Barça, first football club with over a million followers on TikTok

FC Barcelona is the first football club to reach a million followers on TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@fcbarcelona), the world’s leading destination for short-form mobile video. In just two months, Barça has considerably overtaken other international teams that were on the channel long before Barça came onto the scene. 

Barça was officially launched on TikTok on July 19, the same day that the first team returned for preseason training. Since then, his acceptance among TikTok’ community has been nothing short of spectacular, with an average of over 15,000 new followers every day. Apart from this upward tendency, the club also leads the way in terms of content-related interactions: the Barça account has gathered a total of 7.2 million ‘likes’, which apart from video views is another indicator about the engagement generated with the fans. 

During these first few months, the content that has gone down best among users have included the arrival of Antoine Griezmann, the summer tours to Japan and the United States, and the UEFA awards gala in Monaco, with Leo Messi and Frenkie de Jong featuring prominently. Fun and entertainment, coupled with the involvement of the players, are two of the main reasons behind Barça’s success on this channel. 

TikTok, the leading destination for short-term video

Football content is very popular on TikTok, where it has a great reception among users, mainly the Z generation and Millennials. That is why, on occasion of the launch of the new kit, FC Barcelona set up the #BarcelonaChallenge, inviting users to create content featuring the famous ‘blaugrana’ jersey. The users’ videos, with participants from 33 different countries, generated more than 5 and a half million views. The most original entries were shared on the club’s official account. 

More than the symbolic achievement of reaching a million followers, this reflects the leading position of FC Barcelona in the digital ecosystem of social networks, where it has 340 million followers and is the only sports club to get more than 1,000 million interactions in the 2018/19 season. This boom on TikTok, one of the most downloaded apps in 2018, is a clear example of the value of the Barça brand and the love and affinity that the club generates among the younger audience, which forms the main user base of users of this platform. 

Statement by Dídac Lee, member of the FC Barcelona Board of Directors responsible for the Digital Area:

"In the FC Barcelona Digital Area we believe that the best way to connect and generate engagement with our audience is via new communication channels with which we can interact with users and generate unique experiences that help to take the Club closer to its fans around the world. That’s why we are so proud to have reached a million followers on TikTok, the leading destination for short form videos with the greatest potential for growth today and that enjoys a wide popularity among young people. We have achieved this in little more than two months and this will undoubtedly help to consolidate FC Barcelona’s leadership on social networks, where we already have more than 340 million followers.”