The session was due to start at 1pm but it took longer than anticipated to get Cech from the training ground to Chelsea’s media centre. This caused some confusion and deflated the start of the campaign which started some 35 minutes late, but is to be expected considering the club had never done something like this before. Cech answered a number of questions from 5 fans around the world (e.g. Ghana, United States, England, Sweden & Austria) that had been selected in advance.

It’s fair to say that football clubs have struggled to find a use for Google’s own social network (as have many other brands!), but this is a great development by Chelsea and Manchester City – showing they are not scared to at least be the first to try something new. Chelsea currently are the 5th largest club on Twitter worldwide with 1.4 million followers and also have a hefty 12.3 million on Facebook. Chelsea’s own Google+ presence is quite impressive with over 2 million +1s.

Andrew from the US asked Cech about squad fitness

Google+ Hangouts are a feature of the social network that allow users to hold video conferencing conversations over Google+ running simultaneously with a “chat room” message thread. Manchester City and Chelsea have both used Hangouts as a way of allowing fans to ask players questions. The success of player Q&A hashtags on Twitter (pioneered by Manchester City) quickly spread as many other clubs replicated the tactic. Using Hangouts is perhaps an evolution of this and we may see other clubs attempting to use Hangouts as a way to boost their Google+ Pages (which will most likely help clubs search engine ranking).

Such initiatives are positive for football fans as it shows that clubs are willing to allow their players to open up and engage with their fans in a very personal and direct manner. Player Q&As are incredibly important for ensuring that the club appears authentic, engaged and transparent in it’s dealings. All of which inevitably have an effect on match day sales, season tickets and general club sentiment across the web.

The only criticism we have of the campaign was picking a player who perhaps doesn’t have a very active social media presence – with the goalkeeper absent from Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps Chelsea might’ve attracted more viewers if they had utilised one of the clubs more active social media users. That being said, Cech answered all the questions eloquently and did a could job in coming across as a genuinely friendly and down to earth player. During it’s peak, the Hangout had around 700 viewers according to Google stats, which is slightly disappointing considering the size of Chelsea’s social media audience but we are yet to confirm these stats.

The post Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech hosts Google+ Hangout appeared first on Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news.

According to the very excellent Football Social Media metric site – folos.im, there are currently a total of  28,707,607 Twitter followers across 1197 teams worldwide.

Football Social Media has quickly become a primary channel for fans to find out the very latest about their club, the transfer market and live game commentary. It has also opened up a new wealth of insight into the lifestyle and daily routine of a professional footballer – what they eat, music they listen to and even their political ideology.

For clubs, Social Media is a new gateway to engage with their fans both domestically and abroad. As a marketing and engagement channel, Social Media is always switched on and always active. Clubs can tap into these communities for market research, product testing, sentiment analysis and even crowdsourcing new opportunities. Football Social Media creates more site traffic, new revenues for merchandise and above all – a better relationship between club and customer.

But just because it’s clear that the fans want more from Social Media, it doesn’t mean that clubs should “jump in” without a strategy. If clubs set up a Twitter account without any real investment or purpose behind it, then they can expect failure. Sure, they might pick up a few thousand followers and get RT’d a lot on the back of their brand, but they will fail in that they’ve missed a massive opportunity.

Football clubs needs to embrace Social Media with a strategic and long-term approach:

• PURPOSE: What are you going to use Social Media for? Answering customer service enquiries? Fan engagement? Generate matchday sales? Promote site content? Brand reputation?

• PEOPLE: Who is your Social Media for? What age are they? What channels do they use? What are their passion points? Are your fans even on Social Media?

• PLATFORM: What channels work best? Where do you fans interact online? Message boards? Twitter? Facebook? YouTube? Google+?

• PERFORMANCE: How will you do it? Now you understand your audience and purpose, what’s the best way to reach your goals? What content will work best for you? How will you measure success?

These are just a few of the questions clubs should be asking. They’re not revolutionary, nor are they complicated, but with a little time and effort around these elements football clubs can reap huge rewards.

The post Football Social Media grows – 28.7m follow clubs on Twitter appeared first on Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news.

This week, Benjamin Stoll – a German football social media blogger on “The Missing Piece“, and contributor to Digital-Football.com – has very kindly provided us access to an interview he conducted with Richard Ayers via Google+ Hangout. Richard has been the “digital playmaker” leading the Manchester City team and without a doubt, the thought-leader in Football Social Media at this moment. Benjamin has a full transcript of the interview (though it’s in German!) on his website – where you can also listen to the interview (in English). For the sake of brevity, here are our highlights:

Football is an entertainment brand

Ayers states that,

“we [City] do not think of ourselves as a football club, we are a global entertainment brand”

Football is after all a form of entertainment so why do clubs persist in not thinking like the rest of the industry. Ayers explains that many of City’s digital activities are not ROI based – the QR codes, the tunnel cam, the Google streetview within the stadium – it’s all about providing for fans that want to feel closer to the club.

Football Social Media isn’t just for the fans

An interesting comment Ayers made was that Manchester City’s activity intends to target “new people who are not passionate about the club”. Activity shouldn’t just be exclusively for their current fans but it should be for winning and creating new fans – a particularly shrewd strategy when you look at the EPL’s global viewership and adoption in emerging markets. For City, Social Media isn’t just about the football – but it’s sharing that “experience” and what it means to be part of the club.

Richard on Google+ Hangouts with Benjamin Stoll

Geolocation one to watch

When asked about what were the trends that most excited him, Ayers responded that he believed Geolocation would have a big role in the industry.  Following this interview, it was announced that City would become the first official team to partner with the geolocation checkin app giant – Foursquare. Many clubs are experimenting and thinking about Geolocation at the minute but struggling to understand how to commercialise/intergrate it into their marketing activity. It will be interesting to see how City utilise the platform.

Niche Social Networks – no thanks

Another good point made by Ayers was regarding niche Social Networks – simply, should football clubs try to create their own Facebook? Last year it was rumoured that Manchester United were planning creating their own social media channel in order to maximise on data collection. However, on the other side of Manchester, it doesn’t seem likely to be part of their long term plans. Ayers argues that Communities form and evolve “naturally” and the club should support this. There is no need to host the discussions themselves, as there are more potential problems than benefits e.g. costs, moderation, transparency. City look to their 50 bloggers and 5 major fan forums instead – communities that are more authentic and already established with a rich history.

Behind the scenes content is key

As we’ve already written about before, City believe that behind the scenes content is the core of engagement within football clubs. Ayers says however that in order to gain that level of trust with the players and make sure everyone is “bought in” to the concept, a level of internal discussion must be had that should demonstrate what value it will bring to the club as a whole. This is particularly interesting as it really is a great move to educate players into understanding the dynamics of Social Media and why this kind of content is more successful than say a 500 word blog post.

“Curated experience”

Towards the end of the interview Benjamin brought up how Manchester City had optimised their stadium for Social Media, more specifically the #BlueView hashtag in which fans could tweet to screens around the concourse of the stadium. Ayers is passionate that City Social Media is a “curated experience”, whether that is during a matchday where photos, tweets and video are shared from within the stadium to international fans, or that is crowdsourcing ideas from the football fans.

“Our strategy is to talk regularly with the fans…to get ideas from them. This exchange with the fans is very important. It also gives fans the feeling to be involved. We show prototypes and get feedback. It makes us safer and it gives us a better sense regarding our product development activities.”

One example of this was that the Manchester City digital team used Twitter and their blog to crowdsource potential ideas/bugs/wishlists for their iPhone app. The more involved fans are in the clubs life, the more they feel affinity and therefore they are more engaged.

This is merely just a snapshot of the interview that was cleverly conducted over Google+ Hangouts, so I would strongly advise you to visit Benjamin’s blog to listen to it in full. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Benjamin for allowing us to use the interview.

The post Interview with the man behind Manchester City’s Social Media appeared first on Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news.