Spain’s 2018 El Clásico: The Same But Different
Imagine the Die Hard series without Bruce Willis. It’s basically impossible; we know. Spain’s El Clásico this Sunday will see two super stars missing from the main event — Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The last time FC Barcelona and Real Madrid faced off without Messi and Ronaldo clashing on the soccer field was in 2007 — Facebook was relatively new and Twitter and Instagram didn’t exist. But in 2018 where smartphones and tablets have become everyone’s “second screen”, El Clásico will be played on two stages: the pitch and social media, and the latter has gained more and more importance each and every season.
At Blinkfire one of the things we love most is data (besides Messi and Ronaldo and Bruce Willis), so we’ve taken a look at the status of both teams and their evolution since the beginning of the 2018/2019 season.
If we focus on the followers of each team, they’re almost identical — Real Madrid has 242 million followers (almost 225 million from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter), while Barça has 240 million (216 on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter). Real Madrid leads on Instagram and Facebook; Barcelona leads on Twitter.
Regarding the growth in followers of the three channels, Real Madrid has gained 800,000 more followers than Barcelona since the beginning of LaLiga’s 2018-2019 season. In both cases, Instagram is the channel with the highest growth, evidence of the social platform’s immense popularity. The most engaging posts for both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona during this time period were shared on Instagram: Barcelona’s around Messi’s injury and Real Madrid’s announcing the arrival of Mariano.
If we take into account the engagement per post, Real Madrid has better numbers. On Instagram, Real Madrid averages 972,106 interactions per post (in 119 posts), while Barcelona’s average is 848,411 per post (172 posts). On Twitter it’s 2,329 (3.389 posts) versus 1,234 (8.794 posts), and on Facebook Real Madrid has 52,718 (242 posts) compared to FC Barcelona‘s 34,045 (477 posts). However, Barcelona has better total engagement on the three channels, with 173 million, while Real Madrid has 136 million.
A similarity between both clubs is the power of Instagram. Eighty-four percent of each team’s total engagement comes from Instagram (versus Facebook and Twitter). That means 115 million engagements for Real Madrid on Instagram and nearly 146 million for FC Barcelona. If we look at average engagement per post — Instagram wins again: 94.6% for Real Madrid and 96% for Barcelona.
After reviewing so much data, we can enjoy both teams on the pitch. No doubt that the game played on social media will be just as exciting.
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