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cailianshe news, september 14 (editor: shi zhengcheng)39-year-old portuguese footballer cristiano ronaldo reached a new personal record this week - the first person on the planet to have more than 1 billion followers on social media.

this number includes meta's instagram, facebook, musk's x, alphabet's streaming platform youtube, andchinese social media weibo and kuaishou。

(source: ronaldo's social media)

obviously, this can't be 1 billion unique followers, as many people follow him on multiple platforms, and bot accounts are a common problem on all major platforms, but it's still a remarkable achievement.

paolo pescatore, social media expert at pp foresight, exclaimed that "this is an astonishing number" and believed that the media and brands will pay close attention to this development. pescatore also said:this further underscores the fundamental changes taking place in the media industry, demonstrating the ability to reach new, younger audiences through technology.”。

breaking business value conventions

generally speaking, it is extremely difficult for a football player to maintain his professional career until the age of 39. the fact that his commercial value is still increasing on this basis further highlights the value of this achievement.

according to statistics from the british media bbc, ronaldo's achievements in the field of social media are cliff-like. his old rival messi has a total of 623 million fans (of course, there is also a reason why the player himself is quite "buddhist"), while taylor swift, who is enough to make the us presidential candidate nervous, has a total of 574 million fans. those internet celebrities who rely on traffic to make a living cannot compete with ronaldo.for example, mrbeast, the world's no. 1 online celebrity, has 543 million fans.。

(source: bbc)

in addition to the already very high popularity, operation is also a very important part.

the key to ronaldo's rush to 1 billion followers was the youtube account he opened last month. after posting 37 videos in three weeks, the number of subscribers to this account has exceeded 60 million.

so far, ronaldo's youtube videos have mainly consisted of conversations between him, his wife georgina, and former colleague rio ferdinand.

ronaldo's team is very clear about the preferences of platform users.all content is tailored for english-speaking audiences - even when ronaldo is speaking spanish or portuguese during filming, the videos are usually dubbed in english. coupled with the brightly colored thumbnails, this is a symbol of a mature operation team behind it.

it is worth mentioning that ronaldo’s commercial value still has room for further expansion - at least he can open a tiktok/douyin account.

keep setting records

as a professional player, ronaldo continues to set new records on the football field. last week he became the first player in football history to score 900 goals in the top professional league.

and the new achievements of social media also point directly to another number: revenue.

according to the global sports athlete income rankings released by forbes this year,c ronaldo ranks first in the world with $260 millionapart from the $200 million annual salary for playing in saudi arabia and the tens of millions of dollars in historical wage arrears paid by juventus, the rest are from a range of advertisers, including sports brands, health foods, wearable technology products, etc.

(source: forbes)

what’s even more interesting is that although ronaldo is about to turn 40 in february next year, he seems ready to continue playing on the court for a long time, and his business story will continue to reach new heights.