EPL Side Arsenal Becomes First U.K. Team To Reach 3 Million Twitter Followers

Arsenal has become the first sports team in the U.K. "to reach three million followers on Twitter," according to FC BUSINESS. Launched in '09, Arsenal's official account has become one of the club's primary communication channels "with its worldwide supporter base." Over the course of the past year, the Gunners have opened local language accounts in Spanish, Japanese, Bahasa (Indonesia) and Vietnamese, and a specific account for fans in the U.S. -- "all designed to build a closer level of engagement with its supporters in those regions." The club has gained 1 million followers in less than 12 months, "thanks to a range of innovative campaigns and promotions" (FC BUSINESS, 11/5). INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL's Tom Parsons wrote although times have recently been tougher on the pitch for ManU, "there was good news for them this week in the fact they leapfrogged their arch rivals Manchester City on the Twitter followers table." This has only taken them three months to achieve and "their next task will ultimately be to chase Liverpool down." All three clubs "have made a lot of press recently about the success of their multiple twitter accounts in multiple languages" -- aimed generally at the Southeast Asian markets. Hull has "the least followers at this moment in time." The two biggest clubs globally on Twitter are Barcelona and Real Madrid with 10.438 million and 9.342 million followers, respectively (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 11/5).