Some of you will be aware that I’m hardly a closet Roger Federer fan. I am, in fact, an openly fanatical follower of all things ‘Fed’. I am Fed and Proud.

I feel like a fan. I react like a fan when he loses, and when he wins. I consume Fed content every day and if he plays, I’ll watch it live. I get my scores and match insights from Yahoo! Eurosport and I get deeper match analysis at FuzzyYellowBalls.com or Tennis.com. I’m registered on RogerFederer.com, which I visit regularly, along with his Facebook page, to derive a sense of intimacy that 2nd hand journalism can’t provide.

There is a point to this confessionary introduction: I am not alone. Believe me when I say that Roger Federer is extremely popular. Earlier this year, Federer won the Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship award for the 6th consecutive time, surpassing the previous record held by Edberg himself, and was announced as the ATPWorldTour.com’s Fans’ Favourite for a record 7th consecutive year. His monumental success on the court, and his humble demeanour off it, has earned him much applause, and nowhere is this more evident than on his Facebook page.

His page is home to over 3.3million fans, who have contributed to over 1,300 discussion topics and have uploaded 180 videos and 11,000 pictures, many of which are of a very high quality. Whenever Federer posts something new – typically every 2-3weeks – the post will receive somewhere between 4,000-10,000 comments and 20,000-40,000 likes. The photo below is one such example, taken when he first went to see the new roof at Centre Court, Wimbledon.

What staggers me isn’t just the enormous size of Federer’s fanbase, but the level of interaction they maintain. His fans can’t stop telling him, and telling each other, how much they appreciate him.

What’s really interesting is that Federer seems to be setting the bar for other sports stars. Of the 2009 Forbes list of the world’s highest paid athletes - which I’ve tentatively used as being representative of an athlete’s popularity (for want of a better benchmark) – this is how the top 10 stack up on Facebook (*denotes apparently unofficial page):

1. Tiger Woods (1.3m fans, 394 discussions, 4 photos, 77 videos)
2. Kobe Bryant (2.1m fans, 15 discussions, 610 photos, 13 videos)
3. Michael Jordan (2.2m fans, 67 discussions, 1,070 photos, no videos)
4. Kimi Raikkonen* (under 9,000 fans, no discussions, 49 photos, no videos)
5. David Beckham (2.6m fans, 360 discussions, no photos, no videos)
6. LeBron James (1.8m fans, 132 discussions, 607 photos, 11 videos)
7. Phil Mickelson* (14,600 fans, 3 discussions, 12 photos, no videos)
8. Manny Pacquaio (302,000 fans, 38 discussions, 497 photos, no videos)
9. Valentino Rossi (1.8m fans, no discussions, no photos, no videos)
10. Dale Earnhart, Jr. (158,000 fans, 4 discussions, 1,125 photos, 4 videos)
(In case you were wondering, Roger Federer ranked at no.11, 1 place above Shaquille O’Neal and Alex Rodriguez.)

I looked up every big athlete I could think of – Lewis Hamilton, Maria Sharapova, Sachin Tendulkar – and the only athlete I could find who has more fans than Federer is Cristiano Ronaldo (3.8m fans, 889 discussions, 10,673 photos, 65 videos), with Michael Phelps also entertaining an impressive 2.8m following. But where does Federer get all his fans from?

Most sites get their traffic from Google, so that seems like a good place to start. The Google Trends graph below (Ronaldo is the blue line) suggests that while their number of Facebook fans is comparable (Ronaldo has 14% more fans), as a proportion of Facebook fans to search interest, Federer is more efficient than Ronaldo. He converts a higher percentage of search interest into fans.

Perhaps this is due to their being more general news coverage for Ronaldo than Federer, keeping him top of mind? Well, the above says otherwise. The two are again comparable. Not only is Ronaldo not converting search interest into fan-base, but there isn’t the supply of editorial content available to meet the demands of his potential fans. It’s unclear where the surplus flows to, but this is good news for anyone that holds Ronaldo content.

There is one other man who hosts a not-too-dissimilar number of fans to Federer, but matches his volume of user generated content uploads. That man is Rafael Nadal (2.3m fans, no discussions, though there is a language barrier for his English speaking fans to be fair, 8,989 photos, 188 videos). What is it about Federer and Nadal? Why do their fans love to engage with their content to such an extent?

Well, first and foremost it’s down to the volume of unique content available, content that’s come straight from the stars themselves; it’s personal, and it’s trustworthy. Tennis, golf, athletics, boxing, even cricket, are sports where audience attention is on an individual for an extended period of time.

In tennis, particularly at Grand Slam level, athletes betray a full range of physical and mental emotions during matches that can last 4 hours. This emotional connection, which I’ve written about before, builds trust between viewers and athletes just as it does between friends.

People feel inclined to interact with Nadal and Federer because they feel like they know them, and when these athletes share personal messages and personal content with their fanbase, these feelings are compounded. Unlike some sports personalities, what we see is what we get: they’re nice, down to earth guys who care about the same things we do. They just happen to have extraordinary talent.

Facebook not only provides a platform where personal content can be shared in a personal environment – my page – it means they can express their admiration in between interacting with their own friends and family groups. Believe me, it’s a lot easier to do it on Facebook than to try and scream over thousands of spectators at a live event.

Letting fans into your world, even if it’s just a photo of you looking at a tennis court, has real value. Ultimately, if you treat fans as you’d treat a friend, then you’ll always have them on your side, even when times get hard. What Roger Federer’s Facebook page shows it that while being nice doesn’t cost anything, it certainly pays dividends.

If you’re interested in how sports personalities are embracing social media, be sure to read  our POV on Twitter & Sport.

Federer image by Richard Fisher on flickr

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