Ed says social media can give Reds the edge
ED Woodward has outlined United’s growing social media influence as the club increasingly seeks to use its online presence as a recruitment strategy.
Delivering the latest quarterly results to investors on the New York Stock Exchange, executive vice-chairman Woodward detailed the Reds’ influence in an everlucrative market.
Such is United’s global reach through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, they see that footprint as an added factor in transfer negotiations for the game’s biggest stars.
With image rights a hugelyimportant commodity for players – Woodward has been quick to use the club’s social media following as evidence the exposure on offer to potential targets.
Daley Blind’s Twitter following saw an increase of 73 per cent following his move in 2014.
United believe those personal gains can tip the balance when competing for the signatures of players such as Antoine Griezmann, who remains on Jose Mourinho’s wanted list after missing out on the Frenchman last summer.
With Barcelona and Paris SaintGermain also tracking the Atletico Madrid forward, United hope the commercial advantages of a move to Old Trafford could be decisive.
In emphasising the importance placed on social media, Woodward set aside a portion of his quarterly address to investors on Thursday to highlight the growth in that market.
“In terms of our social media footprint we have garnered close to 300m interactions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter during the first four months of the season, representing an 11pc year-on-year increase,” he said.
“To put that into perspective this is more than 80pc more interactions than the next biggest Premier League club and more interactions than the numbers third to sixth largest Premier League clubs combined. “Moreover after the first four months of the season @ManUtd has also been the fastest growing and most engaged football club on Twitter and has generated over 16.6m likes and retweets, which was the same number of Twitter interactions as the next two biggest European clubs combined.” Such subjects were barely on the radar of Woodward’s predecessor David Gill – but it is a measure of the rapidlychanging football landscape that investment bankers are updated Tweets and Facebook Lives. Crucially it is an area increasingly valued by a new generation of players who use their personal channels to reveal injury updates and transfer news. Ed Woodward