Ligue 1 side Paris St. Germain was "ranked at the top of the Ligue 1 clubs on the Internet and social networks" in a study published Wednesday by consulting firms Kurt Salmon and Kantar and the Audencia business school, according to Nicolas Camus of 20 MINUTES. The study looked at the “the usage of the stakeholders in French sport in social media and internet strategy and involved 150 players in the world of sports" (clubs, events, athletes, federations, suppliers, etc.). The various stakeholders were studied and scored on six criteria: “general framework, user experience, social media, e-commerce, Facebook and Twitter.” With regard to Ligue 1 clubs, Paris St. Germain led with an overall score of 82.63 out of 100. Lyon came in second and Toulouse, "which is very active on Twitter," was third. In a press release, Paris St. Germain "welcomed its overall score," which is higher than those of the Roland Garros (top sporting event), adidas (top supplier) and Décathlon (no. 1 among sport stores) (20 MINUTES, 12/3). LE PARISIEN reported this survey "highlighted the particularly large" int’l opening of its site psg.fr, in which "86% of its 15 million Facebook fans are foreigners." It also revealed, "without surprise, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the digital focal point of Ligue 1" with 20.3 million fans on Facebook and 2.1 million Twitter followers. For three years, the club has "put substantial resources into developing its presence on the web" and social networks. The psg.fr site, available in eight languages, totals on average more than 15 million page views per month. Of its visitors, 18% are foreigners. Kurt Salmon Managing Dir Vincent Chaudel said, “French sports are globally behind online but in this area, everything is going so fast that this gap can be transformed into an opportunity. It took less than two years for Paris St. Germain to rise to the top of French sports and join int’l standards” (LE PARISIEN, 12/3).
