1. How Football Social Media is
changing the Beautiful Game

2. WHO AM I?
Sean Walsh
Head of Social Media at Blueclaw
Founder of Digital-Football.com
@walshybhoy
sean@digital-football.com
#digisport
#smsports

3. DIGITAL-FOOTBALL.COM
“the leading intersection between football &
social media” – Mashable.com

4. BLUECLAWSEARCH.CO.UK

5. FOOTBALL SOCIAL MEDIA?
•46 million Twitter users follow a Football Club
•120+ million follow a Football Club on Facebook
•Cristiano Ronaldo alone has 50m Facebook fans –
more than Justin Bieber, Barack Obama, Starbucks &
even Real Madrid
•Euro 2012’s final holds the record for ‘most tweets per
second’ with 15,000tps

6. THE GOOD...

7. THE BAD...
?

8. ...AND THE UGLY

9. GAME CHANGER
Football Social Media has radically changed the way the football fan interacts
and follows his or her football club. Channels like Facebook and Twitter have
given fans a platform to engage on club matters directly with the need for the
mainstream press.
By 2014, we expect the number of Twitter users to be following a football
club to be doubled (circa 90 million).
Clubs are only just getting to grips with how to use the channels.
The next step is monetisation and gaining return on investment.

10. FAN ENGAGEMENT

11. PRESS EVOLUTION
• Twitter has become the go to source
for breaking news. Twitter was circa 6
minutes faster than Sky Sports News on
transfer deadline day for announcing
deals.
•Journalists are increasingly using
Twitter as a way to create stories and
quotes without ever having to actually
interview a player.
•The post match press conference will
soon be overtaken by the post-match
Tweet
•Mainstream press have weakened as
new media bloggers grow in influence

12. DATATAINMENT
The data has value, previously it has been kept in-house and behind guarded doors,
but there is a recognition now that clubs need to help this space develop. There are a
lot of people out there blogging and doing their own research and they can do a lot
more with this data. - Richard Ayers (Man City)

13. CONNECTED STADIUMS
• Allow fans to share their game-day
experiences via social media applications
easily accessible from their mobile
devices.
• Provide customised applications that
create an immersive and interactive
game-day environment
• Help ensure consistent and reliable
connectivity
• In addition to this, there’s a whole
spectrum of new possibilities to access
content and engage with visitors during
non-gaming days, aka stadium tours.

14. PROTECTING THE BRAND
•One tweet can harm the
performance of an entire season –
player tweets, player banned,
team loses cup.
•Transfers, tactics, publicity, even
share price at risk.
•Teams still lost about how to deal
with rogue players – social media
is emotive.
•Wrong and right doesn’t work.
•Plan & educate players why it’s
wrong and right.

15. LEGALITY
•Improper comments may bring the game
into disrepute
•References on personal ethnicity, race, faith,
disability, sexual orientation etc. will be
punished at a higher level
•Players accept responsibility for their own
accounts
•all comments are considered public by the
FA
•Disciplinary action for simply retweeting
improper content – thereby removing the
excuse that somebody else had made the
comment.
•Players are also advised that simply deleting
a social media posting will not prevent
disciplinary action.

16. MONEY.
Social media needs to quantitatively show
where it can improve:
- Match day revenues
Gate receipts, match day promotions,
season tickets etc.
- Broadcasting revenues
Domestic and international
- Commercial revenues
Sponsorships and merchandising

17. KEY POINTS
• ROI – hard but a must
•Sports fans are emotive and tribal – social media
should reflect this
•Give the fans what they want
•Data is the life blood for a football fan, create
content around it

18. KEY POINTS
• Connectivity – can your fans even Tweet?
• Players will always be idiots unless you educate
them – easier said than done...
• Social must be integrated through the club from
top down
•Listen, plan, engage & react

19. THE END!
@walshybhoy
Sean@Digital-Football.com
Always on the look out for contributors!
Questions?