Most engaged esports organisations on social media - May 2021
The top performers on esports social media, and a breakdown of the Top 10 organisations from each of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook
When it comes to engaging a fanbase, finding an engaged fanbase and creating genuine value out of competitive teams as an esports organisation, three games rule social media going into the second half of 2021:
Free Fire, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang & VALORANT.
EVOS by name might not have won at the Free Fire World Series in Singapore, but their Thai sister team — forced to rename to Phoenix Force due to the primary Indonesian roster also qualifying — walked away winners in the most-watched esports event of all time without including a Chinese audience.
LOUD, formed now three years ago by former Free Fire player PlayHard, rode high with top-four finishes on all three primary ephemeral social media platforms after celebrating a second place in Singapore with a creator-led network as bannermen for the team.
Blacklist International, another youthful and influencer-heavy organisation, ended May by finally winning their domestic Mobile Legends league and look to match EVOS’ prowess as the Philippines and Indonesia lead the way going into June’s Mobile Legends Southeast Asian Cup.
Sentinels, rebranded from Phoenix1 at around the same time as the aforementioned were formed, are the clear performance-focus phenomenon on western esports social media. Their win at the inaugural international VALORANT LAN felt so correct.
Karmine Corp won EU Masters, the academy level of League of Legends in Europe, in front of more than 300,000 viewers on the French-language stream alone. Since being formed by YouTubers Kameto and Pride last year, Kcorp’s full matchday experience set with streams from their owners and a full football-inspired ultra movement has changed all possibilities for recently founded esports organisations.
Kcorp is a regional-focused team in a franchised esport and yet they have a larger, more dedicated and more highly engaged community than literally any of the franchised teams who’ve spent the millions more to buy into the top division.
After winning EU Masters, their test now is to take the perceived value their hugely engaged audience provides and create a lasting business without necessarily having a franchise league to fall back on.
Pentanet.GG had 5K engagement in April. Their internal goal before the Mid-season Invitational was to get to 2K followers. Barely anyone outside of the Perth area of Australia even knew about what would become their new favourite internet service provider, Pentanet.
About any deliberated plan prior to their MSI appearance, their social media manager, Winston told me “my strategy was to interact with every single person, celebrity, influencer, pro player and fan [in League of Legends].” 3K tweets later and they had 23K followers and half a million in monthly engagement.
Last year, Riot Games dissolved Oceania’s league, stating: “OPL has not met our goals for the league, and we do not believe that the market is currently able to support the league in its current form”. With elements of fortune, revenge and genuine existing skill, PGG qualified from the play-ins of an international League of Legends event for the first time, and its story needed to be amplified with the banter Riot’s decision warranted.
Concerning next steps, Winston stated: “I feel that after our recent boom at MSI, it’s my duty to help promote the LCO in every way I can to get more eyes watching and noticing it more.”
Team Liquid are one of the few organisations in esports to fully disaggregate their Twitter pages between teams and locations. They have CS:GO & LoL accounts for hundreds of thousands of followers, they have pages focused on Japan. But it’s their Brasilian page and team that shows how to be non-native but truly localise a brand voice.
After a grand final finish at the Rainbow Six Invitational, it’s no surprise to see their Brasilian operation grow at unfathomable speeds. Not forgetting the irony of the word, but Brasil’s presence on Twitter and Instagram is loud. Team Liquid entered the country in 2019 and, perhaps better than any Northern American org before them, has localised its brand with authenticity and deep cultural understanding, with huge social media success as a result.
Sentinels laser-focused tone of voice and operations have led to a social media phenomenon leading to winning the first-ever international VALORANT LAN.
Their roster is not only incredible — winning VCT without dropping a single map — but also share hundreds of thousands of followers across social platforms already. Mix that with a culturally homogenous region desperate to see international success in a popular and growing esport, then you have almost everything needed to find an inevitable organic marketing success story.
All that needed to be added was sharp, consistent, domineering social media copy and design — 80% of tweets would have 10 or less words, all graphics would be chromatic mindful of the redness of its brand — for unseen levels of engagement against followers for Twitter.
Instagram sees less fluctuation than Twitter or even TikTok and YouTube. But it shows one thing clearly: global expansion for any brand should come on Instagram, should use localised content and should incorporate mobile esports.
Mobile esports brands will likely soon surpass their equivalents in football and cricket. Six of the Top 10 are mobile-first organisations and only one operates English-first.
After the bar was set by Free Fire, the Mobile Legends Southeast Asian Cup in June will determine which is the bigger mobile esport. What is not up for debate, though, is that EVOS not only compete in both but are high-performing and heavily engaging in both. Indonesia is the key for any brand entering mobile esports, and EVOS are the team.
Fluxo did not exist 20 weeks ago. In 2020, the team literally did not exist. Nobru, Corinthian Free Fire’s star player & Cerol, a stratospherically popular YouTuber, came together to mirror very similarly what Karmine Corp achieved in France. Their talent and community connection have fast been translated into genuine value. With the Free Fire World Series peaking at over 5 million viewers, the likes of banco next are fast benefitting from backing what was a two-month-old organisation when they signed.
All but 3 of NRG’s posts in May centred around four creators, Clix, Benjy, Ronaldo & Aceu. They operate less as an esports team and more as a creator house for their incredibly popular network. Reflecting the success of the largest Indonesian and Brasilian teams, Instagram is still owned by content-ready creator networks within esports.
With 1.5M watching the end of their playoffs, Mobile Legends in the Philippines might just be the most well-engaged domestic esport outside of China. Through a refreshingly clean tone of voice, a focus on influencer network marketing and incredible performance focus, Blacklist International are rising so fast amongst the competition that it’s hard to doubt they’ll own even more mobile markets in Southeast Asia in the years coming.
The Mobile Legends Southeast Asian Cup began on 7th June, and it’s clear that it’ll be one of the biggest esports events in history. The Philippines especially own Facebook, and the audience engages to levels higher than even global brands on Twitter & Instagram. With Indonesian teams EVOS Esports & Bigetron Esports joining Blacklist International & Execration, social media records will be broken in June.
LOUD are the most engaged organisation on Twitter, the second most engaged org on Instagram and the fourth most engaged org on Facebook. Their multiplatform control of an audience, despite being primarily domestically focused, is unfathomable and surely the envy of every esports brand in the world.
Team Secret are the only organisation founded outside of Southeast Asia or South America in Facebook’s Top 10. With high positions on Twitter & Instagram as well, their approach to entering the Southeast Asian mobile esports market should be used as a case study for any western org looking to expand into primarily mobile esports regions.
Expectations for June 2021:
The Free Fire World Series Singapore was unbelievably large, being viewed by more than 5 million people and bringing together every large mobile esports region. Next up comes MSC, which pits together every top Mobile Legends team in Southeast Asia against each other. The expectations of a potential Blacklist International-EVOS grand final bring with it expectations of huge numbers.
After its break from domestic play and a brief foray in Iceland for the Mid-Season Invitational, League of Legends is back in its respective regions. LEC, LCS, CBLOL, LCK and LPL all typically perform better in Summer Split as we prepare for the World Championships. But more excitingly we await whether Kcorp’s ultras can keep LFL’s numbers high enough to compete with the top tournaments.
