The year is 2022 and social media makes the world go round. If you asked the younger generations walking the Earth where they get their news from, anecdotally I bet many would say social media. This runs the college football world. Twitter and Instagram are very important in college football nowadays. 20 years ago Rivals dot com was the king of the subscription model. Where fans would pay a monthly fee to get “premium” news on their team.
This was founded by (or co-founded) Shannon Terry. Terry has also founded 247 and most recently On3. All have the same type of model with subscription services for the premium news of your team’s specific website. Yet with social media reporting news just as fast as other outlets the subscription services for college football media have definitely slowed down.
That’s why you see sites like 247 and on3 offering special deals for a long period of time to get potential subscribers on the hook. The on3 site that serves Florida State is offering a $10 deal until football season. It’s hard for these sites to keep up with social media nowadays.
Social media is also where prospects, recruits, alumni, and fans live. This is huge for specific teams to have their branding on every social media they can. For Facebook, it’s important to capture the attention of your older crowd.
Yet for Twitter and Instagram, it’s definitely important for every team to have brand recognition on there. It’s important to funnel their fanbase into the following and look appealing to recruits. So I was wondering what kind of following does each team have on these platforms. Today we are breaking it down by Big 10 edition.
Followers on Twitter by Team (Big 10 Football Accounts)
(the numbers are not specific but around that mark)
Michigan: 962k
Ohio State: 637k
Michigan State: 471k
Penn State: 458k
Wisconsin: 364k
Nebraska: 316k
Iowa: 297k
Minnesota: 157k
Rutgers: 140k
Purdue: 124k
Illinois: 120k
Indiana: 112k
Maryland: 101k
Northwestern: 56.7k
To me, you could make an argument that Twitter is the most important platform for branding. A college football team has the ability to hold a lot of influence across a diversity of ages and funnel their fans into their content. Plus Twitter is a lifeline of communication between coaches and recruits.
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Followers on Instagram by Team (Big 10 Football Accounts)
Ohio State: 1,000,000
Michigan: 525k
Penn State: 431k
Michigan State: 275k
Wisconsin: 258k
Nebraska: 222k
Iowa: 181k
Minnesota: 115k
Purdue: 93.2k
Maryland: 85.1k
Indiana: 76.5k
Rutgers: 73.4k
Illinois: 67.3k
Northwestern: 37.7k
Instagram is important for the aesthetic aspect of social media, as it’s all pictures. For recruits seeing uniform combinations is like a fashion show and appealing. The visual content for fans is pleasing and something to rally their passion around. Instagram is very important to a program believe it or not.
