NRL on Facebook

[docbrown]

Figured we'd go at this now we're at the end of another season

Facebook Official Page numbers counts at 25 Oct 2012:
NRL - National Rugby League 480,024 (AFL Official 485,110, Hyundai A-League 37,629)
Brisbane Broncos 262,447
Melbourne Storm 196,813
Parramatta Eels 143,375
South Sydney Rabbitohs 110,994
Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs 109,932
Gold Coast Titans 109,706
Wests Tigers - Official National Rugby League Club 87,076
St George-Illawarra Dragons 76,417
Vodafone Warriors 68,281
Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles 67,670
North Queensland Toyota Cowboys 64,830
Newcastle Knights 58,136
The Official Sydney Roosters Page 52,537
Cronulla Sharks 45,371
Penrith Panthers 39,972
Canberra Raiders 20,725

Cheers,

To do some further number crunching

1. BRONCOS (+37028) (+16.4%) (steady)
2. STORM (+78002) (+65.7%) (steady)
3. EELS (+69666) (+94.5%) (up 1 place)
4. RABBITOHS (+45877) (+70.5%) (up 2 places)
5. BULLDOGS (+39143) (+55.7%) (steady)
6. TITANS (+24055) (+28.1%) (down 3 places)
7. TIGERS (+22274) (+34.4%) (steady)
8. DRAGONS (+15957) (+26.4%) (steady)
9. WARRIORS (+25530) (+59.7%) (up 3 places)
10. SEA EAGLES (+13230) (+24.3%) (down 1 place)
11. COWBOYS (+43635) (+205.9%) (up 2 places)
12. KNIGHTS (+13015) (+28.8%) (down 2 places)
13. ROOSTERS (+8816) (+20.2%) (down 2 places)
14. SHARKS (+13387) (+41.9%) (steady)
15. PANTHERS (+10518) (+35.7%) (steady)
16. RAIDERS (+8324) (+67.1%) (steady)

Total clubs (1514282) (+468457) (+44.8)

NRL (480024) (+87877) (+22.4%)

Fascinating that clubs can grow by almost half a million yet only a fifth that also add the NRL. Obviously majority of fans think they can get the information they need off the club site alone.

NSW (232508) (+31145) (+15.5%)
QLD (393494) (+64552) (+19.6%)
SL (59023) (+19889) (+50.8%)
NZ (99959) (+21450) (+27.3%)
AUS (67779) (+25228) (+59.4%)
All Stars (30047) (+18073) (+150.9%)
Indigenous (29096) (+10185) (+53.9%)
4 Nations (21558) (+3649) (+20.4%)

Rugby League World Cup 2013 (8,192) - curious to see how this grows as a test to see how it's promoted - seriously go like that page

 

[Perth Red]

Amazing following for melbourne

 

[Expansion]

Amazing but unsurprising.

 

[Timmah]

Amazing but unsurprising.

Spot on. Support in one-town-teams when it comes to social media (Canberra excluded) is fantastic.

Suggestion

Get rid of #NRL
Allow upto 4 letters
Do the a-league vs thing
Use mixture of club names, nicknames, club hashtags etc to make it intuitive

Something like

#DOGSvSSFC
#CANBvGCT
#PENvSTGI (or #PENvREDV )
#CSFCvBRIS (or #CRONvBRIS)
#NQLDvNEWC
#EELSvMELB
#SYDvWST or SYDvWTIG
#MWSEvNZW or WAR

Clubs could even have votes for what their 3 or 4 letter tag would be

This I agree with.

Ideally these would be the best kind if people were willing to put up with a couple of extra characters.

EELS
NZW

DOGS
REDV
NQLD
NEWY
CANB

STORM
WESTS
MANLY
BRONX
EASTS
GOLDY

SHARKS
SOUTHS
PENNYS

My idea (because a few seem a bit silly)

EELS
WARR

DOGS
STGI
NQLD
NEWC
RAID

STORM
WTIG
MANLY
BRIS
SYD
GOLD

CRON
STHS
PEN

Reasoning
1. There are some clubs for whom the shortening currently in use currently works and makes sense
2. I don't think "Newy" or "Pennys" or even "Easts" would get approval from either the NRL or any club.

 

[docbrown]

Amazing following for melbourne

With regular TV games in Melbourne, membership drives and marketing to suit, they'll start picking up a % of that base at the gate.

 

[docbrown]

Suggestion

Get rid of #NRL
Allow upto 4 letters
Do the a-league vs thing
Use mixture of club names, nicknames, club hashtags etc to make it intuitive

I like this but as for lettering I think some clubs just aren't memorable when they're condensed down into things like STGI... and I even reckon you can get rid of the v too.

I think they're better off going with the most memorable/identifiable word they can and trying to keep it as short as possible:

North Queensland Cowboys = COWS
Gold Coast Titans = GOLD (or Titans)
Brisbane Broncos = BRIS
Newcastle Knights = NEW (I don't think it needs the C)
Canberra Raiders = RAID
Melbourne Storm = STORM
New Zealand Warriors = WAR
Manly Warringah Sea Eagles = MANLY (could argue MAN but think MANLY sells it better)
South Sydney Rabbitohs = SOUTHS (needs the S and better than Rab)
Canterbully Bulldogs = DOGS
Parramatta Eels = EELS
Penrith Panthers = PANT or PEN
Cronulla Sharks = SHARKS (needs the S)
Sydney Roosters = ROOST
Wests Tigers = TIGERS (needs the S)
St George Illawarra Dragons = DRAG

So going of Round 1 last year
#NEWDRAG
#EELSBRIS
#COWSGOLD
#PANTDOGS
#RAIDSTORM
#WARMANLY
#TIGERSSHARKS
#SOUTHSROOST

Round 2:
#MANLYTIGERS
#BRISCOWS
#GOLDRAID
#DOGSDRAG
#STORMSOUTHS
#SHARKSNEW
#ROOSTPANT
#EELSWAR

Round 3:
#NEWBRIS
#DRAGTIGERS
#COWSEELS
#GOLDSTORM
#PANTSOUTHS
#WARDOGS
#ROOSTRAID
#SHARKSMANLY

etc

Worst one is 13 characters but as you can see most are 8-10 and they're much more memorable.

 

[Saint Doc]

Interestingly on the Dragons low Facebook numbers

I just went to my home page so I could click on the Dragons page.

I realised I "like" two Dragons pages. I get updates from the official one, but at some point in the last 5 years I had liked another page.

Unofficial: 30,000
Official: 70,000

But the interesting thing is of my friends, the 5 others that like the unofficial page don't like the official page.

So the real number might be more like 90-100,000

 

[Timmah]

That's part of the problem - clubs either aren't proactive or don't care enough to jump on unofficial pages. Often they become cesspools of young kids vying for importance and likes and clubs don't really pick up on the fact they are taking numbers away from the right avenue.

 

[madunit]

f**k that, 3 letter combos works and everyone knows them now.

Besides they are quicker to type, everyone already knows them which means more people using the one hashtag which makes it trend quicker and for longer

 

[Timmah]

Most rounds these days, the tags trend. The NRL community is across them and the NRL finally promotes them.

There's probably a better way but it takes the process back a few steps before getting good again.

 

[Saint Doc]

The NRL has announced the only change to hash tags is the dragons

Now SGI instread of STI

Definitely an improvement

 

[juro]

NRLVerified account ‏@NRL

Congrats to @billyslater for joining the 100,000 twitter club. #NRL

https://twitter.com/NRL/status/433396762691121152

Wondering how many other NRL players have such a large following. Others I have checked are:
Sonny Bill Williams - 345k
Jarryd Hayne - 63.2k
Cam Smith - 57.5k
Greg Inglis - 53.3k
Ben Barba - 51.3k
Robbie Farah - 48.3k
Paul Gallen - 23.2k

 

[Saint Doc]

That means SBW is 2.3x more popular than the NRL!

 

[juro]

That means SBW is 2.3x more popular than the NRL!

And 12.1x more popular than Super Rugby...

 

[Timmah]

Difference between Slater is, Slater's is built 99% on being an NRL star. SBW's is from a range of enterprises, boxing, rugby and NRL

 

[Canard]

Difference between Slater is, Slater's is built 99% on being an NRL star. SBW's is from a range of enterprises, boxing, rugby and NRL

And 299 thousand dummy accounts set up by Khoder.

 

[Timmah]

:lol:

 

[Usain Bolt]

Quade Cooper has 433,000 lol Khoder is working hard

 

[no name]

Difference between Slater is, Slater's is built 99% on being an NRL star. SBW's is from a range of enterprises, boxing, rugby and NRL

Chicks dig SBW, he would have more chicks than Slater has altogether.

 

[eozsmiles]

I'm staggered that bill has 100k followers. He has never said anything interesting in an interview. Does he save his good stuff for twitter?