There was a time when Teletext was the first port of call for football news. We’d wait for that page to reload back round to the 300s and we’d be in the know. Long gone are those days with us more often than not being in the loop before official channels have released information such is the power of social media.
We were lucky enough for Luke Shaw to hint he’d signed for the club before officially be announced, as well as giving us the opportunity to get closer to the stars we worship.
Of course, we’re not all bothered about what Wayne Rooney had for breakfast but social power is huge with Manchester United players now global icons.
The likes of Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie have millions of Twitter followers, whilst we all know how popular former players Rio Ferdinand and Cristiano Ronaldo are on the platform. In fact Ronaldo has the highest number of followers across sport, and still posts about his beloved Reds to this day.
His tweet about Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement just over a year ago received the second highest number of RTs in the world of sport with almost 100,000, not only proving the power of sports stars on social media, but also that fans love that interaction.
Which is great for United fans as there are plenty of the current squad posting away. Making up the top five to follow include:
No other sport has really taken to social media like football. Obviously it’s the world’s most popular sport, but the likes of Usain Bolt, Tiger Woods, and Lewis Hamilton, icons of their profession still have fewer followers than even Hernandez.
Stature doesn’t necessarily mean people are going to flock to follow them. It’s all about engagement. Football seems to do that well. You’ll often get replies from Wayne Rooney to his fans or Rio, whereas elsewhere the feed of Tiger Woods is a little quieter.
Take Daniel Negreanu for example. Heard of him? Possibly not. The man may not have worldwide acclaim but he tops the world of poker and even surpasses the likes of Ashley Young, and Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco in terms of followers.
And that’s down to engaging with the platform. It’s why Negreanu has nearly half a million followers in a sport that airs at 2am on ESPN. It’s why Mark Cavendish has almost one million despite having no way near the profile of a footballer or golfer. United stars know this.
Even during the most difficult periods of last season they continued to stay active across their social channels. Throughout all the criticism. And with a new era perhaps on the horizon with Louis van Gaal seemingly found a winning formula pre-season, it could be a lot more fun on Twitter for some of our top stars.
