Archive for category National teams

Australian netball on Facebook and Twitter

Posted by Laura on Tuesday, 12 January, 2010

When I was compiling the list of Twitter accounts for the ANZ Championship, I found several Australian netball team Twitter related accounts, including ones for Australian Diamonds, Petersham RUFC Netball Club, ACE Netball Club, Orcas Netball.  I got details regarding the total number of followers, checked totals on Facebook and compared these to the ANZ teams.  The following table was generated:

Australian Netball on Facebook and Twitter

State League Team Total Facebook Twitter
Victoria ANZ Championship Melbourne Vixens 1,764 860 904
Australia Netball Australia Australian Diamonds (national team) 1,651 1,580 71
Queensland ANZ Championship Queensland Firebirds 213 0 213
New South Wales ANZ Championship New South Wales Swifts 90 0 90
Western Australia ANZ Championship West Coast Fever 66 0 66
South Australia ANZ Championship Adelaide Thunderbirds 62 0 62
New South Wales Netball New South Wales Petersham RUFC Netball Club 22 0 22
Queensland Brisbane Netball Association ACE Netball Club 21 0 21
Victoria Plenty Valley Netball Association Orcas Netball 20 0 20
New Zealand ANZ Championship Canterbury Tactix 0 0 0
New Zealand ANZ Championship Central Pulse 0 0 0
New Zealand ANZ Championship Northern Mystics 0 0 0
New Zealand ANZ Championship Southern Steel 0 0 0
New Zealand ANZ Championship Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic 0 0 0

For the smaller club teams that are more about participation, there just is not a Facebook interest in them.  This is not surprising as listing a team you participate in recreationally might seem odd; you’re not a fan but a player and the team isn’t professional or top level so it is unlikely others will want to find you as a result of your participation.  At least two of those teams have a Facebook presence to share news but this is not enough to get people to list these teams as an interest.

Beyond the clubs listed, there are some regional accounts for those interested in Australian netball.  They include @NetballAust – Netball Australia (72 followers), @Sydney_Netball – Sydney and New South Wales netball news from a newspaper (31 followers), and @netballvic – Netball Victoria (20 followers).

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Tags: , , , , , , , , , Category: ANZ Championship, Australian Netball Team, Facebook, Twitter Comments

Commonwealth Bank Trophy teams on Facebook

Posted by Laura on Sunday, 10 January, 2010

The Commonwealth Bank Trophy is the premiere competition in Australia for women’s netball.  The competition has ten teams.  They are:

  • Adelaide Thunderbirds
  • AIS Canberra Darters
  • Hunter Jaegers
  • Melbourne Kestrels
  • Melbourne Phoenix
  • Perth Orioles
  • Queensland Firebirds
  • Sydney Swifts

Given the popularity netball for women in Australia, with 389,400 women having participated in 2002, I would have suspected some interest in the premiere competition on Facebook.  Yet according to Facebook’s Advertising targeting, no one is interested in any of those teams.  This with 60,200 people interested in netball by Australians on Facebook.   Most of the fans are female: 53,920 or 89.5%.  Interest in Australia’s national netball team is at 1,580 with 1,360 being female.  This interest in the sport and in the national team just is not translating into interest in teams in the major competition.

Edited to add: My bad.  This competition came to an end in 2007.  While Facebook has some fans in defunct teams, two years later it isn’t that surprising that there are not people interested in these teams as Facebook penetration is Australia is slower than it was in the United States, where people may have listed interests years ago and never got around to updating them.

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Tags: , , , , , , , , , Category: Australian Netball Team, Commonwealth Bank Trophy, Facebook Comments