The Italy team started Euro 2016 with a win on the pitch but they also excelled in the world of Facebook and Twitter. The numbers behind the Azzurri’s success on social media, combined with record TV viewing figures (more on that here), speak for themselves…
Italy’s official Facebook page equalled that of host nation France as the national-team page that generated the most discussion about Euro 2016 during the week. It had an engagement rate of 1.5 million and gained 127,500 new followers.
But that’s not all! The most successful post – which announced the result of Belgium vs. Italy – reached nearly 8 million people, was shared 163,000 times and therefore became the most viral post of any national team in Euro 2016 (345,000 interaction rate).
An incredible number of people also decided to change their profile picture to the “ForzaAzzurri” badge. Following its publication on Sunday, the “Facebook frame” was used by over 1 million people. The Azzurri’s videos often went viral and on average were watched by 735,000 people. Not only that, they were often picked up and used in several important national media outlets (Watch here!).
There were also impressive figures from Twitter where the Azzurri have both an Italian language account (@Vivo_Azzurro) and an English language account (@azzurri). Since the beginning of June, @Vivo_Azzurro and @azzurri have posted over 700 tweets and generated around 20 million views. The most popular tweet was the one announcing the result of Italy’s match against Belgium which at the moment has over 400,000 views and nearly 5,000 retweets (on top of the 180,000 views and nearly 2,000 retweets of the same tweet on @azzurri).
The most popular items of multimedia content were the GIF of Graziano Pellè celebrating (over 200,000 views and 2,600 retweets on @Vivo_Azzurro) and the call to “retweet the flag” (over 200,000 views and 2,800 retweets on @azzurri). The animated GIFs with the personal celebrations of the Azzurri are one of the most original and popular innovations at the Euros!
France 2016 has also provided the opportunity for supporters in the Vivo Azzurro Community to enter two competitions: the first is the “Made for Italy” photography competition on Facebook and the other is the “#GifAZZURRI” competition for GIF enthusiasts on Twitter.
Source: figc.it