Sensation by Union – Berliners win the title

A new champion: 1. FC Union Berlin crossed the finish line as 2023 champion in the virtual title race of the International Football Institute’s (IFI) digital social media league. Union, fourth in the 2022/23 Bundesliga and rewarded with a Champions League ticket, catapulted from ninth place last year to a place in the sun. In second and third place: serial champions Bayern Munich, who triumphed on the pitch for the eleventh time in a row and won the Social Media League in 2018 and 2020, ahead of RB Leipzig, DFB Cup winners and Social Media Champions 2021 & 2022. The Munich/Ismaning-based International Football Institute (IFI) independently and scientifically evaluated the official social media accounts of the 18 first division clubs over the entire 2022/23 Bundesliga season, determined the Social Media Index for each club and, based on this, the final table of the 2023 Social Media League.

Prof. Dr. Katharina Schöttl, who heads the Digital Communications department at the IFI, explains Union’s sensational social media performance in 2022/23, which saw the club improve from ninth place to the title: “Union Berlin has impressively demonstrated how it can succeed in taking sporting success to social media and thus, in terms of social media performance, catch up in just one season with those clubs that have been at the top of the social media league table for years. Particularly noteworthy are the authentic communication style, the detailed design of the posts, and Union’s exploitation of the technical and configurational possibilities on all channels.”

While FC Bayern Munich (2nd) and RB Leipzig (3rd) have consistently occupied top positions in the social media league for years, Union Berlin has managed for the first time to translate its successes on the pitch into fourth place in the Champions League on Insta, YouTube and the like.