Arsenal’s Mesut Özil & David Luiz, and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah top the PMPR table of social media influencers in the English Premier League

• Manchester United are the most influential club on social media followed by Chelsea and Arsenal

To read the full social media analysis of each English Premier League player click here

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Mesut Özil, Arsenal’s World Cup winning midfielder, tops the PMPR table of social media influencers in the English Premier League. The former Werder Bremen and Real Madrid star (76m followers) is the clear leader ahead of new Arsenal teammate David Luiz (52.5m followers) and Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah with 52.4m followers.

In overall fourth place is Manchester United’s French footballing icon Paul Pogba with 51m, primarily thanks to being the most followed player on Instagram with a massive 36.7m followers on his official account.

Manchester City goal-machine Sergio Agüero (36.2m) is in fifth place.  Manchester United stopper David de Gea (29.8m) is the highest placed goalkeeper in 6th place, with his teammates Juan Mata (22.1m) and Alexis Sanchez (17.7m) in 7th and 9th places respectively. Chelsea’s Willian (18.7m) and Pedro (15.6m) complete the Top 10 in 8th and 10th places respectively. 

England captain Harry Kane is the top-placed Englishman at number 14 with a total of 13.2m across his official Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. The youngest player in the Top 25 is 21-year-old Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford (9.8m) at position 18.

Manchester United lead the way on club-owned social media channels with 123.6m followers on their official Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts. In second and third places are London giants Chelsea with 79.1m followers and Arsenal with 67.5m followers respectively, with Liverpool close behind in fourth place with 65.2m.  Manchester City are in fifth place with 59m followers, less than half than their rivals at Old Trafford.

­­The research and analysis was conducted by the public relations, digital and football agency PMPR Excellence to analyse social media influence within the English Premier League. The research logged the followers of Premier League players and clubs on their official Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

PMPR’s research also analysed the combined social media reach for Premier League club playing squads. By measuring the audiences on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for each player in the first team squad, PMPR created a Playing Squad Social Media League Table.  In first place is the Manchester United playing squad with a combined reach of 199m across the players’ official accounts. Arsenal are second with 186.5m followers, while Manchester City are third with 138m. The smallest audience for the playing squad is newly promoted Sheffield United, whose combined audience is at 1.6m, more than 120 times smaller than Manchester United.

The combined audience of the clubs and player squads of the English Premier League is more than 1.4bn followers, equivalent to more than the combined populations of Europe and the USA. This was uncovered in research by the public relations, digital and football agency PMPR Excellence. The research measured the social media audiences of individual players in the first team squads (965m) along with the clubs’ official social media channels (459m) to tally a total audience of 1.4bn followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

The Editor of the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables Gordon Sheach said: “We are delighted to publish a comprehensive overview of the social media influence within the English Premier League. The three social media kings of the Premier League are Arsenal’s Mesut Özil (76m) and David Luiz (52.5m), closely followed by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (52.4m).”

“The power of the English Premier League is demonstrated by the clubs and players attracting more than 1.4bn followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which is remarkable when you consider that the figure is more than the combined populations of Europe and the USA.”

Peter McLean, Publisher PMPR Social Media Influencer Tables and PMPR Excellence Owner and Managing Director commented: “It was once said that ‘it is necessary to bait the hook according to the fish’. This is something the EPL and its member clubs understand better than any other football league in the world. It has been successful in hooking the world’s interest by having a broad international array of world class players that have helped the league attract the biggest television markets and in turn populations in the world.”

“In 2018 the EPL invested €2.1 billion on players followed by Italy €1.3bn, Spain €1.1bn, Germany €0.6bn and France €0.58bn* (CIES, 2018). It is able to make this investment because of the vast income from marketing, primarily media rights. The quality of entertainment in other football leagues is excellent but the commercial challenge is to market it as a global entertainment product and make it relevant to the worldwide football audience.”

“The report shows that many individual players are global media enterprises in their own right. The power of squads compared to clubs is also interesting. That value is something significant when a player or squad is negotiating a contract. A play doesn’t open its doors without the actors and they rightfully command a sizeable fee. But also the EPL and its clubs’ marketeers can also lay claim to be the greatest football showmen/women on earth as they have taken world class players and composed excellent teams managed by an international selection of the world’s best mangers and captured the attention of the world.”

“I would like to express my thanks to the Editor of the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables Gordon Sheach (@gsheach on Twitter) and PMPR Marketing & PR Manager Barry Thomson (@barryianthomson on Twitter) for their excellent work in compiling the tables and analysis. We hope you find it of interest and value.”

* Figures from CIES 2018 http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr37/en (2019 is not included since many  European transfer windows are still open).

The most followed player in the English Premier League is Arsenal’s Mesut Özil, who has built up a huge following (76m) during a career across Germany (Werder Bremen), Spain (Real Madrid) and England (Arsenal), as well as being a key figure in Germany’s FIFA World Cup winning team in 2014.

Arsenal’s Deadline Day signing David Luiz is in second place with 52.5m narrowly ahead of Liverpool’s talisman Mohamed Salah, with 52.4m. The “Egyptian King” has been a revelation at Anfield attracting fans for his goals on the pitch and his humanitarian work off it. French footballing icon Paul Pogba is in fourth place with 51m followers. The 26-year-old Manchester United midfielder won 4 Scudettos with Juventus before rejoining Manchester United, winning the 2016-17 UEFA Europa League, followed by the 2018 FIFA World Cup with France.

The highest ranked English player is Spurs’ captain Harry Kane, with more than 13.2m followers. The youngest player in the Top 25 is 21-year-old Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford with a combined audience of 9.8m (18th place).

The Top 10 Players in the English Premier League are shown in the table below. To see the full list please click here.

Mesut Özil is the King of Twitter with 24.2m follwers, almost double that of second place Sergio Agüero (13.3m). Spanish stopper David de Gea is third with 12.3m followers. He is also the most followed goalkeeper with 29.8m followers across all platforms.

Manchester United and France midfielder Paul Pogba is the King of Instagram with 36.7m followers. Liverpool’s talisman Mohamed Salah is second with over 30m Insta follwers. In third place is Mesut Özil with an impressive 20.7m followers.

On Facebook, Mesut Özil once again tops the leader board with 31.1m follwers. He is followed by new teammate David Luiz. The Brazilian defender racks up 24.7m followers on Facebook. His reach is double that of third place Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian counts 12.1m followers on Facebook.

The PMPR table of most followed players at each club illustrates the global nature of the English Premier League, with players representing no fewer than 12 countries: Germany, Egypt, France, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, England, Spain, Algeria, Ghana, the Netherlands and Iran.

Club-owned social media channels are key platforms for clubs to communicate with their stakeholders including fans, sponsors and the media.

Manchester United is the undoubted champion of club social media across the three channels analysed in the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables research; Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. In total Manchester United have an audience of over 123m on social media, vastly more than second place Chelsea (79.1m).  Indeed, with the exception of Chelsea, Manchester United has more followers on Facebook alone (73.3m) than the other clubs have across all three social media channels combined. Newly promoted Aston Villa sit in 11th place, highlighting the strong fanbase of the Birmingham side. The bottom two clubs, Brighton & Hove Albion and Sheffield United both have fewer than 1 million followers across all their platforms.

In addition to measuring the reach of the clubs and the players as individuals, PMPR’s research analyses the collective reach of each clubs’ playing squad. By this measurement, Manchester United (199m) have the most influential playing squad on social media with a combined social media reach just short of 200m followers, closely followed by Arsenal with 186.5m. In third place, are Manchester City with a squad total audience of 138m.  

By combining the reach of the club-owned social media channels (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) with the reach of all of the club’s playing squad (Twitter, Instagram and Facebook) a total social media reach can be determined for each club.

The combined club and squad figures place Manchester United at the top of the table with a combined audience of 322.7m followers. Arsenal is in second position with 254.1m and Manchester City are in third with 197.7m, narrowly ahead of reigning Champions League winners Liverpool with 194.1m.

Disclaimer. PMPR has sought to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the data and analysis is correct. All data was collected 5th August 2019 – 12th August 2019 and provides a snapshot at that time. Please send any corrections or updates to digital@prexcellence.com.  It should be noted that people can of course follow multiple players and clubs across multiple channels, so this analysis measures total audience rather than unique followers. Some players do not have any social media accounts or have chosen not to have publicly visible profiles. Naturally reach is only one metric of influence, engagement is an also important measurement tool.

***The Football Social Influencer Tables concept remain the exclusive property of PMPR Excellence Ltd. If publishing extracts please credit the PMPR Football Social Influencer Tables and mention our website www.prexcellence.com/epl-tables ***