Saina Nehwal remains most popular Indian badminton athlete on social media, PV Sindhu in third place

What's the story?

In this day and age, athletes across the world interact with their fans and give them a glimpse into their lives using social media. Among India's badminton stars, most players are quite active on online platforms and have a legion of followers on different sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Former world number 1, Saina Nehwal is undoubtedly one of the most popular figures in India and the social media statistics are proof of the pudding. The Haryana-born shuttler boasts a staggering 4.91 million followers on Twitter, 8.11 million on Facebook and 820 thousand Instagram followers, making her the most popular Indian badminton star on social media.

Left-handed doubles star Jwala Gutta is the second most popular athlete with 3.10 million fans on Facebook, 1.33 million on Twitter and 315 thousand followers on Instagram.

For all her recent successes, Rio silver medallist PV Sindhu sits in third place, having amassed a following of 1.2 million Facebook fans, 1.49 Twitter followers and 696 thousand Instagram followers. Gutta's former long-time doubles partner Ashwini Ponnappa has 437 thousand Facebook followers, 510 thousand Twitter followers and 29 thousand Instagram followers and sits in fourth place.

In case you didn't know

India's star shuttlers have been on a roll in the past few months and most recently, they produced an excellent performance at the World Championships, coming back with two medals. Their visibility in the media, thanks to their successes, has been on the rise.

The heart of the matter

The male badminton players, on the other hand, are less popular on social media than their female counterparts. Srikanth Kidambi only has 75 thousand fans on Facebook and 61.3 thousand fans on Instagram. However, his Twitter following of 187 thousand does make up for the deficit.

It is a similar situation for HS Prannoy who has 15.6 thousand Instagram followers and 25 thousand followers on Facebook. He also has 77 thousand followers on Twitter. Parupalli Kashyap has better social media statistics as he has 60 thousand followers on Facebook, 24.5 thousand followers on Instagram and 135 thousand followers on Twitter.

What's next?

With the female athletes amassing more followers on social media, it is clear that the male athletes need to buck up on their social media influence.

Writer's Take

As mentioned before, social media is a form of marketing one's image. Being the former world number one, Saina Nehwal is obviously ruling the roost but PV Sindhu is young and can easily amass as many followers if not more, as she gains more experience and earns more accolades. Even the male athletes can have the opportunity to not only improve their game but also their social media presence.