Global Fútbol

RCD Espanyol’s incredible growth on social media is continuing, and the club recently surpassed the milestone of eight million followers across their various profiles. What makes this growth all the more impressive is the fact that over five million of these users started following the club since October 1st 2022, representing growth of 178% since then.

These numbers translate into meaningful business advantages for the club, especially in terms of connecting with fans and offering benefits to sponsors. In fact, when asked about the keys to the successful digital strategy, the LALIGA HYPERMOTION club highlighted the added value for sponsors as being one of three fundamental pillars.

The club explained: “Firstly, a crucial pillar of the strategy is to provide greater brand presence to sponsors by generating engaging content that doesn’t just involve including logos on posts. By leveraging our growing fanbase, we’re offering a high-impact digital platform and greater value to our sponsors, which translates into a stronger relationship with these brands.”

Discussing the other two pillars, RCD Espanyol continued: “In addition, the club has implemented a strategy of internationalisation through digital content. This involves creating engaging and relevant material that resonates with diverse audiences around the world, adapting it to meet the needs and cultural preferences of each target market. Finally, our close collaboration with LALIGA has been another determining factor in the club’s digital success, amplifying our international visibility.”

China is the country where RCD Espanyol have the most followers

It’s especially interesting to see where RCD Espanyol are attracting social media followers. Although this is a Spanish club, followers from Spain only represent 14.18% of the total. On the other hand, China is top of this ranking with 20.64% of the total. This is not an accident, as RCD Espanyol have long identified China as a strategic market, especially due to the ownership’s links with that country.

Discussing this phenomenon, the club said: “For China to be the country with the largest number of followers for the club is notable and can be attributed to several reasons. Firstly, Wu Lei joining the team had a significant impact. As a very popular player in his home country, his arrival generated a strong interest and following among Chinese fans, thus contributing to the expansion of the club’s fanbase in China.”

Even though Wu Lei stopped wearing the blue and white shirt in 2022, the digital strategy for China was solid enough to survive that departure. Explaining the continued growth in the Asian country, RCD Espanyol added: “The club has recognised the importance of tailoring content to suit the preferences and tastes of Chinese audiences. This includes creating content in Mandarin and actively participating on the popular social media platforms in the country, such as Douyin, Weibo and WeChat.”

After China and Spain, the next two countries with the greatest share are India, with 7.43% of followers, and Mexico, with 4.57%. Again, these are two other important markets and the club has done a good job of creating content that is relevant to the different types of fans in different parts of the world.

The club added: “The focus on key territories has been crucial. By directing resources to these territories, we have been able to effectively expand our reach and increase our global presence.”

Reaching four million followers on TikTok

The club has grown on all platforms, but especially on TikTok (@rcdespanyol). There has been an exponential level of growth on that platform, with almost three and a half million new followers since October 1st 2022, leading to the current total of four million followers.

Explaining the growth on TikTok in particular, the club stated: “Staying up to date with trends on the platform has been key. The club has created relevant and engaging content that resonates with the audience, adapting to TikTok’s popular formats. The active involvement of the players, from the men’s and women’s first team and from the academy teams, in the creation of content has been key too. By conducting challenges and games, the club has been able to engage the audience and generate interaction, thus increasing fan engagement.”

The level of engagement has been key and it has been high. In the past two months, the Catalan club were inside the top 10 for engagement levels achieved by any LALIGA EA SPORTS or LALIGA HYPERMOTION team.

By jumping on trends, RCD Espanyol have enjoyed great success, while they have also managed to achieve significant views on posts related to strategic campaigns. One example was the ‘Los Pericos no abandonan’ (‘Pericos do not abandon’, in English) campaign to raise awareness of animal abandonment and this achieved 7.7 million views.

As the club outlined in the first of its three fundamental pillars for digital strategy, this kind of reach generates serious benefits for sponsors and, of course, for the club. Having grown 178% and by five million followers in under a year and a half, the digital expansion is showing no signs of stopping. As such, the digital future looks very bright for RCD Espanyol.