image sourceGetty Images
- author, Tom Gerkin
- position, Technology Reporter
Football star Cristiano Ronaldo has crossed one billion followers on various social media platforms. He has become the first person in the world to have such a large number of social media followers.
This one billion followers is a combination of his followers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Chinese social media apps Weibo and Cashew.
But it cannot be said that he has a billion followers because there are many of them who are following him on his various accounts while some of them are fake accounts or bots. .
But whatever the case, the social media expert associated with PP Forsyth describes the number of followers as ‘a huge number’, saying that the media and various brands will pay close attention to it.
“This is a great achievement and further demonstrates that changes are taking place in the media,” he says.
“It shows that technology has a lot to do with reaching the new and younger generation,” he told the BBC.
In the football field, he is portrayed as a fierce rival of the Argentine football star Lionel Messi.
But off the field, there is no competition between them as to who is leading or winning on social media. Messi has 623 million followers.
But not only in the world of sports, Ronaldo is far ahead of many big stars in the entertainment industry, including names like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.
Even social media personalities are far behind as the world’s top YouTuber Best has a total of 543 million followers on YouTube.
image sourceGetty Images
One billion followers
A major reason why Ronaldo crossed the one billion follower mark is his decision to create a YouTube account last month, where his channel reached 50 million subscribers within a week.
Now compare this to Messi who has been uploading videos on his YouTube channel since 2011 but still only has 3.5 million subscribers.
The reason for the difference between followers or subscribers is the rule that governs YouTube: YouTube content makes you the king.
Only one video has been uploaded to Messi’s channel in the last three years, which was a brilliant half-minute football advertisement.
Other videos on his channel are similarly short – while the longer videos are usually based on montages of him speaking in his native Spanish.
In contrast, on YouTube so far, Ronaldo’s channel has mainly consisted of conversations between him and his wife Georgina Rodriguez, as well as his former Manchester United teammate Rio Ferdinand.
All of his YouTube content is designed and presented for an English-speaking audience, even in some videos Ronaldo speaks in Portuguese and Spanish, but these are also dubbed into English.
Ronaldo and his wife upload videos almost every day and their thumbnails, the main images, are very cheerful and with a picture of Ronaldo. Their social media team seems to know exactly how to make a video popular on YouTube.
Ronaldo shared the news of reaching one billion followers on all his social media platforms.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s entire career has been breaking records. His achievements include being the top scorer in UEFA Champions League history, scoring the most goals in the European Championship, and playing more times than any other international player.
Last week he became the first footballer to score 900 goals.
As with his playing career, he also has the opportunity to further increase his followers on social media. Because like many of their competitors they are not yet on Threads or Tik Tok.
If they get on these platforms as well, not only will their social media followers increase, but their income will also increase.
According to Forbes magazine, his total income is currently 260 million dollars, which is the highest income of any athlete.
