Soccer. Football.

They are the same thing to a lot of people (Australians in particular), but very different to others (The rest of the world).
Ask your average Collingwood fan and AFL is the only football that exists on this astral plane – (Don’t ask them about what an astral plane is however, their brains might implode).

I took it upon myself to dedicate some time to understanding the game of Football ie: Soccer, a little more when tkm9 were doing some interesting research around current top of the ladder Premier League team, Manchester City FC.

Now, I must admit to knowing bugger all about this game until now, apart from these few things:

- The teams wear shiny shorts, and these shorts are a little longer than AFL uniform shorts, but are still rather attractive hitting just above the knee. Kinda like satin boardies
- The players are not bad on the eye
- Lots of the players have long hair which they tie back, and have excellent stubble to match their perfect bone structured jaws
- David Beckham
- People seem to get really worked up about it
- Manchester United fans are generally thought to be on the same ‘level’ as Collingwood fans both in demeanor and education – “Chavs” am I right?

I know…I know – guilty as charged, call me Stacy

So upon one lazy Sunday afternoon at the Grace Darling in Brunswick, I took the opportunity to ask some questions to fellow comrades all about the game. Which turned into a really informative lesson around the rules, the teams, the stadiums, separate leagues (particular focus on Champions League which is formed from the top few teams in each division in the Premier League, a Europe only tournament which runs concurrently to the Premier League games. Which creates a frightfully difficult job for the coaches who have players in both leagues, but this is for another discussion).

I started to become intrigued and found everyone I spoke to, to be really passionate about who they supported and actively engaged with that team online, similarly with Aussies and AFL.

Which directs me nicely into what I want to talk about this week, which is Fan Engagement on Social Media around Premier League.

For those who are clueless about what I am on about, lets make it simple. Taken from ye old Wikipedia:

The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country’s primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier League is a corporation in which the 20 member clubs act as shareholders. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 matches each, totalling 380 matches in the season. Most games are played on Saturdays and Sundays, with a few games played during weekday evenings. It was known as the Premiership from 1993 to 2007. It is currently sponsored by Barclays Bank and therefore officially known as the Barclays Premier League.

Now I have you up to speed, I want to focus this case study on the club I believe to be doing the best job on Social Media (In particular Twitter and Facebook), Manchester City FC.

During some research on the conversation around Man City FC, Social Media search engine www.socialmention.com tells me that there are just under 25,000 mentions of the key words “Man City” per SECOND following their win last night against Bayern Munich in the Champions League (despite beating Bayern Munich, Man United are eliminated from the ULC see here: http://es.pn/vM7R6R ) most of this conversation is heralded from the teams massive 161,707 followers on Twitter and 1,395,824 fans on Facebook of which 112,552 of them are talking about the team online ( via Status updates, mentions, tagging).

In terms of Facebook pages designed for fans, Man City are doing a most excellent job. The ways in which fans can engage with the brand are:
- Purchasing membership through Facebook
- Subscribing to the Man City magazine and BluesNews e-newsletter
- MCFC Advent Calendar – fans can enter a competition to win prizes in the lead up to Christmas
- City TV – a page dedicated to all Man City videos for both games and news

The conversation continues on Twitter with the official hashtag #mcfc with thousands of tweets every second. The richest and most up to date information can be found on this hashtag stream whereby both fans and the club can talk to each other real time. Not only is this where all the eyeballs are, the response and communication from the club to the fans is all day, every day – creating the authenticity that is the backbone to true fan engagement and what social media is all about.

Man City FC does the following, which makes them the most formidable club on any social media platform currently:

1. Give their fans a voice – supplying them with multiple platforms to engage, communicate and share opinions about the club
2. Listens to their fans – responding to them on all social platforms, providing the sense that there really is someone on the end of the line
3. Reward their fans – by facilitating conversation, allowing fans to touch the brand through competitions and extensions through membership etc

In summary, through these 3 points above, the club can retain their fan following, keep them in a close and monitored community, provide them the opportunity to talk and share thoughts and opinions, and allow true fan engagement online.

And, yes those chaps are pretty nice to look at.

Happy Thursday legends

Olay Olay Olay

@CazPringle

Client: City of Melbourne

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tkm9 filmed and produced a 30 second TVC for Metricon last month. The theme was “Celebrate Living” to showcase the beautiful homes which are available around Australia.

Tkm9 projected a blue credit demon onto buildings in Melbourne and Sydney and installed reality pods in Westfield’s Sydney shopping centres at Bondi, Parramatta and Chatswood as well as in Melbourne at Doncaster and Southland. The execution was a huge success with over “25,000″ impressions over a three week period.