with an increase in followers this week of 58,900 compared to 50,400 last week. It will be interesting to see whether the Mourinho effect will impact on Man Utd’s growth figures, particularly in light on his tax evasion controversy and his endless and now increasingly unsavoury confrontations with the game’s officials. This is one club’s brand that is significantly bigger than the Portuguese’s ego, but one wonders whether he will realise this in time.
Similarly Arsenal maintained an increase in growth from 0.45% to 0.56% with 47,700 new followers this week compared to last week’s 38,100.
Hull had the second greatest gain with 0.63%, a gain of 2,000 new followers, probably as a result of active week of tweeting 290 times.
Southampton were once again the most active with 330 tweets.
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