TikTok is a social network on which we share short videos, whether humorous, musical or creative. Particularly popular in Asia and the United States, the network is gaining in importance in Europe, with strong versatility and a presence in more than 150 countries and 75 languages around the world. TikTok is now frequently used by celebrities and sports teams, forging partnerships, to bring official content to their international audiences.
Soccer occupies an important part of the content and commitments on the platform, as we will demonstrate later. It is essential to understand the need for these teams to occupy this new space. Facebook engagement rates are falling every year, and sports teams are looking for new areas to promote on social media. TikTok offers them an ideal solution for the moment by sending content directly to fans, and this in a 100% organic way. Although TikTok has announced the launch of its advertising network, the distribution of content is mostly free and therefore offers the opportunity for brands to address additional audiences. TikTok is a way to popularize your brand at a lower cost, with very high levels of engagement, which encourages sports teams in particular to intensify their presence on the platform.
Is TikTok a reliable and attractive network for brands that want to reach new audiences? Does the performance of the content broadcast show encouraging signs of the definitive adoption of this platform, in addition to or replacing the usual other social networks?
Our analysis focuses on an exhaustive study of videos posted by League and club accounts. We have identified 31 channels: AS Monaco, Atletico Madrid, CA Osasuna, CD Leganes, Chelsea F.C., Club America, Eredivisie, FC Barcelona, FC Orenburg, FC Rostov, FC UFA, FC Zenith St.Petersburg, Girona F.C., J_League, K_League, La Liga, LigamX, Ligue 1 Conforama, Liverpool F.C., Man City, Monarcas Morelia, Olympique de Marseille, PFC Sochi,Premierliga, PSG, RCD Espanyol, Real Madrid CF, Real Sociedad F.C., Real Zaragoza, Sevilla F.C., UEFA.
Our first observation is that1 out of 2 Spanish clubs has a TikTok account. All of these accounts were created in 2019, with a total of 890 videos posted. In France, the first adopters are OM (as of December 2018), AS Monaco (March 2019)), PSG (July 2019) or more recently Ligue 1 Conforama (October 2019) , for a total of 160 productions broadcast on the platform.
More generally, the first to arrive on the platform are not necessarily the most active or the most followed, demonstrating the importance of distributing quality content and relying on influence strategies. Atletico Madrid is the main content broadcasters, despite the late creation of his account, in June 2019, with around 10 videos published per week. FC Barcelona's growth is impressive, with nearly 2 million followers acquired in less than 3 months, or 12,000 new subscribers every day! Conversely, the oldest account created, by the K League, has only posted 11 videos and acquired less than 5000 subscribers, since August 2018.
Three main types of content are shared by accounts dedicated to football: images of matches, videos that focus on the most influential players or images of the atmosphere where fans are present. The classification of this content reveals an interesting pattern, showing the interests of the club audience. Around 40% of the content is images of matches, 1 out of 3 videos focuses on players, and 1 out of 4 videos focuses on fans. The most viewed video shows Lionel Messi climbing the steps of a social event, with his partner. This content, which may seem superficial, has generated more than 28.5M views and 2M commitments!
Top Videos in France:
- PSG - ❤️💙 Marquinhos and the new Third jersey “Thank you for this nice tribute”! - 224k interactions
- Ligue 1 Conforama - W O A H 🔥 #mbappe #psg #soccer #football - 181k interactions
- PSG - So much love for Mbappé 😍 Far too much love for Kylian 🥰 #psg #icicestparis #allezparis - 135k interactions
- PSG - 🔎🎰❓- 112k interactions
- PSG - footballisback 🔥🔴🔵⚽️ - 72k interactions
- PSG - ⬆️ Level Up Kylian Mbappé! #footballisback #psg #mbappé - 67k interactions
- PSG - First post/Our first post Welcome Abdou Diallo! #encascade #icicestparis #allezparis #psg - 62k interactions
- Ligue 1 Conforama - ⚽️ from the @psg legend #ronaldinho #tiktoksports #psg #ligue1 - 49k interactions
- Ligue 1 Conforama - When Neymar touches the ball - 46k interactions
- PSG - 🎥🧤 Keylor Navas 🔴🔵 #icicestparis #allezparis #findesvacances- 44k interactions
Since TikTok only recently deployed its advertising network, almost all interactions generated by clubs are organic. La Liga is the league that generated the largest volume of interactions (30M), thanks to content from FC Barcelona (13.8M interactions) and Real Madrid (7.6M interactions). Next come the Premiere League clubs, with Liverpool FC (7M interactions). 2.6M interactions were generated by French accounts, with OM narrowly ahead of PSG with 1M interactions.
By comparing the average number of interactions/posts of these accounts to their performance on Facebook and Instagram, we show thatA TikTok video will generate 2x more interactions than on Facebook. On the other hand, Instagram remains a channel generating a greater number of interactions per post. However, the size of communities is not the same between these different platforms, and the nature of interactions is not homogeneous. Indeed, clubs gather a much larger captive audience on Facebook and Instagram than on TikTok. In addition, let's remember again, the engagement generated on TikTok is linked to the free distribution of content.
Thus, in view of the recent creation of these accounts, we understand that new communication opportunities are available to these clubs. While FC Barcelona, Real Madrid or Liverpool benefit from their reputation to acquire large audiences very quickly, TikTok remains a field of innovation in terms of content creation for much more active players, such as Atletico de Madrid or OM. Clubs are still in a phase of acquiring their audiences - and therefore of great competition between them. While the 2M followers acquired by FC Barcelona in a few months is impressive, this audience is much smaller than the 109M fans accumulated on Facebook.
In summary, the main lessons learned from this analysis:
> Early adoption of TikTok alone does not guarantee good performance. It is essential to produce quality content and to ensure its good distribution on the platform.
> The content shared by the clubs is very similar. They mostly share images of matches, players and the atmosphere.
> The volumes of interactions per post on TikTok are 2x higher, on average, than those obtained on Facebook. These volumes of interactions are linked to account activity and popularity.
> Currently, these clubs are still in a phase of acquiring their audiences. While Atletico Madrid is the main content broadcaster, it has acquired a much smaller following audience than FC Barcelona.
An analysis carried out by Shravan Ramesh & Erwan Le Nagard.
