Arsenal Announces New Landmark Twitter Engagement

November 4, 2013

Premier League leaders Arsenal have reached a new landmark after it was revealed they have become the first sports team in the United Kingdom to reach three million followers on Twitter 

Launched in 2009, the Gunners’ official account has become one of the Club’s primary communication channels with its worldwide supporter base.

As well as having the largest Twitter following of any UK sports team, @Arsenal is also the fifth largest in the world after @FCBarcelona, @RealMadrid, @Lakers and @GalatasaraySK. In addition, the account attracts almost half a million retweets and a further 250,000 mentions of the @Arsenal profile every month.

Over the course of the past year, the Gunners have opened local language accounts in Spanish, Japanese, Bahasa (Indonesia) and Vietnamese, and a specific account for fans in the United States – all designed to build a closer level of engagement with its supporters in those regions.

The Club has gained one million followers in less than 12 months, thanks to a range of innovative campaigns and promotions.

One of the most popular is the regular ‘Twitter Takeover’, which sees members of the first team squad conduct live online question and answer sessions with supporters, using a dedicated player hashtag which regularly trends as the number one topic worldwide – sometimes occupying numerous places in the Top 5.

Speaking about the landmark, Managing Editor of the Arsenal Media Group Richard Clarke said: “It is immensely satisfying to become the first Barclays Premier League to reach three million Twitter followers. We are working harder than ever to engage with the Club’s fans on social media and they seem to have responded positively to what we are doing. We are putting up more pictures, graphics and audio while most major interviews have a social media element. We’ll be looking to innovate further in the months ahead.”