
Social Content Opportunities for the Gen Z Football/Soccer Audience on TikTok in Q1 2023
Key Takeaways

Top content opportunities in Q1 2023 for the Gen Z Football audience on TikTok include:
- FIFA World Cup Traditions: Videos related to the traditions and history of the FIFA World Cup, including ceremonies, awards and trophies.
- Funny Football Moments: Compilations and single clips that highlight funny scenes on the football pitch.
- Argentina Celebrations: Footage that captures Argentina fans and team members celebrating their World Cup win, in Qatar and at home.

Purpose of This Research
To identify the top performing content on TikTok 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.

TikTok Content Bucket Definitions
- FIFA World Cup Traditions: Videos related to the traditions and history of the FIFA World Cup, including ceremonies, awards and trophies.
- Funny Football Moments: Compilations and single clips that highlight funny scenes on the football pitch.
- Argentina Celebrations: Footage that captures Argentina fans and team members celebrating their World Cup win, in Qatar and at home.
- Thematic Football Compilations: Compilation-style footage with themes such as breakaways, saves or bad calls during matches. This content is sequenced together with music and excludes compilations of funny football moments.
- Fouls & Freekicks: These videos look at fouls and the free kicks or penalty shots that follow during football matches.
- Messi Tributes: Videos, slide shows and various art forms made in tribute to Lionel Messi and his career.
- Footwork & Skills: Videos that showcase impressive footwork and ball-handling skills.
- Spotlight On Ronaldo: Content focussed on Cristiano Ronaldo in various formats and settings.
- Player Personality: Clips that share insight into the personality of professional football players through their interactions with teammates, opponents and fans.
- Goal Highlights: This category highlights noteworthy goals scored in World Cup and league matches at professional and amateur levels.
- Athlete Spotlight: Spotlighting a single athlete to focus on elements of their performance, ability, and career in single clips or compilations.
- Fan Behaviour: Football fans display their passion for the game and their favourite players while watching World Cup matches.
- Players off The Pitch: Professional players in their personal and family lives, participating in activities unrelated to football.
- Interview Clips: Full interviews and clips with professional football players and coaches.
- Pre-Game Hype: Videos designed to build excitement and anticipation for upcoming matches.
- Up & Coming Players: Footage highlighting talented young players and their football skills and careers.
- World Cup Team Announcements: Sharing moments when players discover they’ve been included on their country's world cup roster.
- Football News & Updates: News, updates and gossip coming out of the football world, typically related to player and team performance.

FIFA World Cup Traditions is an extreme performing content category, averaging 3x the views and engagement rate on TikTok.


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


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


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


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


Content Opportunities:
1. FIFA World Cup Traditions
Videos related to the traditions and history of the World Cup, including ceremonies, awards and trophies.
Tactics to Implement:
- Multiple Angles: Aerial footage and multiple camera angles in this video give viewers a 360-degree perspective of the performances, which were designed to be seen by fans on all sides of the stadium.
- World Cup Soundtrack: This video features a performance that is a mashup of songs from the official World Cup Soundtrack. FIFA mentions that the soundtrack is available for streaming in the video’s caption.
- Keeping it simple: This video simply pans from one award to the next, pausing briefly on each. There is no narration or on-screen text.
- Hashtags: Both videos use the official hashtag, #FIFAWorldCup.
164.3M Views
48.4M Views

2. Funny Football Moments
Compilations and single clips that highlight funny scenes on the football pitch. The top videos in this category are from Galinho FC and Football Time.
Tactics to Implement:
- Short & Sweet: Videos in this category range from 26-30 seconds.
- Music: All compilation videos feature pop music with a fast-paced beat that compliments the pace of the clip sequence.
- Short Descriptive Titles: Video titles are descriptive and use emojis to match the theme. Examples include “Funny Moments in Football 😂” and “Strange moments😮😲”. Using the word “moments” is suggestive of the compilation style of the video.
- Visual Emphasis: The content uses visual effects to add emphasis to parts of the play in focus by slowing down specific scenes or adding on-screen graphics to point out details.
- Galinho Tags: A Galinho FC account tag and their G10 logo are used on-screen throughout all of the account’s videos.
85M Views
79.3M Views

3. Argentina Celebrations
Footage that captures Argentina fans and team members celebrating their World Cup Win, in Qatar and at home. The top videos in this category are from the official FIFA World Cup account.
Tactics to Implement:
- Video Duration: The average duration of videos in this category is 15 seconds.
- Raw Footage: Raw video and audio capture the atmosphere and excitement of the scene in this video, including the shaky footage as the person filming jumps up and down with the crowd.
- Spotlight on Messi: The focal point of this video is Lionel Messi on the shoulders of a teammate while the team sings together. The audio for this video is a viral sound made from football commentary clips about Messi.
40.5M Views
40.1M Views

Outliers:
These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.
Player Personalities
Content: This video shows Mbappé playfully pranking his Paris Saint-Germain teammate, Neymar Jr., with a wet t-shirt to the face.
67.3M Views
Esports: FIFA23
Content: Slow motion footage of an unusual series of shots during gameplay in EA’s FIFA 23.
89.4M Views
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