Sean Walsh
Sean is a Director at Intelligency heading up our digital marketing and client services operations. Sean has 15+ years experiencing working both in-house and agency with brands including Lloyds, Alstom, Hitachi, Lufthansa, Viaplay, DFDS Seaways and Mercedes-Benz.
Juventus have completed one of the biggest signings in their history, and in world football, by capturing the global superstar Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid. The transfer has sent Juventus fans into raptures, with many claiming this is just what the club need to capture another Champions League having gone close in the last few seasons. Ronaldo not only guarantees goals and super human performances on the pitch, but will also generate revenue for the Old Lady as shown by 520,000 shirts being sold in the first 24 hours after the signing was announced.
Therefore, we would also expect this to have an impact on the club’s social media accounts and contribute to some sudden explosion of follows and engagements.
How was Ronaldo boosted Juventus’s Twitter following?
Signing, arguably the greatest player of all time, was always expected to contribute to growth in followers for Juventus and it’s no surprise that Ronaldo’s signing has contributed to a growth rate of 3.58% since July 1st.
This growth equates to an additional 269,210 Twitter followers since July 1st, with 87,380 people following since just Friday which is more than the followers Juventus acquired throughout the whole of June across their Italian and foreign language accounts.
What is Ronaldo’s influence like on Instagram?
Arguably the ‘CR7 Effect’ has been felt most potently across Instagram, where the signing generated a huge amount of buzz and led to Juventus’s follower number increasing massively. The club set up their account in August 2012 and, approximately six years later on July 3rd, they announced that they had reached 10 million followers on the social network, thus becoming only the eighth club in the world to reach double figures.
The club celebrated the fact that in the 2017-18 domestic season they had added 2.5 million new followers to their account, which undoubtedly is a huge success and yet Ronaldo’s signing dwarves these numbers.
Since the start of July, Juventus have increased their Instagram following by 2.5m, with Ronaldo being the source of this upward turn and even between the 13th – 17th July, the account grew by +1,030,000. Despite the huge success Juventus have seen on the pitch over the last few seasons and the global stars in their squad, they have never experienced such a rise in online popularity, as exemplified by matching their season’s growth in just one week.
Moreover, fans aren’t just following the account because of Ronaldo, they are actively engaging in content and the results are stupendous. Prior to the transfer, the most liked posts were the signing of Emre Can and a goodbye to club legend Gianluigi Buffon, who had spent over 20 years with the club and is revered as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. This received 601k likes.
Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s announcement on Instagram achieved 3 million likes, and just like that a legend was replaced. A closer look at the engagement on Instagram following the CR7 signing showcase just how influential the Portuguese player is, with the player generating over 23 million likes on posts relating to him alone.
The below infographic explains just how powerful he is. In spite of the club’s massive on field success and their farewell to one of the 21st century’s most iconic players, Ronaldo’s signing is still the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of the club’s social media. In fact, upon reaching 10m followers Juventus released a list of their ‘10 most liked photos’, and if that list was re-published today all ten would be about CR7.
Finally, in June, the club registered over 14 million likes across all their content on Instagram and saw this increase by a staggering 159% to 36 million likes in July meaning without even kicking a ball, the striker is already dominating the headlines in Turin.
How has YouTube been affected?
Ronaldo’s presence has also contributed to an upward trend on the club’s YouTube account, with the number of subscribers growing by +40% since the start of July and gaining 292k new users.
| Metric | June 1st | July 1st | July 17th |
| YouTube Subscribers | 713,850 | 737,870 | 1,030,000 |
| YouTube Views | 175,150,000 | 178,670,000 | 196,080,000 |
Ronaldo’s press conference and official signing had a huge role to play in the surge in subscribers and views on YouTube. The club’s account increased by 141k alone with 10.5m people watching content on the channel on 15/7 as the club prepared to introduce Ronaldo to the world.
To conclude, these sort of figures and growth is spectacular and have invigorated Juventus’s social media account with millions of fans interacting with their content in one way or another. This positions the club well to build upon their current status as one of Europe’s strongest clubs both on the pitch as they vie for the Champions League. On social media they have now overtaken Chelsea to become the 5th most followed club on Instagram in Europe. With the Goliath that is CR7 in your team, the sky’s the limit of The Old Lady.
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fiacuity specialises in analysing the digital activity for a brand to assist with identifying opportunities and threats as well as advising on ROI strategies.
