Manchester United vs Manchester City - Content Marketing Match Up
Last weekend saw two of the Premier League’s strongest teams and fiercest rivals play against each other for the first time this season. As one of the most hotly anticipated fixtures in the Premier League calendar, expectations were incredibly high from fans globally. The game resulted in Manchester United being brutally demolished 4-1 by a clinical Manchester City team creating mass excitement across the footballing world.
However, it’s not just a footballing rivalry that links Manchester United and Manchester City together. Of late, both teams have poured huge amounts of resources into their content marketing campaigns in an attempt to engage with more fans across the globe and build their brand.
At Parallax, we love the Premier League. We love the drama that unfolds throughout the season and we’re really enjoying how teams are developing and moving into the digital world.
From a digital agency perspective, we match their content marketing up against each other.
Let’s kick off –
Manchester United were incredibly late to the Twitter party. After years of rival teams utilising the power of this social media channel to engage with fans, Manchester United surprisingly only joined in July 2013 announcing their arrival with a tweet saying “New era, same spirit. The season starts here. Let’s do this”. Manchester United quickly amassed 100,000 followers within the first two hours and to date, have over a 1m. This is in comparison to Manchester City who have gathered 1.2m followers since the early years of Twitter.
Whilst Manchester City can undoubtedly be proud of their Twitter following, it’s Manchester United that have the upper hand when it comes to posting engaging content on their timelines. MCFC tend to use their Twitter account for posting information on games, retweets from fans and interviews with the players. Whilst this is useful and interesting to fans, it provides little value to those outside of this.
MUFC however are incredibly active on their Twitter account posting the usual information on games and players, but also in depth infographics on players and previous match statistics as well as weekly celebrations of past players including David Beckham and George Best. MUFC have used this tool to grow their brand further and reach audiences in a more personable way.
Manchester United have taken the early lead at this stage.
Manchester United 1 – 0 Manchester City
Since Facebook dropped an incredible $1b on purchasing Instagram, people, brands and organisations have really started to utilise the power of its 150m active monthly users. From creative campaigns, to behind the scenes images, an ever growing amount of content is appearing on this social media channel.
Both Manchester United and Manchester City are using Instagram in very similar ways. Both regularly post behind the scenes photos, insights to training sessions, images of past players, and of course, highlights from matches. Both clubs are also heavy users of relevant hashtags for tracking user engagement.
Despite MUFC dominating in the amount of followers, the general content is very similar between both teams. The scores stay level at this stage.
Manchester United 1 – 0 Manchester City
It’s a game of two halves, let’s see which direction the match up will take!
Email Newsletters
Manchester United are very consistent with their email marketing. Providing a members only email newsletter, they give fans the opportunity to learn about games and the team, whilst offering exclusive competitions and discounts to the club store. This is obviously a format that works very well for MUFC as it hasn’t changed too much over the past couple of years, however in comparison, Manchester City really have the cutting edge. We’ve given MUFC a yellow card for playing it too safe with their content.
With a slick design featuring unique customised calls to action, great social media integration, and an ideal text to image ratio, MCFC’s emails are very far ahead of competitors. As well as an excellent design, the content within the emails has really been created to appeal to a wider audience rather than just fans, with behind the scenes videos, competitions and much more all included.
Not only that, users are able to change their preferences and enter their date of birth to receive relevant birthday emails. MCFC again step it up with their specific birthday wish emails, giving you a warm message from the team or a player, as well as interesting facts about the club from the year that you were born. The icing on the birthday cake is the inclusion of a 2-for-1 voucher for a tour of the Etihad Stadium.
Manchester City have pulled it level at this point and are dominating. Who will come out on top?
Manchester United 1 – 1 Manchester City
Facebook is one of the key areas for football clubs to really engage with their audience. Whether this is through imagery, video or competitions, teams can understand what their fans enjoy seeing.
Manchester City have a steady following on Facebook with 6.1m likes, posting content and images on the team, behind the scenes footage and match information. In comparison, Manchester United really dominate Facebook with a following of over 32m, posting engaging content on the club, current players, past players, and beautiful infographics and designed imagery. Not only that, they have developed multiple apps and unique content pieces, specifically for their Facebook fans.
Manchester United have taken it in these late stages.
Final Whistle – Manchester United 2 – 1 Manchester City
In a very close contest, Manchester United are in front of Manchester City when it comes to content marketing. The MUFC unique content is brilliant, however MCFC are strides ahead when it comes to email marketing. As well as the Premier League matches, we’ll be keeping a close eye on their content marketing battle for the foreseeable future.
Match Statistics
