Social Content Opportunities for the Gen Z Football Audience on Instagram Q1 2023

Key Takeaways

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Top content opportunities in Q1 2023 for the Gen Z Football audience include:

• Argentina Team Celebrations: Footage of the Argentina national team celebrating their World Cup win. The top-performing videos in this category feature candid footage of the team congratulating each other and commemorating their victory.

• Tackles, Fouls & Free Kicks: Dramatic moments on the pitch when players collide, often resulting in a team winning a free kick or the attacking player receiving a yellow card.

• Spotlight on Ronaldo: Videos with a singular focus on Cristiano Ronaldo. This content is varied and includes footage of the athlete on and off the pitch.

• World Cup Anticipation: Videos from the official Fifa World Cup account, that are designed to build excitement for matches and spark engagement in the comment section.

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How the Social Content Opportunity Analysis™ Methodology Works

1. ‍Measure & Categorize Posts. Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
2. ‍Identify Top Themes. Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
3. ‍Measure The Benchmark. Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. ‍Identify & Rank Opportunities. Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
5. ‍Repeat For Each Platform. Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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Purpose of This Research

To identify the top performing content on Instagram for the Football/ Soccer Audience during the 2022 World Cup, in order to:

• Resonate with Gen Z and Millennial Viewers.
• Inform the creation of relevant Football/Soccer content and messaging during World Cup Season. 
• Provide target view and engagement benchmarks for new content. 

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Instagram Content Bucket Definitions

• Argentina Team Celebrations: Footage of the Argentina national team celebrating their World Cup win. 
• Tackles, Fouls & Free Kicks: Dramatic moments on the pitch when players collide, often resulting in a team winning a free kick or the attacking player receiving a yellow card. 
• Spotlight on Ronaldo: Videos with a singular focus on Cristiano Ronaldo. This content is varied and includes footage of the athlete on and off the pitch.
• Personal & Family Life: This category depicts professional footballers outside of sport while engaged in other activities and family life. 
• Streets of Buenos Aires: Footage that captures the celebrations and energy in Buenos Aires after Argentina won the World Cup.
• World Cup Fan Behaviour: Football fans display their passion for the game while watching World Cup matches from home or in Qatar. 
• World Cup Anticipation: Videos from the official Fifa World Cup account, that are designed to build excitement for upcoming matches and spark engagement in the comment section of the post.
• Results and Rankings: Videos that announce results and stats using dynamic mediums and animated graphics. 
• Funny Football Moments: Funny and entertaining scenes from professional and amateur-level football matches. 
• Standout Plays: Footage highlighting standout plays during World Cup and regular league matches.
• Athlete Personality: Clips that share insight into the personality of professional football players through their words and actions.
• Footwork & Skills: Single takes and compilations that showcase impressive footwork and ball-handling skills during matches. 
• Player Background: These videos share details on the background or career history of a single player.
• Player Highlight Compilations: Compilation-style videos highlighting the top performances of one player throughout their career.
• Goal Spotlight: This category features clips of note-worthy goals scored in World Cup and league matches.
• Training Scenes: A behind-the-scenes look at how professional players train, both on the pitch and in the gym.
• Animated Clips: Short videos using animated caricatures of professional football players to communicate a story or event. 

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Excellent performing content categories for the Gen Z Football audience on Instagram include:

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Good performing content categories for the Gen Z Football audience on Instagram include:

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Substandard performing content categories for the Gen Z Football audience on Instagram include:

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Low performing content categories for the Gen Z Football audience on Instagram include:

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Content Opportunities:

1. Argentina Team Celebrations

Footage of the Argentina national team celebrating their World Cup 2022 win. The top-performing videos in this category featured candid footage of Argentina teammates congratulating each other and commemorating the victory.

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Duration: The average duration of videos in this category is 23 seconds.
• Raw Footage: Raw video and audio help to depict the excitement of the scenes. In another top-performing video in this category, the footage is recorded by a player on a phone and becomes unsteady as the player begins dancing and singing with his teammates. 
• Behind-The-Scenes: This video takes place in the team’s dressing room and gives viewers a BTS view of the facilities and paints a candid picture of the way the team reacted to and celebrated their victory. 

68M  Views

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33M  Views

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2. Tackles, Fouls & Free Kicks

Dramatic moments on the pitch when players collide, often resulting in a team winning a free kick or the attacking player receiving a yellow card. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Duration: The average duration of videos in this category is 21 seconds.
• Top Players: The highest-performing videos in this category involve the highest-performing players in the World Cup. These videos include the stand-out players from 2022 World Cup final, Messi and Mbappé.
• Timing: Both videos were posted in the days leading up to a relevant World Cup match. This example features a pivotal moment from the France vs. Argentina game during the 2018 World Cup. It was shared after the two teams advanced to the finals in the 2022 World Cup. The UEFA Champions League account shared this video the same day that Messi and Modrić faced off in the Argentina vs. Croatia game. 

45M  Views

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33M  Views

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3. Spotlight on Ronaldo

Videos with a singular focus on Cristiano Ronaldo. This content is varied and includes footage of the athlete on and off the pitch.

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Duration: The average duration of videos in this category is 23 seconds, however, the second-highest-performing post is a 3-minute compilation video. 
• Compilation Videos: The top-performing videos in this category string together multiple clips of Ronaldo during matches over the years.
• Dramatic Audio: Both examples use audio to tie the clips together and create a tone for the video. This example uses instrumental music and includes the original game commentary while this one uses a hard rock track that matches the intensity of the play.  

40M  Views

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25M  Views

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Outliers:

These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.

Training Scenes

Content:  Clips of the Brazilian national team using their training facilities with a particular focus on Neymar Jr. 

34M Views

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Personal & Family Life

Content: This video captures a sweet encounter between Neymar Jr. and his mother while they dance. The professional football player used the caption “TE AMO ❤️” and tagged his mom.

86M Views