We analyzed how Italy, England and Spain played on the ‘social’ field!

6th round of European Qualifiers for EURO 2016 which will be held in France has just been played. Some have had more success than others but the results on the field have nothing to do with what we are analyzing in this article.

We have decided to check out how three national football federations: Italian, Spanish and English have covered these Qualifiers on social networks, and how they’re playing on the ‘social’ field.

Since Italy played first, we will start with them and see their effort on social networks.

ITALY

Facebook

Facebook is a social network highly followed by Italian fans and they have a little less than 4 million followers. We have to comment the official Facebook page of Italian national team because they publish everything in Italian and in English.

The game against Croatia was announced a couple days before with a few interviews of players announcing the game. Those interviews were published on the official Facebook page.

Announcement of game against Croatia through the interview with Leonardo Bonucci.

Right before the game there was an official announcement with all the neccesary information about the game and some extra content with interesting facts on prior matches between these two teams.

During the game they published live reports about the score and other relevant game information.

After the final whistle they have published the official photo album without any video materials.

Official game photos.

Correct and strictly professional covering of the game against Croatia, as well as the announcement. More interesting photos or video materials surely wouldn’t hurt and that is a minus on their side.

Twitter

Italian national team has a little less than 400 thousand followers on Twiitter. Content is up to date and they regularly update statuses about the game itself, as well as live commentary.

Minus is the lack of interesting media like photos and videos that are not directly related to the game. All of the tweets are in Italian language. We should point out that they regularly retweet national team players posts.

Instagram

Instagram profile of Italian national team has more than 120 thousand followers. Profile doesn’t feature any interesting content and leaves an impression that most of the photos are published in a regular pattern.

The game against Croatia wasn’t especially covered on Instagram.

One of the rare Instagram photos that covered the game against Croatia.

SPAIN

Facebook

Spanish national team has a little under three million followers on Facebook, and all posts are in Spanish. They cover both male and female team, content is up to date and they often post about the matches as well as the teams.

Facebook still remains the social network with most followers and it still offers the most media to the fans.

Announcement of the starting lineup against Belarus.

Twitter

Spanish national team has little over one million followers on Twitter and this network is well used because it can „take“ a lot of posts in short time, which they take advantage of.

Unfortunately, although they are prompt and they often tweet about the national team, their tweets are always in Spanish.

The game against Belarus could have been followed on this social network, since the tweets followed the course of the game in Minsk.

Arrival in Minsk.

Photo from the game.

Instagram

Spanish national team has more than 120 thousand of followers, and they leave an impression that they could make better use of this network. Only a couple of photos on Instagram is the resume of their covering of the game against Belarus.

This social network can also „take“ a lot of photo and video posts, which they didn’t fully use.

England

Facebook

England has the most Facebook followers of these three teams we analyzed, more than 5 million.

The content that they publish is of high quality and posted often, and they engaged their fans with various interesting things. They have posted player interviews, match photos, team historic facts, regular score updates against Slovenia, so we can say that they have done a great job on Facebook.

Their advantage is that English is their official language, which is good because English national team has a big fanbase.

Team arrival in Ljubljana.

Lockerroom photos before the game.

Twitter

English national team has over one million followers on Twitter and they use this social network extensively to publish interesting content about the national team and team matches.

The match against Slovenia was extremely well covered with a lot of posts and retweets from other people that are connected to the national team and the game itself, as well as a lot of photos from Ljubljana from the stadium and from practices.

Another social network which is very well used and where the English team has done a good job.

Instagram

You can follow the English on Instagram as well, along with 265 thousand other fans.

The media that the fans get is high quality and professionally made, but there is room for improvement with more photos that are not directly related with match or practice. They should post behind the scene content, content of players off the field, during their free time. This is what fans want to see.

SUMMARY

In the end we can conclude that Facebook is still the most popular social network for fans to use when they want to follow their respective national teams. Twitter is slowly coming up as a network where you can follow live score and commentary, content that is always interesting for fans. National football federations recongnized that and they are publishing a lot of tweets during and before the game.

Instagram is unfortunately far behind and work that is done on that social network is strictly professional with few photos from practices or the game. Since it is a social network that is becoming very popular among the younger population, they want more interesting content that doesn’t necessarily have to be practice or match related. There is a lot of room left for national teams to communicate with their fans.

Winner between these three national teams is definitely England.

High quality job on social networks, with a lot of interesting posts and pictures that the fans find interesting. Besides that, they have the advantage that their official language is close to most of the fans.

Last thing worth mentioning is the fact that football federations are strictly divided from the national teams on social networks and websites. This can sometimes be very confusing for fans who don’t know which social network is covering the federation, and which is covering the national team.

PHOTO: Flickr