By Paul Nicholson
August 11 – Arsenal may have stumbled in their opening match and their bid to win the Premier League but they still top the Premier League Twitter table of most followers. Their biggest danger lies not from second placed Chelsea but Manchester United who spent the summer gaining followers at a rapid pace.
Arsenal closed the 2014/15 season on 5.8 million followers, opening the new season with an increase of 348,000 followers. Compare this to Manchester United who almost doubled that Arsenal number over the same period, adding 670,000 followers.
Man Utd are now just 400,000 followers behind Arsenal and gaining fast. At the end of May they were 700,000 behind and gaining followers at an average rate of 58,000 per week compared to Arsenal’s 28,000 per week.
Source: All charts and tables Sports Perspective
The good news for Arsenal is that they have extended their lead over second place Chelsea by almost 40,000 followers over the summer. This stat might be the most significant in the longer term as the power of Man Utd commercially, and increasingly in social media, puts it in a league of its own in the Premier League (but still behind Barcelona and Real Madrid in global social media terms).
This is emphasised by the table that shows that while Man Utd may be gaining the most followers week-on-week they are doing this via the power of the brand rather than increased Twitter activity. In terms of number of tweets Man Utd are the second least active club, just ahead of Stoke City.
At the bottom of the Twitter followers table are Premier League new boys Bournemouth and Watford. Both are more than 100,000 followers behind 18th placed Leicester.
Relegated Burnley were bottom of the Premier League Twitter table last season, but they did boost their followers to over 100,000 over the course of the campaign. Bournemouth and Watford can be expected to do the same.
For Bournemouth, with a stadium capacity of just 11,700, the Premier League offers a huge opportunity to increase their fan base with social media being almost the only way new-found fans can interact with the club.
It appears this has not been lost on the club who are active on twitter showing a mid-table position in terms of number of tweets made. Bournemouth appear to be a club that is hard to dislike having undertaken a fairy tale journey to the Premier League with an exciting and personable young manager and an attractive style of play that they have said they are unwilling to compromise.
Their twitter progression will be interesting to watch as they take on their giant Premier League rivals.
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