CFL Social Media: Which Team is Best?

CFL social media is key for marketing to and informing fans. We can assume a few clubs will top the list. Instead, let’s take a thorough look at the numbers attached to team social media pages.

There are many forms of social media on today’s Internet, so I’ve excluded certain streams to focus on the big four that, the numbers say, matter most to CFL fans — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and team fan forums.

Size Matters On Facebook

On Facebook, users show their love of teams by giving ‘likes’. Fans can ‘like’ multiple teams but only once, so there’s no piling-on when considering these numbers. There are official team pages for all nine CFL teams. These are the numbers for those pages.

The winners in the Facebook race are the Saskatchewan Roughriders. They scored 24.73% of the total ‘likes’ of all nine teams and win by a five-and-a-half percent margin over their next closest competitor.

Second was a bit of a surprise with the Montréal Alouettes, whose 19.41% was well above the league average.

The B.C. Lions fit into third spot another five percentage points back. Their 14.14% was still well above the average and six other CFL teams.

It’s also interesting to note that, when combined, the bottom three teams had considerably fewer likes than the average of the nine teams.

The CFL’s own page has eighty thousand fewer ‘likes’ than the winning team on Facebook. That should not be possible.

Follow Me On Twitter

On Twitter, users show their love of teams by “Following”. Fans can ‘follow’ multiple teams but only once, so again there’s no piling-on when considering these numbers. There are official team pages for all nine CFL teams. These are the ‘follow’ numbers for those pages.

These numbers show more parity. The victors in the Twitter war are the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and by another significant gap. The Riders accounted for 17.15% of all nine teams’ total ‘follows’.

In second, the Calgary Stampeders earned 11.98% of CFL club ‘follows’. That’s considerably better than their Facebook number.

Those pesky Alouettes fans showed up again on Twitter in third place this time with 11.82% of the ‘followers’ of all nine teams. That’s good enough to keep them in second overall.

Of note here is that the Riders are at only about half a percent less in ‘follows’ than the 2015 Grey Cup finalists, Edmonton and Ottawa, combined.

The CFL’s own page has almost 21K more followers than the winning Riders on Twitter. As they should, considering the almost one million people following the nine CFL team pages.

Instagram Supremacy

On Instagram, users show their love of teams by ‘following’. Fans can ‘follow’ multiple teams but only once, so once again there’s no piling-on when considering these numbers. There are official team pages for all nine CFL teams. These are the numbers for those pages.

The champions of Instagram, once again, are the Saskatchewan Roughriders by their largest margin yet. Their 18.23% is a huge gap between the next closest.

Second place belongs to the Calgary Stampeders whose 12.41% indicates more of a focus on Twitter and Instagram.

The Toronto Argonauts, to my shock and dismay, grab third here with 11.82%. They narrowly edge Hamilton and improve their numbers significantly in this stream.

It’s interesting to note that the Alouettes really take a hit in this stream. They go from second on Facebook, and third place on Twitter, to sixth place on Instagram.

Fan Forum Fundamentals

Fan forums are very different than the other three streams we’ve looked at. Membership indicates that there is something worth talking about and fans worth talking to. Forums don’t typically advertise and are found by fans seeking more information than the media provides.
(Team, Members, Percentage)

Ottawa was the only club that wanted me to join their fan forum just to see their member data, so I will echo their lack of inclusiveness and leave them out.

The winners here are the fans of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats with a whopping 32.63% of all the club fan forum members. That’s almost three times more than the overall average.

The ever-present Saskatchewan Roughriders cruise into second place with an even 24%. I can tell you from experience that this forum is very active by a large percentage of members.

The Montréal Alouettes fan forum hosts a respectable 18.08% of all the eight clubs fans participating in forums. Remember, Ottawa didn’t want to play in the fan forum race.

I have to note that the Eskimos, Argonauts, and Stampeders did not meet the league average of 12.49, even when combined.

Conclusion

Every team in the CFL has great fans. Every team also has fans those fans don’t like. This is not about who has the best fans. This is about which teams are hitting the mark on social media and appear to be interacting with fans in the most and least desirable ways. These numbers can change in the blink of an eye in an extremely volatile space as social media has become. Going viral can make or break your product.

Those are the mathematical findings when one sets out to determine which CFL team has the largest fan communities on the big four social media streams. I allocated 9 points for first place, eight for second, and so-on. In the event of a tie the winner shall be determined by category wins and/or the loser by last place finishes.

A clear leader emerged as the numbers rolled in. Granted, these numbers do not indicate how engaged the fans may or may not be. However, they also aren’t polls which often stack the odds in favour of the teams whose fans vote the most.

The Riders took first place in three of four social media streams. With 35 points overall no one came close. Surprised? Didn’t think so.

The Alouettes did really well with 25 points overall for second place. I think they’d be ecstatic to know this. This tells me a real plan exists and is being executed.

The Tiger-Cats narrowly edged the Stamps for third place. The Cats tied with the Stamps overall, with 21 points, but they won a stream that the Stamps lost so the Stamps took fourth place despite the dead heat. The Stamps should just be pleased that they crushed the Eskimos.

The Lions were also very close to second place but ended up fifth in the log jam. This is just the proof the Lions need in a city constantly criticized for not having great fans. They do have some outstanding fans from all over B.C. and the rest of Canada.

The Blue Bombers shockingly fell to sixth place but didn’t lose in any stream. Not good for a fan group that considers themselves to be among the top dogs year-in and year-out.

Really puzzling is why the Grey Cup Champion Eskimos don’t have a bigger presence on social media? They came in seventh and might fall to eighth without a concentrated effort.

The Argonauts have always faced an uphill battle with marketing but social media should be the exception. They should be happy to come in third in the Twitter stream but unhappy about their overall eighth place standing.

The Redblacks have to be given some credit for, in just two years, not being last in every category. They placed last and don’t seem to have a great handle on their fan forum yet. Otherwise pretty good from the upstart Redblacks.