Welcome to the latest edition of the CFL social media score card! The Eastern and Western Finals took place last weekend and we’re here with the recap.
Catch up with our previous score cards:
What Happened During Week 22 — Eastern & Western Finals!
Only four teams played this week, as we’re in the home stretch to the Grey Cup.
Montreal 24 – Hamilton 40 (Huzzah!)
Edmonton 18 – Calgary 43 (ouch)
I was honestly hoping for a Hamilton — Edmonton matchup for the Grey Cup this year but alas, the Stamps are just too good. On Twitter I did suggest that perhaps Edmonton fans switch their allegiance for this Grey Cup because if there’s anything Edmontonians like to do, it’s boo a Calgary team.
Onward to the analysis!
Audience
The top 3 teams with the largest social media audiences for Week 22 are unchanged from last week and the week before that. They are:
1st Place: Saskatchewan Roughriders
2nd Place: Montreal Alouettes
3rd Place: BC Lions
The Blue Bombers are still in 4th and the Lions are slowly pulling away from them. Last week, the Bombers needed 69,978 fans to catch up. This week, it’s 70,361.
Now let’s take a look at the audience growth for Week 22:
Well, you can certainly tell who won their games last week. As a Ticats fan, I hope that this fan growth predicts the Grey Cup outcome!
And as always, the scrappy REDBLACKS continue to drive good growth week over week.
Activity
The top 3 most active teams on social media for Week 22 are:
1st Place: Calgary Stampeders
2nd Place: Montreal Alouettes
3rd Place: Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Argos – always the 4th place bridesmaid, never the bride (when they’re not playing). The gap between the 3rd place Ticats and 4th place Argos was only 14 posts. Impressive, considering the Argos haven’t played since week 20. The Bombers posted the least this week — only 23 posts in total.
Now let’s take a look at the change in activity for Week 22:
Neither the Ticats nor the Stampeders played the previous week, so of course they would have big changes in their activity, but this is still a pretty impressive turnaround. I’m really looking forward to the Grey Cup analysis next week to see how it compares.
The Eskimos, on the other hand, did play last week but tweeted much, much less than they did the previous week. I’m guessing the score had something to do with that. It wasn’t a pretty game for Edmonton fans.
It’s interesting how the official CFL account is less active this week, especially considering that the Grey Cup is coming up. They usually do a lot of game coverage for all teams, so with less teams playing that could be the answer why.
Engagement
You can’t just spew commentary into the abyss — social media is a conversation, not a state of the union address. These are the teams who took the top spots for engagement this week:
1st Place: Calgary Stampeders
2nd Place: Hamilton Tiger-Cats
3rd Place: Edmonton Eskimos
And the Riders are off the engagement chart! Maybe they didn’t post that washroom photo like I suggested last week.
The Stamps had by and large the most engagement — 62,733 compared to 40,348 for the Tiger-Cats. The drop off between second and third is also huge — the Eskimos squeaked in with 17,611, just ahead of the Alouettes at 12,753.
Now let’s take a look at the change in engagement for Week 22:
Again, this is a bit skewed by the fact that the top 2 teams didn’t play last week, but what I also find interesting is how the losing teams — Eskimos and Alouettes dropped right off in engagement. And the Argos just keep on trucking, no matter what happens.
Top Posts
Here’s a look at the most engaging content for Week 22:
The #Ticats are heading to Vancouver! #GreyCup pic.twitter.com/35E8AYzcNb
— Hamilton Tiger-Cats (@Ticats) November 23, 2014
Brandon Banks was absolutely the star of Sunday’s game so it was smart of the Ticats to feature him in this tweet. The Ticats also had the second most popular tweet — well done!
EASTERN FINAL: TIGER-CATS 40, ALOUETTES 24The Tiger-Cats punched their ticket to 102nd Grey Cup with a 40-24 victory…
Posted by Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday, November 23, 2014
The Ticats also had the top post on Facebook, beating out the Stamps’ top social post (a close second).
And it’s the Ticats again! I think it was great to thank the fans in this post, and it’s likely what pushed it over the top with engagement.
Fan Activity
Like last week, we’re just going to focus on the activity surrounding the games on Sunday. Unlike previous weeks, I’m only going to include the teams that actually played.
The top 3 teams with the most active fans are:
1st Place: Saskatchewan Roughriders
2nd Place: Hamilton Tiger-Cats
3rd Place: BC Lions (I was surprised too, but there was lots of chatter about a new head coach)
Ticat mentions absolutely dominated the feed during their game and even had a small spike during the Eskimos/Stampeders game. The Stampeders spike didn’t really start until quite late in the game, and by then it was a foregone conclusion that the Esks were just not going to take this one home.
One other thing I noticed was the tendency of accounts like the Alouettes’ to use the hashtag for their opposing team in their tweets. So every tweet they made actually counted not just for them, but for their competition. I’m sure they appreciate that.
But all that being said, no one can overcome the background hum of the Riders. It’s as incomprehensible and omnipresent as the humming from Zug Island.
Who’s the Big Winner?
Here’s how we figured out the social media winner:
1. We pulled the data from the Audience, Activity, Fan Activity and Engagement charts, then normalized it.
2. Next, we added a weighting factor to reflect what data we felt was most important and gave it a weighting. The weightings from most important to least important are:
Fan Activity
Engagement
Activity
Audience
3. Finally, we added up the results!
It’s almost like the Esks didn’t have a game last week. Although, looking at the results, maybe they didn’t think they did.
Next Week — The Grey Cup!
It’s Hamilton vs Calgary to see who takes home the Grey Cup (the cup that was originally made for hockey but then ended up being used for football).
As a Hamilton fan, I hope this prophecy comes true:
I’ll be watching (and tweeting) the game — will you?