West Ham United achieved record engagement across social media platforms to commemorate the final match at Boleyn Ground, including over 6.4 million Facebook views and 128k tweets using #FarewellBoleyn. Celebrity support from figures like Keira Knightley and David Beckham helped spread the message. The club saw significant growth, notably a 1.6% increase in Facebook fans and 7.4% growth on Twitter. Video views hit a new high of 6.8 million in a five day period centered around the farewell match.

1. W e s t H a m U n i t e d
# F a r e w e l l B o l e y n D i g i t a l
R e p o r t
9 / 5 / 1 6 – 1 3 / 5 / 2 0 1 6

2. Executive Summary:
• We grew by 84,279 followers across Facebook and Twitter.
• We achieved 6.4 million views on Facebook and our content was shared over
102,000 times, 50,000 more times than any other Premier League club.
• 128k tweets were sent using the #FarewellBoleyn worldwide.
• We achieved 6.8 million video views, 15% of our yearly Facebook video views in
this five-day period.
• We worked with Snapchat to create a unique geo-filter and achieved record
numbers.
• We utilized Facebook Live to bring our fans closer to the action.
• A-list celebrities such as Keira Knightly, Triple H, James Corden and David Beckham
showed their support ahead of our game and during the closing ceremony.

3. We achieved record Snapchat numbers for the final game at the
Boleyn:
24,200
27,500
Week 14 Week 15
Snapchat Peak Views
33k followers
(awaiting an
update)
The negative result
affected the
viewing figures for
the Swansea
We started the day
with a Snapchat tour
of the Boleyn and
covered the post
match ceremony on
Snapchat

4. We achieved 6,485,000 video
views in this five day period
For the first time this season our
enagement rate was the higher
than Leicester’s, and therefore
the highest of any Premier
League club.
VIDEO VIEWS
ENGAGEMENT RATE:
We were trending on Facebook and posted record numbers:

5. We grew by 1.6%
We acquired 26,368 new fans on Facebook during this five
day period:

6. Our content was shared over 100,000 times:
NUMBER OF SHARES:
We generated 102,535
shares over this five day
period. This was over
50,000 more shares than
any other Premier League
club (Manchester United
have over 60 million fans).
POST REACH: We reached a total of 22.4
million people across the
five days. We typically
average 8-10 million reach
per week.

7. ENGAGEMENT RATE:
#FarewellBoleyn was trending on Twitter:
Our engagement rate on
Twitter was the highest of
any Premier league club
on Twitter.
128k tweets were sent on
the day of the game using
#FarewellBoleyn

8. We achieved considerable growth on Twitter over this five day
period:
Our follower number grew
by 7.4% on Twitter
(57,911)
GROWTH RATE:

9. ENGAGEMENT RATE:
Our organic growth on Instagram hit an all time high:
Our engagement rate on
Instagram was the second
highest of any club in the
Premier League.
GROWTH RATE:
Our growth rate on
Instagram (3.2%) was the
second highest of any club
in the Premier League.

10. Weibo – 15,415 followers
WeChat – 2,351
Twitter Indo – 1132
Twitter Japan – 631
Twitter Malaysia – 112 (just launched)
Asian Social Media numbers

11. We smashed video views records
- With 6.8m video views and 442k
reaction around the Farewell Boleyn
game, our video content was highly
engaging and shareable – giving us our
best-ever results.
- 6.8m views is our strongest five-day
period
- With 889k views, our Facebook Live
video of the scenes at the final whistle
was our best performing video, both in
terms of views and interactions. With
95,873 reactions, this figure sits well
above the 2.2k average.
- The video was also shared over 8,000
times – compared to an average of 497.
- We supplemented this with coverage of
the closing ceremony, the final goal at
the Boleyn Ground in 360 degree vision
and more.

12. On Twitter, we posted build up video every hour in the lead up to the
game, with half-hourly stats videos
- This helped us achieve Tweet
impressions for the day of 12.6m.
- That figure is by far our best daily reach
– our next 24-hour period in 2016 saw
us hit 6.9m impressions.
- The key stats video had 327k
impressions alone.
- Our biggest Tweet of the day reached
682k people – and played on the
emotion of victory in the final game
with a powerful graphic.

13. We also ramped up our Snapchat output with a bespoke geofilter for
fans to use on the day
- Snapchat curated a live story from the
game, pushing several of our Snaps to
an audience far beyond our
followership.
- Supporters at the Stadium were able to
mark their Snaps with a bespoke image
of the Boleyn Ground which we
produced in conjunction with
Snapchat.
- Our match story was watched by
record numbers – 27.5k – and featured
an interactive stadium tour, live
coverage of the closing ceremony and
more.

14. Celebrities showed their backing for the Club on the day, using the
#FarewellBoleyn message
- We had support from Hollywood with
Keira Knightley recording a message
for us, which we used across Twitter
and on the stadium screens on the day.
- Other personalities with massive
followings, such as WWE wrestler
Triple H, posted using the hashtag on
Twitter.
- David Beckham, with his 22.9m
Instagram followers, posted to say how
touched he was by the Club
highlighting 100-year-old Mabel Arnold
during the closing ceremony.

15. Celebrities showed their backing for the Club on the day, using the
#FarewellBoleyn message

16. The event was covered widely by the media at home and abroad

17. These numbers were replicated on Instagram, where we achieved
record likes with striking imagery
- Our image of the fireworks signalling
the end of our time at the Boleyn
Ground, was liked 16.7k times –
around three times the number on the
average post.
- A number of other images reached the
10k figure on likes, including an
emotional Slaven Bilic at the final
whistle and Paolo Di Canio under the
spotlight.