Cricket Ireland and the GAA were biggest movers in the second Sportego monthly social reach report. While Irish Rugby retained its position at the top, their growth of 1.67% giving them a massive online reach of 1.698m people, the GAA closed the gap with the their online presence growing by 2.68%, aided by the social conversation on the All-Ireland series.
Of those involved in the Hurling and Football knock out stages, it was Tyrone and Galway with growths over 5% that enjoyed the biggest social boom with Mayo and Kerry growing by 4.4% and 4.2% respectively.
However the biggest news story was achieved by Dublin as they became the first GAA county to break 100k social reach.
Cricket Ireland’s phenomenal Facebook presence once again enjoyed a stunning month of growth with the test with Australia ensuring an increased reach of 4.9%, the biggest of all the sporting bodies in the land. The body now reaches over 400k people through Facebook. Their Twitter reach grew by 1.1% to almost 77,000 people.
The absence of terrestrial TV presence for Ireland’s world cup warm up games appeared to aid the online social conversation surrounding Irish rugby with the sports’ governing body showing a 2.53% growth while of the provinces, Munster were the only side that grew by less than 1%.
Aided by their signing of Neymar lookalike Barry Cotter and a mooted idea to sign Greek players, Limerick fc enjoyed a stunning month on social media with a 5.5% growth in followers, the most of all the club’s in the league. Galway United’s dedication to providing live updates from their games on twitter saw them grow by 3.47%. Despite an upturn in fortunes on the field, Sligo Rovers social reach grew by only 1.61%, the smallest of the all the clubs, although the club maintain their position as the third biggest social club in the league.
A lack of summer action meant that the leagues governing body, the FAI, experienced a small growth in followers, with a .75% increase.
