Our thanks goes to AC Milan’s Head of Web and New Media, Guiliano Giorgetti, who took the time out of his busy pre-season preparations to give us a unique insight into the life of a football clubs on social media. Milan boast over 11 million Likes on Facebook, 594k followers on Twitter and a staggering 73 million views on YouTube.

Q. How long have AC Milan been using Social Media and why are they using it?

GG: The social media strategy of AC Milan started almost two years ago, with the Facebook page, and it continues to grow more and more everyday. Now AC Milan has an official account on all the major social networking platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, Youtube and Chinese social network Tencent QQ. Each account – daily updated with news, images and video – offers exclusive services to our international supporters and has a different communication style. Social Media channels represent a key asset for the Club since they allow supporters to feel more “closer” to AC Milan, even if the live far away.

Q. What kind of tactics have AC Milan undertaken in the last year on social media and which has been the most successful in terms of return on investment?

GG: In order to increase the value of our social media channels, we tried to publish a lot of exclusive contents, dedicated to our followers and fans following us from all over the world. An example? The live Q&A with Adriano Galliani – our CEO – on Twitter. The official hashtag for the initiative – #askGalliani – has been used more than 40,000 times in a day, becoming trending topic in both Italy and Indonesia.

Q. How do you cater for AC Milan’s global fanbase? It’s notable that your Twitter stream is in English and not Italian?

GG: On Twitter, we “speak” both languages – Italian and English – since our audience is an international one (we also have an account updated in Brazilian language and one in Japanese). Even if we know Italians are just a little part of our Twitter community, we like to maintain our mother tongue on social media, especially since “made in Italy” is one of the core value of AC Milan brand. As for Facebook, we work with geo-target posts, translated in different languages at different times of the day.

Q. What challenges have you faced since embracing Social Media?

GG: I would say one of the major challenges I have to face everyday is to make social media a key strategy asset for the Club, which can be useful for all the departments, in many different ways (first team, Junior activities, Milan Foundation, sponsorship, CRM etc).

Q. Are there any future developments you can tell us about on Social Media? If not – where would you like to take AC Milan in the next year?

GG: To have a connected stadium is of course really important: it would allow supporters to have a better and complete experience of the event/match, to share it with their friends through the potentials  of mobile devices and interact even more with our social media channels. Concerning the next steps, we’re working in order to have a more specific social CRM strategy.

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Again, thanks to Guiliano and everybody at AC Milan for agreeing to the interview and providing us with valuable insight about how Europe’s biggest clubs are coping with social media. As football social media continues to grow, things such as the connected stadium, social CRM and integration right across the business will become larger challenges for clubs. In order to make sure they don’t end up being too far behind, they need to start today and treat social media with the same attention (and budget) they do for traditional marketing.

The post Interview: AC Milan on Football Social Media appeared first on Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news.

With that in mind, what’s next for 2012? A lot of my esteemed colleagues and fellow bloggers have mentioned the role of mobile, the role of video, live streaming and social advertising. However, I have decided to take a different approach and rather than look at what tactic may be employed – why these tactics will important. For me, 2012 won’t be about new Social CRMplatforms or improved YouTube features – but rather the people behind them.

2012 will be the advent of the Social Media Pitchside Reporter.

Anyone who follows Social Media and Sports in the US will already be very familiar with this role and completely understand what it entails, for the rest of us across the Atlantic, it’s still a job title that doesn’t particularly mean anything else other than ‘junior journalist’. Wrong.

The NBA and NFL are continually ahead of us in regards to digisport, they recognised the importance of Social Media Optimised Stadiums, they recognised the value of match-day promotions and, ultimately, they recognised that Sports Social Media isn’t marketing, its communications. So what will the Pitchside Reporter do?

• Micro-Journalism:

  The live nature of the role makes it clear that the first task for this role is to clearly report what is going on in the game. What’s the score? How’s the atmosphere? This might be a live blog on the website, it might be a stream of tweets. Imagine 5Live but on Social and not the radio.

• Live Content Creator:

  The role also requires that the individual is physically in the stadium and becoming a real bridge between those fans who have tickets and those who don’t. The Pitchside Reporter will be able to create quick and engaging content with ease and get it out onto Social channels immediately. This means recording half-time fan interviews on a smartphone, taking photos of the player celebrations and the fans, even perhaps live-streaming pre-match/halftime/fulltime events and thoughts.

• Live Content Curator:

  Pitchside Reporters will be expected to not just create but keep an eye on what the Social space is talking about online. They might bring in tweets/updates about the match into the clubs Twitter feed, collate photos posted on Twitter from within the stadium – even videos of the different views of a goal from the stands.

• Fly-On-The-Wall:

  In a way, major TV outlets miss the very best bits of football because they can’t report from behind the scenes. As a club employee, Pitchside Reporters will have access to areas no other camera can go. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean the changing room – but photos of the bench, talking to the kitman, the physio, images from the press conference. Fans want to see what goes on in the background – Manchester City’s tunnel cam is a prime example of this already happening in the Sport.

It sounds a lot, but it’s possible to do with the right planning and resources available. The Pitchside Reporter is somewhere between your standard Community Manager, Journalist and Press Officer. He/She needs to be given a lot of freedom to wander in and around the stadium but also they need to have the passion, knowledge and relationship with the fans in order to really engage. This isn’t a job to be handed out to interns, nor should it be a junior position – it’s a demanding position that requires a lot of multitasking and social savvyness.

The role will help clubs have more ownership over their media, their content and most importantly, more engagement with their fans. Give them the freedom and resources to do the job and these individuals can maximise having a stadium full of fanatics just waiting to create and consume your content.

The post 2012: The Year Of The Social Media Pitchside Reporter appeared first on Digital-Football.com - Football Social Media & Digital Sports news.