How do you measure value on social media? And how do you measure success?

The definition changes depending on who you are. If you’re a sports team, engaging with your fans is the aim. If you’re a brand or a business, your aims may be less clear, and might range from selling more products to establishing a company voice or feel.

Social media success, it turns out, is notoriously slippery. It has to do with those objectives and what you want to get out of a particular campaign, but it also has to do with the content that you produce and whether your audience enjoys what you do. And that doesn’t always translate into shares. And shares don’t always mean quality content.

But audience interaction is one of the metrics that Forbes is using to rank the value of sports teams on social media.

The business magazine enlisted Hookit, a company that tracks sponsorship value in social and digital media, to survey sports teams across all the major leagues and monitor their value across social media.

The results are certainly interesting. Spanish football giants Barcelona and Real Madrid are always outdoing each other at the top of the tree in every setting. This time, they’re battling it out at the top of Forbes’ list. Next in the list comes Manchester United and Arsenal along with a host of other Premier League football clubs and American sports teams.

Welcome, @RichardBranson! @VirginMoney, our new UK Retail Financial Services Partner: https://t.co/ZsAUqtKfdl pic.twitter.com/r4y4oHcqea

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 18, 2016

Barcelona boast 148 million followers to Real Madrid’s 146 million, but both, individually, have more followers across all social media channels than the NFL teams can manage cumulatively between them (141 million).

Yet Barcelona’s social media value is much higher than Real Madrid’s according to Forbes, and that has a lot to do with the level of interaction that Barcelona can manage. In the 12 months between June 2015 and June 2016, the Catalan club achieved 1.45 billion interactions across social media: that is, shares, likes, comments or retweets.

???? @UmtitiSam sings the Barça anthem #VineFCB https://t.co/fZZVYGMpv9

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) July 15, 2016

“Total follower numbers can be impressive, but the engagement is what drives the value coupled with the quality of ‘promoted’ posts,” says Hookit co-founder Scott Tilton.

So in terms of sponsorship value, Barcelona’s ability to be shareable helps their cause. The reach they can boast is beyond anyone else in the business and, consequently, their value for sponsors – or potential sponsors – is huge.

The new away kit is now on sale! https://t.co/44VyNRb0SU pic.twitter.com/OlAb612X7V

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) July 15, 2016

But is shareability and engagement the most important metric when it comes to the value of social media output? In creating shareable video content, for example, are clubs pursuing engagement to the detriment of quality?

To sponsors, the numbers are incredibly attractive, and sports teams possess a level of what businesses would call ‘brand loyalty’ that brands themselves can only dream of. But in buying into that, are sports teams leaning their content too much towards what is shareable, even if it’s to the detriment of what their fans actually want?

Anything for the team you say, @WayneRooney? Good luck! #XMenApocalypse https://t.co/ym1XtMansq

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 20, 2016

And the same question can be asked of brands themselves. Shareability is clearly one measure of success on social media, but that has to match up with what the aims of their social media use actually are. Is it to sell more products? Is it to raise awareness? Is it to solidify brand loyalty?

Sponsorships with sports teams are clearly a huge coup for the sponsors themselves, and an endorsement from Barcelona on social media is clearly worth something – but does it matter if that endorsement is in the form of something shareable? Or does it simply matter if the content is good?