4th Annual Sport Social Media Index Results Revealed

  • Social Media

HULL KR TOP SOCIAL MEDIA LEAGUE TABLE OF BRITISH SPORTS TEAMS

Following months of research, we’re delighted to announce that the fourth, annual Sports Social Media Index winner is Hull KR.

Despite being relegated from the Super League last season, Hull KR have risen to the top of the 146-team table, which grades British professional football, rugby, and cricket teams according to social media performance.

Climbing from 29th place last year, Hull KR scored an impressive 75.5 out of a possible 100. Closely following, Sheffield Wednesday were edged into second place with a score of 75.25.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club are the first cricket team to secure a position in the top ten, ranking 6th this year, up from 128th the last time around.

Another notable performance came from Scottish Premiership side Ross County, who emerged as the dark horse. Having been bottom of the table in 2013 and 2014, they finished 75th in 2015 and have climbed to a very respectable 18th place in this year’s table.

The Index is compiled here at Umpf HQ and partnered by William Hill. It measures the performance of each team based on three elements of methodology – using data taken up until 1 September 2016.

The first element (which accounted for 70% of the total score) looked at the breadth of official social channels including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, Twitter, Google+ and Snapchat. The scores also took into account community growth and engagement on Twitter and Facebook, weighted fairly to reflect the number of fans or followers the accounts already had.

Other considerations at this stage included a score for the range of multimedia content posted on Twitter and Facebook, including video, images, audio, official apps and external links.

A panel of three judges then presided over the final results with qualitative analysis. Judges marked each team and the combined total was averaged to give a final additional score for each team. This element accounted for a maximum 30% of the total scoring.

Finally, ‘red card’ penalties of 2.5% were implemented for social media malpractices. These included duplicate content, failure to use hashtags, idle periods of four or more days and repeated spelling or grammar mistakes.

The grand total was used to rank the teams in the final tables.

The Index includes an overall league table, along with nine additional tables based on each sporting league.

Congratulations to Arsenal (Premier League), Sheffield Wednesday (Championship), Northampton (League One), Carlisle (League Two), Aberdeen (SPFL), Saracens (Super League), Yorkshire (CC Div One) and Northamptonshire (CC Div Two) who topped the table for best social media performance in their respective leagues.

The full tables, case studies for Hull KR, Yorkshire CCC and Ross County, as well as judges’ bios and more information on methodology are available at: www.sport.socialmediaindex.co.uk