'Do I not Like that?!' - England's growing influence on Facebook

Source: The FA

Words: Art Bugmann 

England’s qualification for the Quarter Finals of UEFA’s Euro 2012 tournament was accompanied by a dominating performance over Ukraine earlier this week during the sides' final group stage game.  

Sound like a tenuous conclusion? That’s because we’re not talking football, we’re talking about the England Team’s performance on its Facebook page.

While England’s football was widely regarded as adequate on the night, its performance on Facebook was far superior to Ukraine’s according to research from social media agency.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Taking into account posts and fan engagement, Wildfire found that despite a slow start, the England’s Facebook fan page grew throughout the match, in terms of comments, ‘Likes’, score predictions and shares.

Source: Wildfire

Even after taking into consideration the vast disparity between the size of the two pages to get a fair comparison (England 1.5m fans - Ukraine 10,023), England’s posts still got up to twice as much engagement.

England was also ahead on the absolute figures. For example, regarding shares on Facebook posts, England scored more than 32,000 while Ukraine only got 711.

England’s Facebook page used comments and direct questions to boost engagement with fans, see below.

Meanwhile, Ukraine preferred to use more picture-based posts from the ground itself, see below.

Source: Wildfire

So what can we draw from Wildfire’s analysis?

England’s population is marginally greater than that of Ukraine, so it is evident that England’s fans are far more inclined to engage with their team on Facebook than Ukraine’s fans.

In a 60,000 seat stadium, England’s 4,000 fans were far outnumbered by the vociferous home crowd. Yet England’s Facebook performance showed that the team did not lack for support online. 

What of Ukraine’s lesser Facebook showing? It was the biggest game in Ukraine’s football history, so maybe Ukraine’s fans were in and around the Donbass Arena, rather than in front of their computers. 

Speaking of the English football team and ‘Likes’ we decided to link below to a documentary following the national side’s doomed bid to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup where then manager Graham Taylor coined the malapropism: ‘Do I not like that?!’