The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has claimed top spot on Redtorch’s #SportOnSocial 2022 League Table, beating out FIFA, FIBA and World Athletics.

After finishing second in 2021, BWF switched places with Volleyball World, while FIFA climbed above World Athletics to claim third.

The International Basketball Federation (FIBA) stayed in fifth place, with the International Cycling Union, World Archery, World Rugby, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports and International Swimming Federation (FINA) rounding out the top ten.

Commenting on the achievement, BWF head of communications, Lloyd Green, said: “We are extremely excited about this achievement, and it is a culmination of a lot of hard work from the team.”

“We have been able to bring our vision alive over the past three years and deliver upon our goals.

“The key to our success has been an improved relationship with the player group that has allowed us to connect fans closer to players than ever before, both on our Anglophone channels and on our Chinese platforms.

“This has included a dedicated approach to improving the social media literacy of all players through our Star Creation Programme, in which we have delivered intensive tutoring to a small number of players who have then gone on to share this learning with their peers and teammates.

“While we have not had exhaustive resources to create a large-scale content team, we have been smart with our existing resources, and what we have been able to do is intensify the appetite of fans for more content by developing a consistent, accurate, reliable and entertaining content offering,” he said.

BWF also claimed the top spot on Instagram, after seeing 142% growth and 633,000 new followers, while World Athletics benefitted from the Tokyo Olympics, seeing 25% growth during the event and 1.2 million new followers throughout the year.

Elsewhere, FINA climbed to first place on Facebook, Volleyball World took the top honours for Twitter and YouTube, while World Athletics ended the year with the most followers and views on TikTok.