Fluminense and Boca Juniors: who has the best digital performance?
Tifo in the quarter-final match vs Olímpia – (Image Credit: Marina Garcia – Flickr Fluminense FC)
In the first chapter of the series in which Samba Digital analyzes the digital performances of official channels, Instagram shows a contradictory scenario
On November 4th, the mythical Maracanã Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, will host the Copa Libertadores da América final, where Brazilians and Argentines face off.
Fluminense (BRA) and Boca Juniors (ARG) will compete for “Eternal Glory”, a slogan developed by Conmebol – the institution that regulates South American football – which quickly became popular among fans.
Tifo in the quarter-final match vs Olímpia – (Credit: Marina Garcia – Flickr Fluminense FC)
With the final match getting closer, Samba Digital set out to analyze the digital performances of both Fluminense and Boca Juniors throughout the 2023 season, in order to have a better understanding of the brands’ digital potential.
Instagram Scenario
To begin with, we need to consider the size of the two clubs’ follower bases. With 9 million followers on Instagram, Boca Juniors has 4.95 times more followers than Fluminense, which has 1.82 million. There are almost 11 million people following the two clubs:
This imbalance has been growing throughout the 2023 season, as Boca Juniors registered an increase of 1.6 million new followers, while Fluminense is close to half of that: 800,000 new followers.
Thus, Boca Juniors is the 24th club in the world with the most new followers this year, while Fluminense is 39th in this ranking.
Global Leadership in Engagement
The Argentine club’s advantage, however, does not hold when we analyze the active presence of followers who consume content on social media.
On Instagram, Fluminense stands out as the club with the highest engagement rate in the world: 36.8%. The “Tricolor” is a reference in terms of the way followers consume their content.
The brazilian club is ahead of Galatasaray (2nd place, with 30%) and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr (13th place, with 18%). Boca Juniors, in turn, is in a modest 111th position, with a 7.4% engagement rate, ranking alongside Cagliari (ITA) and Glasgow Rangers (SCO).
Fluminense’s high engagement rates indicate the excellent quality of the content produced by the Brazilian club. It is necessary to consider, however, that the follower base 4.95 times smaller than that of Boca Juniors makes it a little less complex to obtain a higher engagement rate for Fluminense’s digital team.
“Maintaining a high engagement rate requires constant effort from the club’s digital team in terms of producing relevant, creative and quality content. Furthermore, it is essential to understand the audience’s preferences and expectations to adapt the social media strategy accordingly. As the number of followers increases, the diversity of interests and opinions of the audience also increases, making it even more difficult to maintain high engagement in all segments”, analyzes Samba Digital’s Social Media Manager Wagner Leitzke, responsible for developing successful strategies for clubs such as Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, among others.
Similarity in overall numbers
The comparison between the performances of Fluminense and Boca Juniors changes drastically when we analyze the total number of interactions throughout 2023.
With almost five times more followers on their official Instagram profile, Boca Juniors sees Fluminense close to equaling the total number of interactions.
Together, the two clubs had 332,236,833 million interactions on their official Instagram pages until October 24th – 10 days before the Copa Libertadores de América final. Boca Juniors’ advantage is slight: 179.4M, compared to Fluminense’s 152.8M so far.
Proportionally, the division of interactions would look like this:
Marcelo elevates Fluminense brand
Among the more than 4.8 thousand posts made by the two clubs, the one with the highest number of interactions is from Fluminense, despite the smaller follower base. All thanks to Marcelo, multi-champion left-back with Real Madrid (ESP). The star returned this year to Fluminense – the club where he started playing football – to end his successful career.
Marcelo’s relevance meant that Fluminense had 2 million interactions in a single post.
Boca Juniors, in turn, had the 2nd best performance in this clash between the finalist clubs. However, the protagonist of the post has nothing to do with the Xeneize club.
With a tribute to Lionel Messi – the main star of Argentina’s third World Cup title – the club achieved 1.56 million interactions by simply registering the player’s presence in its stadium.
The top Boca Juniors post most directly linked to the club’s daily life came in 5th position, with a simple design celebrating their place in the Copa Libertadores final. In total, there were 932,000 interactions.
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