CorpComms Magazine

Not only can New Zealand celebrate its win against France at the weekend but the team also has cause to celebrate its superior digital media strategy.

Lewis PR have crowned the All Blacks the Social Media Champions of the rugby world, with a Facebook following in excess of 1.2 million, nearly three times that of its nearest competitor. The NZ team also scored highly due to their Twitter following of close to 66,000.

The Australians are second place in terms of social media just beating England, who have a Facebook fanbase just shy of 300,000, and a Twitter following of just over 30,000.

The overall social media rankings measured how active each of the teams are in social media, in addition to the level of engagement with fans.  Scores were generated by looking at a number of metrics such as Facebook fans, Facebook discussions, Twitter followers, follow backs and tweet volume.  The top eight teams only were considered, with the rankings as follows:

'It's good to see the All Blacks capitalising on their home turf advantage and kicking some social media goals,' commented Scott Pettet, a vice president at Lewis PR.  'The race for the number two spot was hard fought, with Australia, England and Ireland all vying. In the end, the only thing splitting Australia and England was the availability of mobile applications, with Australia getting the nod due to support for multiple platforms and England supporting iPhone only.'

Social media rankings for rugby teams:

1.    New Zealand

2.    Australia

3.    England

4.    Ireland

5.    South Africa

6.    Wales

7.    Argentina

8.    France

Source: Lewis PR

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