INFLCR’s Top-10 college football clients–based on total team Instagram followers–include Michigan, Miami, Tennessee among other top programs. Looking at these 10 teams, the players accounts reach far more people than team accounts. For comparison, the team accounts pictured above reach approximately 2.3 million people. But the players’ accounts? Nearly 6 million.
The core mission of INFLCR is to serve athletes. Programs who partner with INFLCR grow their brand visibility by increasing student-athletes’ social media presence and followers.
This social media strategy brings value to the organization by driving content to the players, whereas the organization gains in added interest and support of the team. These schools are invested and realize the benefits of collaborating with INFLCR.
When you break down the numbers, here’s how Michigan is winning the numbers game: the Michigan Football Team Instagram account has around 336,000 followers.
The players’ individual Instagram accounts have a combined 1,000,000+ followers.
“This data highlights the power of athletes on social media, and explains why programs are investing more resources than ever into brand-building and storytelling,” said INFLCR COO Neeta Sreekanth.
In November 2019, Michigan Football began partnering with INFLCR. This partnership makes content easily accessible to student-athletes, which in turn boosts audience engagement on social. Harnessing that much bigger student-athlete following means that athletic programs promoting storytelling by their student-athletes can amplify their own brand and messaging.
Alumni, donors, and especially potential recruits are able to get a behind-the-scenes look into what it’s like to play at a particular athletic program, through the lens of the student-athletes themselves.
With the NIL era approaching, in which student-athletes will be able to monetize their personal channels on social media, INFLCR expects the numbers will keep rising.
“As we head into a new era of collegiate athletics with NIL, programs focused on their athletes’ brands are going to see dividends on the recruiting front. It is more important than ever that athletic departments see the power of athletes’ social distribution and invest in it to help grow awareness of their programs,” said Sreekanth.
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