Man Utd hunt new followers as they relentlessly close Twitter gap

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By Paul Nicholson
May 5 – Manchester United have continued to chase down the Twitter lead that London giants Arsenal and Chelsea have over them in terms of numbers of followers. Over the past four weeks Man Utd have averaged 15-20,000 new followers per week, more than Arsenal and Chelsea.

But while Man Utd relentlessly claw back the difference, it will still take a long time to overtake the London clubs in terms of total numbers. Chelsea are 600,000 followers ahead and Arsenal just under 800,000 ahead.

20150503 top6fllwrs chart

Source for all charts: Sports Perspective
Note: Figures extrapolated for last two weeks have been split evenly

The percentage pace of Man Utd’s English language twitter growth is impressive, placing them third in the week-on-week percentage growth chart behind Leicester and Burnley, the two bottom placed clubs in terms of total numbers of followers – it is much harder to show significant week-on-week percentage growth on big numbers than it is on smaller numbers.

20150503 newfllwrs table
Man Utd have shown that they are warming to the twitter challenge, showing the second largest growth in number of tweets over the past 4 weeks – behind Leicester whose resurgence in on-pitch form has triggered a burst of twitter activity.

Man Utd’s increased activity has pushed them up to mid-table in terms of number of new tweets, compared to being at bottom of twitter activity table 12 weeks ago.

In terms of followers, the top six clubs are increasing the gap over the rest of the Premier League, between whom there isn’t a huge difference.

20150503 newfllrws trend therest

Overall Man City has highest twitter activity followed by Everton then Chelsea. In comparison, Sunderland’s activity on twitter has fallen off a cliff, though it will be interesting to see if they spark up again with local rivals Newcastle United having been dragged into the battle to avoid relegation.
20150503 fllrws rank table

20150503 newtwitter growth

20150503 newtwitter activity chart

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