Post-fergie Era Sees United Join Twitter

Manchester United has finally launched its official Twitter account, @ManUtd, designed to engage with the club’s fans around the world – becoming the final Barclays Premier League team to join the social networking site, with all 20 clubs now running official accounts.

@ManUtd went live at 8:30am on Wednesday morning with the tweet New era, same spirit. The season starts here. Let’s do this. #mufc signalling the new era under David Moyles, and passed the 100,000 follower mark in just 90 minutes.

The Red Devils also revealed its Sina Weibo pages, a micro-blogging service that is partiuarly popular in China, and will allow fans around the world to engage with the club through artwork, behind-the-scenes footage and exclusive content sent directly to their news feeds.

The club had previously played down a need for a presence on social media, however – according to an official press release – further new products and platforms are also set to be announced later this summer.

The @ManUtd Twitter page, which will initially launch in English before expanding into foreign-language versions, will reach the club’s fans among the 200 million active Twitter users worldwide. Manchester United’s Sina Weibo account will provide content in Mandarin to the service’s 500 million users.

Despite previously avoiding the ‘twittersphere’, the club still has a strong online presence with 67m page views on its manutd.com website during the final month of the 2012/13 football season and over 34m likes on its Facebook page. 

These new services will be complemented by the updated press office Twitter account (rebranded as @MU_spokesperson) that will supply updates on Manchester United’s business and commercial developments.

Richard Arnold, group managing director, said: ‘Connecting with our fans is a key part of the club’s strategy. We have invested a lot of time and resource into providing the best media offering for its fans, which is evident from the recent MUTV acquisition and today’s Twitter and Sina Weibo launches.’

‘Every month there are over 5 million Manchester United related social media posts and the level of engagement we have with our fans via social media is amongst the highest of all top global brands. I look forward to these new ventures further extending the club’s interaction with its fans around the world.’

The announcement is the second in as many days for the club, who also revealed Aeroflot as its Official Carrier at a launch at Old Trafford yesterday.