ຄົ້ນຄ້ວາOct 01 2024
Analyzing UEFA's TikTok communication strategy during Eurocup 2024
This blog is a brief synopsis of the study made by two researchers who utilized Exolyt to analyze UEFA's TikTok communication strategy during Eurocup
Sandra Arias Montesinos
Digital Marketing Consultant and Research Associate at the University of Alicante

The 2024 European Championship (Eurocup24) has been a highly mediatised event, both through traditional and digital channels. Amongst these digital platforms, TikTok, the new major social network, has attracted athletes, clubs, and federations, becoming a priority channel for communication.

This is unsurprising, as TikTok has emerged as a social phenomenon since 2020: during the COVID-19 pandemic, it became the world’s most downloaded app, according to SensorTown. Its entertaining and dynamic content gained widespread popularity during the pandemic's weariness. Another reason for TikTok’s success is its unique algorithm, which can predict and recommend content likely to appeal to the user.

These two factors—the success of TikTok and its usage by sports entities—have encouraged more in-depth research into the communication strategies and content types employed by the football federations participating in the European Championship on this platform.

About the research

This study analyses TikTok’s videos of 18 UEFA football federations participating in the 2024 European Championship, all of which maintain an official presence on TikTok. The study analyses a total of 1,762 videos published on the platform.

Two researchers from the University of Alicante (UA) and the International University of Valencia (VIU) conducted the research, utilizing Exolyt during the analysis phase for content and metrics on TikTok.

Exolyt contributed to the fieldwork phase by providing:

  • All engagement metrics during the analysis period.
  • A comparison with the total engagement metrics of the TikTok analysed accounts.
  • A breakdown of metrics for each published video.
  • The follower profile of TikTok analysed the account.
  • Sentiment analysis of analysed videos.
  • Hashtags views of the 2024 European Championship.
  • Additional information regarding the paid promotion of videos.

This data has been extremely valuable during the fieldwork phase of the research. The TikTok Analytics and Social Intelligence insights captured on Exolyt have significantly reduced the time required for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the study.

Essential TikTok metrics supporting this research

  • Engagement
  • Follower count
  • Related Hashtags

Engagement

The analysis of the communication strategies of European football federations on TikTok has focused on a decisive factor: engagement. Engagement, measured in terms of likes, comments, shares, and views, is the key indicator of a post's success on TikTok.

These engagement metrics provide a clear view of a follower’s interest in the content of the analyzed brand (in this case, the football federations participating in the 2024 European Championship).

Here's a glimpse of the engagement metrics captured on Exolyt for one of the federations analyzed.

Source: Exolyt

Exolyt simplified the extraction and analysis of these metrics. The tool offers a precise and comprehensive diagnosis of an account’s engagement, as well as specific details for a particular time period or video relevant to the research.

Follower profile

One key factor in understanding the communication strategies of the federations on TikTok is analyzing the profiles of their followers. While TikTok is a heterogeneous platform, younger demographics are more prominently represented, as they seek dynamic and entertaining content, which is abundant on this social network.

The world of sports has found TikTok to be a perfect channel for reaching younger audiences, which were not as easily accessible through more traditional channels.

With Exolyt, it has been possible to analyze:

  • The percentage of users by age group and gender following each federation.
  • The country of origin of these users.

Here's a glimpse into the follower profile of one of the federations analyzed.

Source: Exolyt

There is consensus that between 50% and 75% of the followers of football federations participating in the European Championship are users under the age of 30. Understanding this information allows the federations to assess whether their content suits this audience. This factor also helps evaluate the engagement metrics obtained.

Hashtags

Another focus of analysis in this research has been hashtags used during the European Championship 2024: during the sporting event, official hashtags such as #eurocup or #euro2024 gained millions of views.

However, non-official hashtags related to personalities, anecdotes, and milestones of the 2024 European Championship also gained significant traction. Analyzing these hashtags also provides a closer insight into how the competition is perceived in each country.

Exolyt enabled this analysis by account and helped link the growth in hashtag visibility to specific time periods.

Here's a glimpse into the most-liked hashtags on the account of the French National Football team, a participant in the 2024 European Championship.

Source: Exolyt

The analysis of these factors has clearly shown user interest in the TikTok content published by each UEFA federation.

This study's information and conclusions could be highly useful for marketing departments, particularly for TikTok content strategists and social media managers in general.

Here are some highlights of the insights captured from Exolyt:

  • Video analysis showcased UEFA engaged fans through interactive and various content mixes (entertaining, informational) and encouraged community participation.
  • Followers demographics like gender, age and country of origin of each UEFA Federation.
  • Content that was released, considering the audience demographics, has a significant effect on the engagement metrics obtained.
  • Using relevant event-specific official and non-official hashtags helped increase discoverability and reach, connecting with broader trends and conversations.
  • Different accounts experienced growth in hashtag visibility during key moments of the tournament.

This information is captured from the analysis of engagement, follower profiles, and hashtags on Exolyt, along with other video sentiment and promotion stats.

It highlights the effectiveness of the UEFA Federation's communication strategy on TikTok and showcases how they leveraged the platform to connect with fans during Eurocup 2024.

About the researchers

This synopsis was compiled by researchers Sandra Arias Montesinos and Javier Zamora Saborit, who used Exolyt as one of the sources for their research data and insights.

Sandra is an independent consultant in digital marketing and business and an Associate Professor and Researcher at the University of Alicante and the Open University of Catalonia (UOC); she has also taught in various other B-Schools. Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandrarias/

Javier holds a PhD in Communication from the Jaume I University of Castellón. He is a lecturer and coordinator of the Marketing Degree program at the International University of Valencia. He also works as an independent branding consultant. Connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-zamora-estrategia-de-marca/

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Sandra Arias Montesinos
Digital Marketing Consultant and Research Associate at the University of Alicante