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How Barça put together its digital landcape, a successful endeavour harnessing the power of global fan sentiment
In May of 2011, a new European champion was crowned at Wembley Stadium in England. On the day of the final, Twitter recorded more than 6,000 tweets per second throughout the 90 minutes of the match. Fans from every corner of the earth immortalised FC Barcelona's triumph by mentioning the Club by name more than half a million times on the world's preeminent microblogging service.
This modern global version of FC Barcelona has spread its wings thanks in large part to the digital revolution and, in particular, the phenomenon of social media. It is in this realm that Barça has become the worldwide leader among sporting institutions. But, how did it get there?
“The numbers are what really jump out at you," affirms Dídac Lee, an FC Barcelona board member and head of the Club's Area for New Technologies. Nevertheless, a look behind those numbers reveals a deeply held mantra focusing on bringing the Club to as many people as possible, a strategy designed to ensure continued global growth. "The digital world and social media are the tools that make this formula work." Over the last five seasons, Barça has been managing official accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LINE, Pinterest and Daily Motion, as well as Chinese sites Tencent Weibo and Sina Weibo.
The beginning
The long road of FC Barcelona's digital strategy began at the end of 2010 with the creation of an Online Department. The unit was born for the very purpose of bringing internet service and connectivity to the entire Club while making the most of existing synergies to carry out the new digital strategy. This strategy, according to Lee, consists of three main points: “Creating content adapted to each territory through the Club's international websites; utilising social media as a platform for distributing this content; and generating engagement — commitment — through the employment of mobile apps, promotional marketing, and management of the global community of FCB fans.
In order to achieve its goals, the Club moved forward with an intensified effort to set up FC Barcelona's new web platform and prioritise social media. While the Club's social media presence was launched in 2009, by the first half of 2011 the number of followers on Barça's official Facebook page had doubled. It was around then that Leo Messi starred in the Club's first online campaign specifically oriented towards Facebook, the popular social network where Barça was just reaching a new milestone of ten million fans.
Daniel McLaren, an expert in digital sports marketing, sees the numbers as proof that Barça “was setting social media records at a time when that sort of thing was believed to be nothing more than an innovative whim."
"Since then," McLaren says, "there's been a general sense that Barça's strategy involves a deep understanding of the long term implications and that they truly believe they can benefit in the maximum possible way."
On Twitter, Barça's accounts in Catalan, Spanish and English have registered a staggering growth of 850%, while the Club's official policy of using Catalan hashtags — such as #Pep40, #AnimsAbidal or #CampionsFCB — to help facilitate an international understanding of the local language and culture, both deeply engrained in the Barça tradition, has been a clear winner.
New platform
The digital strategy initiated by the Online Department was strengthened by the November 2011 inauguration of the new web platform. It featured a fresh design and a broader structure supporting more than 6,000 pages, giving Barça fans everywhere a cutting-edge source of information and enjoyment.
The new websites in Catalan, Spanish and English kept up their growth in the ensuing months while the Club incorporated sites in several new languages. The first was Chinese in June 2012, followed by French and Arabic one month later, Japanese in December of the same year, Indonesian in May 2013 and, finally, Portuguese in October 2013. By then, the platform consisted of sites in nine different languages with content specially adapted for each country or region. The launch of each site brought with it new social media profiles that could promote social networking, most importantly on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Sunny Cadwallader, another digital marketing expert, is optimistic about Barça's social media strategy "because global brands have to, quite literally, speak the same language as their fans." Cadwallader highlights the importance of having social media access in multiple languages "so devotees can get the information they want in a language they can understand." This personalised attention "shows that Barça cares about its fans and tries to put itself in their shoes," says Cadwallader, a renowned consultant in the United States.
The new platform has been buttressed by improvements in the Club's official e-commerce sites offering online ticket sales and other services. Additionally, there has been an uptick in sales and content distribution to more than 40 countries thanks to deals with Binbit and China's Tencent, as well as a reaffirmed commitment to the mobile phone sector stemming from an agreement with Mobile World Capital and the FCB Apps program. “Our income from digital operations has grown in the last few seasons from five to 30 million euros," explains Lee.
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Model for success
In recent years the Club's work with social media has been globally recognised. In winning the 2012 and 2013 Social Star Awards, FC Barcelona was named the top sports club in the world for social media management, beating out Real Madrid, Manchester United and Chelsea.
In February 2014 Barça became the first sports club on the planet to reach 100 million fans on social media, thus solidifying the Club's stature in the 2.0 world and showcasing its long term potential. At the time, Barça was attracting, on average, more than 100,000 new followers every single day among its 30 official channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. “These astronomical numbers are the proof that we aren't betting on a single channel, but rather we are looking for users wherever they may be. Barça doesn't wait for its fans to come to it; Barça goes out and actively searches for them," says Lee, the board member and New Technology head.
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The often-cited threshold of 100 million fans, however, is by no means Barça's roof, as the past few months have shown. In all of 2014, the Club increased its following on social media to the tune of more than 186,000 people a day, on average.
The numbers in 2014
In 2014 Barça opened six new channels on social media, reinforcing its video platforms and its presence in the Asian market with profiles on Vine, Dailymotion, Wechat, Sina Weibo, Tune in, and an official Instagram account for the Club's different professional sports. FC Barcelona drew the curtain on 2014 with more than 175 million fans across all social networks, converting the Club's strategy into not just a question of the past, but something to look forward to in the future.