Instagram has revealed Riyadh-based club Al Nasr as the most talked about Saudi League team in the Kingdom, attracting the most conversation since the re-start of the season. Instagram launched its #ThereInSpirit campaign to mark the return of the football season in Saudi Arabia and encourage fans to collaborate, create and cheer on the platform. It partnered with popular footballing star Omar Al Somah (@somah) to launch a voice-activated AR filter tailor-made for the Saudi football community. As part of its campaign, celebrating the return of football, Instagram collated the most frequent occurrences of the country's top clubs in posts and stories since Aug. 4. Amongst the seven clubs included, Al Hilal and Al Ittihad came a close second and third. Meanwhile, Jeddah's Al Ahli and Riyadh's Al Shabab followed in fourth and fifth positions, respectively. "Football clubs have always attracted a devoted fandom on Instagram, and to celebrate the return of the season, we took a look at all the mentions, shout outs and hashtags that bring this community together. "Al Nasr fans are the most vocal on Instagram, but Al Hilal fans are not far behind, with Al Ittihad, Al Ahli fans also using Instagram to express their support for their team," said Samer Jamal, MENA strategic partnerships manager at Instagram. Al Hilal is the most followed account with 2.7M, followed by Al Nasr with 544K followers and Instagram also identified the players with the most frequent mentions in the Kingdom. Al Hilal counterparts Sebastian Giovinco and Bafétimbi Gomis, in addition to Al Ahli center-forward Omar Al Somah make up the top three. "Instagram will always be a place to celebrate self-expression and community, and football fans in Saudi Arabia perfectly embody this. Football has always been a big part of the conversation in the Kingdom for us, but now more than ever, we are seeing fans use features like filters, stories and IGTV to share their love for the game, support their favourite players and have positive interactions with fellow football fans," said Jamal. Fans are encouraged to use the campaign-dedicated AR filter to express support for their teams in the remaining rounds. — SG
