Rethinking the funding for sports to stay competitive. Using social media to build business case for Partnership opportunities.

1. Analysis of the social media profile and engagement performance of
Andrea Pirlo in 2015. Focus is on gauging the popularity of Pirlo and
measuring the extent to which he contributes to raising the profile of his
associated Partners.
Andrea Pirlo
Social Profile Analysis
24 May – 24 June 2015

2. Social Interactions Volume
The diagrams show the number of global interactions related to Pirlo across the key social media platforms in the reporting period. Pirlo
attracted the largest number of interactions on Twitter, where approx. 26 per cent of all the related interactions occurred on traditional
platforms (monthly average). Bitly, a popular links-shortening service that acts as a vehicle to share external content, saw extremely high
volumes of activity surrounding Andrea Pirlo with almost 1.2m clicks on related content. FB Fan Page was the second most important
traditional interaction channel, constituting approx. 1.3 per cent of activity. In comparison, significantly less coverage was found on
Facebook Public and in the blog-sphere (Wordpress and Tumblr) during the reporting period– that said, in absolute terms these numbers
are very positive, but they are simply dwarfed by the Twitter and Bitly traffic relating to Pirlo.
*Data for Global
Interactions collected
between 24 May – 24
June 2015 (excluding
FB Fan Page )
*Facebook Fan Page stats are monthly averages from 2015.

3. Social Interactions Timeline
The left timeline shows the daily volumes of Pirlo-related interactions throughout the reporting period across the various
platforms. The largest spikes came through Bitly clicks, primarily occurring on 03 and 07 June. Whilst there was no clear
driving factor behind the spikes, large viewing numbers of a report claiming Pirlo wished to play alongside Paul Scholes in
Indonesia created much of the uplift. A similar spike occurred on Twitter, 06 June again with no key driving factor other than
an enhanced collection of chatter from Pirlo’s Indonesian fan base. On the right timeline, the dotted line represents the
summary trend of the overall volume of activity which is consistently increasing in trajectory indicating growing overall
popularity for Andrea Pirlo.
Interactions Timeline By Sources
Overall Trend Timeline

4. Interactions Times
The Global Audience chart visualises the average timing of interactions mentioning Pirlo throughout a week. Sundays and late
Saturday evening are the hottest periods for fans to interact with the international footballer, but Monday and Wednesday evening
are important times. These clearly suggest a game time interaction pattern (weekends and midweek) with post-weekend analysis
consumed on Monday. The chart on the right displays the interaction times of the official @Pirlo_Official Twitter account. As
indicated, the posts are scattered with little to no consistency in posting throughout the week - only once did the account provide
more than one Tweet. The visualisations demonstrate missed opportunities to directly interact with the athlete's fan base which
remains active much more consistently and at slightly different times.
Interaction Times – Global Audience
Interaction Times – @Pirlo_Official account

5. FB Fan Page Performance - 2015
The diagrams show the key performance metrics of Pirlo’s FB Fan Page since 01 January 2015. Pirlo posted 26 status updates in
the reporting period (0.18 posts per day on average), displaying a very limited stance when it comes to keeping his fans
informed/engaged. However, these posts generated almost 2.6m likes in total – an outstandingly high number for any individual
athlete in his field, suggesting Pirlo commands a very well-established fan base on the platform. Pirlo’s content was actively
shared over 52k times, meaning that every post he published was shared 2,017 times on average – another exceptional adoption
ratio when compared to other popular athletes. The balanced comments-to-share ratio indicates a relatively high degree of
audience participation in the discussions.

6. FB Fan Page Timeline
The Timeline shows the number of interactions (likes, comments and shares) that Pirlo’s posts generated in the reporting period. The position of
the line shows the number of likes; the width of the line shows the number of shares; whereas the colour of the line shows the number of
comments (from green to red). Some of the most liked content is displayed separately. It is noteworthy that the most popular content relating to
Pirlo was following a post wishing fans a happy Easter accompanied by a picture, seemingly at his home. The most shared interaction occurred on
21 May following his team, Juventus’ victory in Serie A, the Italian league. Another notable post relates to Pirlo’s promotion of the new Nike Air
Max. These posts underline the strong association between Pirlo, his sponsor and team in the eyes of his fans. The overall trend indicates that a
consistent level of activity and interest throughout the reporting period.

7. FB Fan Page – Partners Promotion
The Timeline on the right shows the number of Pirlo’s posts per week. As indicated, Pirlo is not an overly active promoter of the brands
associated with him through his FB Fan Page: just over 21 per cent of all his posts contained direct references to his Partners; with only Nike
and his team Juventus mentioned during the reporting period. As the Timeline shows, these mentions were sporadic, with multiple weeks
of no references to Partners at all. The breakdown of Partners is on the top right. Overall, and despite his lower activity levels, Pirlo
delivered great exposure for the affiliated brands on his FB Fan Page due to his large followership: his Partner-related posts produced
almost 400k likes, were shared 10,755 times and generated 6,111 original comments.
Partner Mentions - Status updates & Photos
Partner Mentions Overview
Partner Mentions Timeline - Weekly
Partner Mentions Value

8. Other Sources – Partners Promotion
Pirlo & Partners Co-Mentions (Passive Promotion)
The diagram on the top left shows the
ratio of interactions that mentioned Pirlo
and any of his Partners. The results
slightly vary through each platform but
they are characterised by relatively
positive volumes, Wordpress being most
impressive with a three-quarters
mention ratio. 20 per cent of all
interactions mentioning Pirlo carried
references to one of his associated
brands. In relative terms, this is a good
level of passive brand exposure. Partner
attention is dominated by references to
Juventus, but Nike and to a lesser extent
Jeep are also co-mentioned. When it
comes to active promotion, Pirlo showed
very little activity with only 2 posts
mentioning Partners.
Mentions of Partners by Pirlo on Twitter(Active
Promotion)
Pirlo & Partners Co-Mentions (Passive Promotion)

9. Top Shared Websites
The chart shows the top 20 websites whose content (web pages, articles, images, videos etc.) were shared in Andrea Pirlo related
interactions during the reporting period. Shared sites are an important indicator of general activity as they indicate main hubs of
attraction for Pirlo’s followers. The most shared website relates to an Arabic language football outlet. Of the top 20, there are also
four Indonesian language sites suggesting that the followership of the athlete is high in the Southeast Asian nation. Three US based
domains suggests that the recent rumours that Pirlo may join an MLS soccer team has generated significant attention domestically.
Additionally, five of the top nine websites are social media outlets suggesting the importance of this medium for both Pirlo and his
followers.

10. Shared Content
The diagram shows the top shared external links (web pages, articles,
images, videos etc) around Pirlo in the reporting period. This shared
content is important as it constitutes a significant part of the athletes'
social profile. The top shared links relating to Pirlo are dominated by
recent reports about the athlete’s participation in the Champions League
Final and rumours about his future. 50 per cent of links are for Spanish
language content. Bleacher Report completely dominates amongst the
links with huge audience interest in its article about Pirlo’s emotional
response at the Champions League Final. The geographic variety in links
demonstrated Pirlo commands a diverse global audience.

11. Bitly is a popular links-shortening service that acts as a vehicle to share external content on social media platforms. Piptook’s system tracks
when an individual clicks on a Bitly link, which is a direct indicator that the given person viewed the shared content. The Map above
shows the locations from which people viewed content around Pirlo as shared through Bitly. In the reporting period, there were almost a
staggering 1.2 million such clicks on relevant content. Pirlo’s audience is truly global dominating in the Americas, Europe, India, Southeast
Asia, Australia & NZ and throughout Africa. The image on the left shows the TOP 10 cities of Bitly activity – 8 of the top 10 are based in
South America, the remaining two Ashburn (US) and Milan (Italy).
Bitly Clicks

12. .
Link Keys
Mention
Re-Tweet
Reply
The network graph above depicts the Twitter accounts with which Pirlo interacted with in the reporting period. The type of interaction
(mention, reply or RT) is indicated by colours (see Link Keys). The wider the lines and arrows are, the more frequently Pirlo interacted
with the target accounts. As indicated by the sparse network, Pirlo showed negligible activity on Twitter over the past month. He only
interacted with three other accounts, one of which was his Sponsor Nike, and thus demonstrated extremely limited efforts at engaging
with his fans and other related stakeholders in the football scene.
Sponsor
Account
Pirlo Twitter
Interactions

13. Twitter ‘Virality’
The diagram shows all the Re-Tweets of Pirlo’s original Tweets in the reporting period. Pirlo’s original Tweets are represented on
the left side – these were adopted (Re-Tweeted) by individual Tweeters as indicated by the circles in different colours. The size of
each circle displays how many RTs an individual Tweeter posted; whilst the labels show the names of the most frequent Re-
Tweeters. Pirlo published just 7 Tweets, which were RT-ed 9,347 times, meaning that on average a Tweet from Pirlo was shared
1,335 times. If we look at the reach in the number of users, rather than Tweets, then an average Tweet from Pirlo was adopted by
1,009 individuals. These figures translate into an incredibly powerful reach when compared to other individual athletes.

14. Pirlo – Social Performance (Monthly Average)
The table summarizes the social performance indicators of Andrea Pirlo as measured on a monthly average throughout
2015. Scores that signal relatively lower performance are highlighted in orange; whereas areas of outstanding
performance are indicated in green. The indicated percentages signal the part of total monthly values to show relative
performance and potential as well. In summary, Pirlo is a sports personality with an exceptional followership that
generates a large volume of social interactions, which is dominated by Twitter activity. Pirlo’s reach on the microblog is
huge and the global appeal of the footballer is undeniable, with a truly global reach evinced by the diversity and
staggering volume of Bitly clicks. This popularity also translates into a great deal of passive Partner promotion value with
close to 87k related interactions mentioning Pirlo and one of his Partners (team or sponsors). That said, these figures do
not reflect great efforts from Pirlo himself: he has no Instagram account; his social interactions are very limited as
demonstrated by his sparse Twitter network; and consequently, his active Partner promotion efforts are also poor (3
monthly mentions across his two main accounts). This marked contrast means that Pirlo represents a huge untapped
potential: with a more active, engaging and social media savvy attitude, he would likely command even more immense
audience sizes.
Athlete
Global
Interaction
Volume
*excluding
likes
Likes
FB Fan Page
Sponsors
Promotion
Other
Sources
(Passive)
Sponsors
Promotion
Twitter
(Active)
Sponsors
Promotion
Shared
Links
Volume
Twitter
Virality
Bitly
Volume
Bitly
Diversity
Andrea
Pirlo
1,661,804 FB: 548k
Posts: 1
(22%)
Likes: 93,818
(17%)
Shares: 2,581
(23%)
Comms: 1,467
(15%)
Interactions:
86,920
(20%)
Interactions:
2
(25%)
209,253
1,335
Tweets
1,189,038 Global