Turkish double in October on X.com

October became a landmark month for Turkish sport, as Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe were, in that order, the two clubs with the most interactions throughout the month on X.com, formerly Twitter.

The performance of the Turkish duo surpassed that of the Spanish giants Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, 3rd and 4th places respectively, as well as four other traditional English clubs: Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool.

Leading these rankings is nothing new for Galatasaray. In September, the club – which accumulated 13.6 million interactions – was also the one with the best performance in this regard. In October, growth was just over 3%, compared to the previous month.

Fenerbahçe, in turn, went from 7.9 million interactions in September to 9.36 million in October – an increase of 15.6%.

This evolution of Fenerbahçe reflects the excellent performance on the field during the month, in which they won all six games played – four of them in the national league and another two in the Conference League.

Galatasaray played one game less than their rival in October: in five matches, there were four wins and one loss. However, one fact stands out: unlike its rival, which competes in the Conference League this season, Galatasaray represents Turkey in the Champions League, the main club competition in Europe and the world. This, in itself, attracts more attention from fans and, consequently, more interactions.

But at this point there is an aggravating factor: Galatasaray went to Old Trafford and left not only with an epic win, but with an incredible comeback that should remain in the memory of their fans for a long time.

So much so that the post with the final score of the game was the 9th with the most interactions among all those with more than 215,000 interactions.

Düşler Sahnesi’nde başrol GALATASARAYIMIZIN! 🙌

Maç sonucu: Manchester United 2-3 Galatasaray 💪#MUNvGS #UCL #WeAreTheBestGALATASARAY 😎 pic.twitter.com/9R8ZBkA4qh

— Galatasaray SK (@GalatasaraySK) October 3, 2023

In addition to Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe, Besiktas also reinforces the culture of a country active on social media when it comes to football. The Turkish black and white team is in 19th place in the ranking of interactions, with around 2.2 million – 10% less than the total reached in September, when the club was in 17th place.

Concentration in Turkey

The language barrier may be the main factor for Turkish clubs to have a high concentration rate of local followers.

The graph below presents a scenario in which 10.75 million of Galatasaray’s 14.21 million followers are concentrated in Turkey – that is, almost 75% of all followers on X.

Of the three clubs, it is the one with the most followers around the world; Besiktas has a local following rate of 79%, and Fenerbahçe has 83.6%.

Official account in English has triple the engagement of the original page

In addition to leading the ranking, Galatasaray has another reason to celebrate: on X, its official account in English reached the mark of 2.464 million interactions, which earned it the 17th position among the football club pages with the most interactions.

This performance led the club to obtain the highest engagement rate in the month of October, with 9.4%, surpassing accounts such as from Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr (in English), and Fluminense, which won, for the first time, the Copa Libertadores da América title.

It is also worth highlighting that the English page had almost triple the engagement than the original account: 9.4% x 3.3%. Furthermore, the account is already approaching the 1 million follower mark, which puts it on the same level as clubs such as Real Betis (SPA), Brighton (ENG), Sporting (POR), Lille (FRA), Rangers (SCO), Fiorentina (ITA), among others.

And what guarantees such a performance is, once again, the magnificent win over Manchester United at Old Trafford.

The post that features Mauro Icardi celebrating his goal and putting his hands over his ears reached 23.1 million accounts across the planet.

Cold Trafford 🥶 ❄️ pic.twitter.com/LtuD0EoRkd

— Galatasaray EN (@Galatasaray) October 3, 2023