Tag: social media

Manchester United vs FC Barcelona – the Social Media Champions League

Manchester United TwitterManchester United’s manager Sir Alex Ferguson recently hinted that his players may be banned from using Twitter. Tonight his club will face FC Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League final on Wembley in London. This game between two of the world’s most popular football teams is predicted to be one of the best finals in a long time. Discussions and opinions about the game will be all over social media and it will probably dominate the trending topics on Twitter today.

In spite of Ferguson’s hesitancy towards Twitter, both clubs have managed to gather quite a large following in social media. The question is, how does Man Utd stand in comparison to FC Barcelona, in terms of presence in social media?

Facebook – close win for Barcelona
Both teams are very active and a typical status update can draw as many as 30,000 likes and 3,000 comments. Man Utd has 14,418,000 fans on Facebook, Barcelona has 15,311,000 fans. United is also growing its fanbase slightly faster during the last month.

Man Utd FC Barcelona Facebook pages

Twitter – a clear win for Barcelona
The teams are also active on Twitter. Man Utd has 282,900 followers,  FC Barcelona has two major Twitter accounts, one in Spanish with 826,200 followers and one in English with 719,200 followers. The Spanish Barca account has been growing more rapidly than the Man Utd account.

Man Utd FC Barcelona Twitter followers

YouTube – Barcelona wins on walk over
FC Barcelona Twitter Manchester United publish videos on MUTV, on its own web page and from what I can find, the club is not active on YouTube. Barcelona on the other hand, has an active YouTube channel with 82,600 subscribers and a total of 42.2 million views. But Man Utd frequently posts videos on Facebook, so the English team has merely chosen a slightly different strategy.

Conclusion: both teams have millions of fans that follow them via social media, but FC Barcelona is slightly more popular. This has probably no impact on tonight’s Champions League final, but be sure that fans will actively cheer for their teams tonight and celebrate (or mourn) the outcome. May the best team win!

Footnote: stats from Wildfire App.

Media Culpa One Of 25 Essential PR Bloggers You Should Be Reading

I’m proud to read that Media Culpa has been named one of 25 Essential PR Bloggers You Should Be Reading by the online news distribution and online publicity service PRWeb, owned by NASDAQ-listed software company Vocus. PRWeb writes:

“Keeping up with what’s new and interesting in public relations news is important – vital strategies, tips and trends are shared each day that can impact your business.  Whether you’re looking for best practices on press release distribution or simply how to take advantage of social media, these blogs will prove invaluable. To keep up with the hottest and highest quality content, below are 25 essential public relations blogs you should be reading:”

It’s a great list of industry luminaries that you should start reading, if you’re not already doing so.

Top five social media risks for businesses

Earlier today I blogged about the trend that brands get hijacked on Twitter. A report released today by ISACA confirms that this is a major risk for businesses. The white paper outlines five major social media risks for business and “brand hijacking” is one of them. Top five risks are:

  • Viruses/malware
  • Brand hijacking
  • Lack of control over content
  • Unrealistic customer expectations of “Internet-speed” service
  • Non-compliance with record management regulations

The full white paper “Social Media:  Business Benefits and Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives” can be downloaded here. [pdf]

Social media as big as traditional media online

According to the survey “Mediebarometern 2009” (pdf in Swedish) by Nordicom, the share of Swedes that uses social media on an average day is as large as the share that uses traditional media online. Among Swedes (age 7-79 years), 26% use social media and 26% use traditional media online on an average day.

mediebarometern2009

The survey also reveals that nearly 65% of 15-24 year-olds participate in “social networking” on an average  day, while more than 50% of the young online users watch videos on YouTube.

*Social media is defined as social networks, communities, forums, chat or blogs. Traditional media is defined as newspaper, radio or tv.

Via Internetstatistik.se.

Using social media to promote handball

In February 2007 I registered the domain socialamedier.com which is the Swedish translation of “social media”. Back then, the term was fairly new, but today there are literally thousands of self proclaimed social media experts out there, giving advice about how to be successful on blogs, Twitter or Facebook. It has come to the point where “social media guru” is almost seen as an invective.

So if you can’t stand to hear one more social media evangelist tell you about how they will end starvation and bring world peace through social media, instead you might want to read this blog post from a newbie who just recently discovered the benefits of social networking. Dominique Dumont is the USA Team Handball’s East Regional Director and she blogged yesterday about her experience with primarily Facebook and how she “discovered the holly grail of social media”.

“We promote the use of [Facebook], why, because the biggest problem in developing our sport is getting people together, communicating and getting organized. Facebook allows this in one swoop and it allows for unlimited growth. Not four physical walls of course, but a forum to meet each other, share ideas and plans of action on the subject in common. Once athletes participate in this multi-directional forum, they quickly gain momentum. “

It’s really a good story about a skeptic that turned into a convinced user. I encourage you to read the entire post. Dumont concludes:

“One day forced to use social media, and another, proud to see how useful it can be for all of us.”