[Archived] Rovers come bottom in social media engagement with fans

[AndyC]

http://www.sportindustry.biz/news/view/10440/chelsea-tops-social-media-poll

CHELSEA TOPS SOCIAL MEDIA POLL- 14 OCT 2011 00:00:00

Chelsea FC have come top of a table of Premier League clubs for the way they engage with fans across the internet, according to a new study by technology consultants Lewis Communications.

The Blues finished ahead of Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs and Manchester United - who were ranked eighth overall.

Blackburn, Bolton and newly-promoted Swansea occupied the bottom three places in the league.

The study examined a range of factors such as the number of Twitter and Facebook followers, level of interaction with fans, ease of online access and app development.

The research found that despite having the highest number of Facebook fans – 19 million - Manchester United were using the social networking site mainly to broadcast messages and doing little to engage with followers.

The Old Trafford side’s Facebook following is nearly three times that of Arsenal in second place on 7.5 million, Liverpool and Chelsea both on seven million each and Manchester City on one million.

United were one of just three teams along with Fulham and Norwich not to have an iPhone app although none of the Premier League clubs have an official Android app.

Out of the 20 teams, only Bolton do not have an official Facebook presence, while Aston Villa and West Brom are the only sides with an official LinkedIn page.

Swansea is the only club without a Twitter page.

The report found that Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney was the Premier League’s top tweeter with 1,567,967 followers, taking over from team-mate Rio Ferdinand on 1,516,559.

Alex Clough, digital strategist at Lewis Communications, said: ‘Social media has fundamentally reshaped the way people interact with the world around them and this is no more apparent than within the field of sport.’

‘Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed a new generation of fans to connect with their football idols and teams in ways that they haven't been able to within the modern game and clubs need to embrace this.’

‘It’s important that clubs do not just use these social channels to broadcast their messages but also to open up an authentic dialogue with fans to answer queries and complaints as promptly and efficiently as possible.

[beatrix]

Blackburn rovers at the moment appear to be completely uninterested in fans, they certainly do not value our opinions ( Kean eg )

It therefore does not surprise me at all that they are not interested in social media, indeed they are so bad at relations with the fans

in general, excepting the puners who were compromised by the situation anyway that i would have been amazed if they were interested.

Until they are prepared to meet the fans at ewood park in an open type format as mark hughes did, they will forever have question marks

hanging over them with regards to the fan base and their intentions for the wellbeing of our much loved club. (but not by them! )

[rebelmswar]

Blackburn, Bolton and newly-promoted Swansea occupied the bottom three places in the league.

Cheer up, on the incomprehensible optimism and idiocy index we are off the scale!

Celebrate.

[seanc88]

it'd be good to seen that info to the club, unfortunately they'd probably never read it

[BPF]

Venkys can say they care all they want but the facts show time and time again that they just don't...

[OJRovers]

Can someone email the link to the club? Not that they are bothered.

[Stuart]

I don't want my club to Tweet me, Facebook me, Link me In or even email me. Hell, I wouldn't even miss their Christmas card.

I want them to be a proper football club, not a social media circus.

[alexanders]

I don't want my club to Tweet me, Facebook me, Link me In or even email me. Hell, I wouldn't even miss their Christmas card.

I want them to be a proper football club, not a social media circus.

Agree

[bennyboyt11]

Before everyone starts to slag off Venkys about this, remember the prices of the season tickets. Who gives a toss if they aren't tweeting us!?

[rebelmswar]

Before everyone starts to slag off Venkys about this, remember the prices of the season tickets. Who gives a toss if they aren't tweeting us!?

I second that.

I would delete twitter after the daily "Kean walks on water and accidentily turns coke into vod" tweet.

[Paul]

I don't want my club to Tweet me, Facebook me, Link me In or even email me. Hell, I wouldn't even miss their Christmas card.

I want them to be a proper football club, not a social media circus.

I know this is probably a dig at Venkys but I agree with the first bit. Bottom of the social media table? I could not care less, most of it is nonsense.

[sam_rovers]

There's only one table that matters and we're bottom on that one too

[Hughesy]

First club on twitter....yet bottom of the league.

[Glenn]

I'd love to get hold of that reserch as whilst I believe Rovers' fan engagement in general can be significantly improved, I'm not willing to believe we're bottom. That said, it does point out the difference between broadcast an engagement and whilst both @OneRovers (which I assume is Pras) and @ReportingRover (which is Lee) used to engage with people a lot more, they do seem to do it far less (in fact, Lee seems to have given twitter up entirely). I wonder if the report looked at a very small window of time?

Any old fool can broadcast using social media, the real skill is turning it into an effective two-way tool.

[Glenn]

Hum, the "research" was put together by a PR company and the original article still gives no details of it's methodologies (although it does hint at the stats being taken from a single day).

http://www.lewispr.co.uk/News/Chelsea-net-title-of-Premier-League-social-media-c.aspx

[AndyC]

I'd love to get hold of that reserch as whilst I believe Rovers' fan engagement in general can be significantly improved, I'm not willing to believe we're bottom. That said, it does point out the difference between broadcast an engagement and whilst both @OneRovers (which I assume is Pras) and @ReportingRover (which is Lee) used to engage with people a lot more, they do seem to do it far less (in fact, Lee seems to have given twitter up entirely). I wonder if the report looked at a very small window of time?

Any old fool can broadcast using social media, the real skill is turning it into an effective two-way tool.

Agreed.

People are totally missing the point if they think the report just says they should be tweeting us.

The important thing is the engagement with the fans and how well the fans believe the club is doing interacting with them. Social media is just one form of communication and it doesnt stop at Twitter and facebook.

Aston Villa for example, have a director of the club who goes onto the message boards daily to interact with the fans and answer questions. Sometimes he can't answer, which is down to confidentiality, but for the most part, he does an excellent job.

Imagine if someone from the club actually came on here from time to time to offer the clubs perspective, rather than a bland meaningless press release.

Aside from the pune9 trip, they have clearly done a terrible job of interacting with the fans, and this study is just one more proof point.

In this day and age, its so much easier to actually engage with a large section of the fans through the tools available. Please don't just limit your thinking to the club sending a tweet.

Imagine a club that did the equivalent of a weekly press conference online, but just for fans. Its not hard to pull off. The main issue is that old school PR professionals, believe they can control the news agenda by not being so open.

There's no questions, that occasionally, it will land you in a bit of hot water. But the benefits far outweigh the negatives of being more open. You can't ignore how the consumer trends in this space have changed immeasurably in the last few years

[Steve Kean's Hypnotoad]

Agree with others who say who cares. I consider just using this board regularly to be a borderline unhealthy obsession with Rovers, if I bothered about their facebook/twitter/phone apps/linked-in I could certainly no longer claim to have a life. Football was traditionally just something to do on a saturday, I think too much exposure leads to a decrease in enjoyment.

[m1st]

Agree with others who say who cares. I consider just using this board regularly to be a borderline unhealthy obsession with Rovers, if I bothered about their facebook/twitter/phone apps/linked-in I could certainly no longer claim to have a life. Football was traditionally just something to do on a saturday, I think too much exposure leads to a decrease in enjoyment.

Hear, hear, SKH. I wish I had more willpower and didn't come on here as often as I do. Isn't there a proverb about "too much of a good thing being harmful"?

I'm not signed up for any of the social media [i should add that I've appointed one of my friends who's into that sort of thing as my "Twitter correspondent"; he e-mails me when he comes across a Rovers-related tweet, which he thinks will interest me! ]; and find it an intrusion when I've found a text message from, say, the Ticket Office on my landline answer-phone.