England and Germany “top” football teams for social engagement, according to research

RadiumOne analysed the number of stories shared about each team in the top 16 ranked FIFA teams across Facebook and Twitter, combined with fan interactions.

England has 3,342,779 Facebook followers, posts 160 times per month and receives the most amount of monthly likes of any team (333,221).

Germany's team is equally engaged with its fans, posting 201 times a month to its 2,480,403 fans. This approach has led to 15,409 fan comments, putting Germany on top of this particular table.

Host nation, Brazil, would be knocked out of the competition in the quarter-finals, despite the five-time winners having the largest overall audience (4,969,106 followers on Facebook and Twitter combined).

However, when it comes to interacting with its fans, Brazil is left well behind, only posting 54 times per month, ranking the team 11th, and dragging them out of the top four teams.

Abeed Janmohamed, commercial director at RadiumOne commented: “There are some big footballing nations clearly overlooking the importance of fan engagement as part of their commercial strategies but it’s an opportunity they should not waste.

“Engaging a community is a hugely powerful ‘twelfth man’ for the team and the brands supporting them. With their respective reputations, it’s not a massive surprise to see England and Germany fighting it out at the top of the table, thanks to their consistent approaches to fan engagement.”

Two of the top five ranked teams, Argentina and Columbia, prop up the social league. Despite their footballing prowess, the former has no Twitter following and, although they have a healthy number of followers on Facebook (827,296 fans), there is zero interaction. Columbia has only 604,000 followers on Twitter and no Facebook presence.