In May I had the chance to attend the FBIN Marketing Excellence Summit in Prague. It was the third in the annual series of excellence summits we hold (I’ve been working with FBIN since May 2025 on the events and education programmes), and we had a great range of speakers.

While I took plenty away from the day, including the panel discussion I chaired, what was most refreshing was to hear brand theory mentioned in the opening talk.

AC Sparta Praha’s Marketing Director, Kamil Veselý, opened the day by explaining the club’s approach to growth. And I want to explore this and go into detail about what you can learn from their refreshing way of doing things.

Popping the bubble

Firstly, the context for the club is that they’re about to move into a new stadium with double the capacity. Their challenge is filling it.

Kamil’s approach is to not rely on existing supporters. They estimate they have around one million of these already. To become twice as big as they are now means trying to market to people beyond that core supporter group. This approach contrasts with much of sports marketing, which tends to focus heavily on existing supporters.

The reason for this is that there are only a certain number of existing Sparta fans. Yet there are a lot more people outside of this group.

Kamil calls this “popping the bubble”.

Most sports marketing is designed to sell tickets or memberships, drive engagement, and keep existing fans happy. Sparta have made the decision to focus on brand marketing instead.

This involves activity designed to increase awareness, familiarity, and cultural relevance among people who might not have any immediate interest in attending a match.

What does the theory say?

The approach from Sparta is inspired by Byron Sharp’s 2010 book How Brands Grow. In it, Sharp’s core argument is that brands grow when more people notice them, remember them, and find them easy to buy from.

The two central concepts are mental availability and physical availability. In a nutshell, how often do you come to mind when someone is making a decision? And how easy is it for people to find, access, and buy from you?

In practice, this means growing your club by ensuring more people know who you are and making it easy for them to buy when the moment arrives.

This is what’s underpinning Sparta’s marketing.

Grow the category, not just the club

One issue with only trying to reach your existing fans is that, sooner or later, you’re going to run out of them. Plus, most people who like football have probably already chosen a club.

I’ve supported Newcastle United my whole life. To this date I haven’t come across a marketing campaign that could turn my head to support someone else.

Sparta’s approach? They’re trying to grow interest in football itself.

By increasing the number of people who like football, they increase the potential audience size of their own club. They’ve recognised that you can’t compete with your rivals for fans, but you can increase the number of people who like your category (football, in this case).

Persuading people to care about the sport in the first place is probably easier than asking them to switch who they support.

What are they doing?

Sparta’s marketing deliberately extends beyond traditional football audiences.

• They’ve partnered with Footshop, a local streetwear company targeting young people. The intention is to address data showing a 40% gap in interest in sport between generations.

• They released a song called Letná by Rohony and Manene to coincide with winning the title in 2024. It’s had more than 30m streams across Spotify, YouTube and other streaming platforms. It was designed to be popular in the mainstream, rather than as a specific football song.

• They have launched an airport shop, with the justification that more than 10m tourists travel through it each year. This means they’ve got a major physical presence in one of the first places that tourists see - in fact, it’s the biggest shop in the airport. The shop isn’t described as a revenue-generating retail operation, instead it’s a highly visible brand-building tool. And yes, I did buy a shirt on my way home. This is classic physical availability.

• They produced a film to combat the perception that fans are all “like the ultras”. It’s inspired by Love Actually and has multiple main characters to show that there are many types of fans, including a Slavia Prague fan dating the daughter of one of Sparta’s ultras, a philosophy teacher who loves football, and a former player who played for both Slavia and Sparta. This helps make the sport culturally attractive and accessible. They distributed it in cinemas after data showed that 70% of cinema-goers were women, hoping to attract a traditionally underrepresented audience group to the club. They achieved nearly 200k cinema viewers, meaning it was the fifth most-watched Czech film in 2025. It reached approximately one million viewers on television and is now available on Netflix too. A further byproduct of the film was the tabloid media picking it up, increasing visibility.

They want Sparta to pop up in more places and more moments.

On the whole, these projects aren’t designed to drive an immediate transaction. They’re designed to increase familiarity. Sparta appear comfortable investing in activities that make more people aware of the club today in the belief that some of those people will become customers in the future.

Think of each one as a Trojan horse. Most of them are interesting and entertaining in their own right even without the club angle.

Taken together, these initiatives are all doing the same thing. The song helps people remember Sparta. The airport store helps people encounter Sparta. The film introduces Sparta to people who may never have engaged with football. Different tactics, but all increasing the club’s mental and physical availability.

Interestingly, one of Kamil’s reflections is that the film actually has too much Sparta branding. In hindsight he feels it should actually have been less about Sparta and more universal.

Attention is the competition

The hope is that if someone in Prague decides they want to attend a football match, Sparta is the first one that comes to mind

If a tourist arrives and wants to take in some sport, Sparta should be the easy and obvious choice.

If a child is getting into the sport and wants a team, Sparta should be front and centre.

The overriding message is that football isn’t just for “football people”.

Sparta have identified that a club’s main competition isn’t other clubs, it’s attention. Especially when it comes to those younger audiences.

Traditionally, clubs view their rivals as their biggest competitors. Sparta’s approach suggests something different. For many younger audiences, football isn’t competing with another football club. It’s competing with Netflix, TikTok, gaming, music, fashion and every other way people can spend their free time.

What lessons can we learn from this?

Sparta have had considerable spend behind their marketing. Obviously not all clubs can do this.

Instead, the lesson is to find ways to become visible outside your existing audience. I’ve touched on this before. If you’re a community club, questions you can ask yourself include:

• Which local audiences don’t currently engage with us?

• Where do they spend their time?

• What interests them besides football?

• How can we show up there?

This could lead to partnerships with schools, collaborations with local artists, community storytelling projects, appearances at festivals, local music partnerships, and content centred on people rather than matches.

These have a different scale, but the principle is exactly the same.

The most important lesson from Sparta isn’t that clubs should make films, write songs or open airport stores. It’s that growth requires reaching people who aren’t already paying attention. Sparta’s projects look very different on the surface, but they’re all solving the same problem: how do we become more visible to people who aren’t currently football fans?

It's no surprise that Instagram is a big deal among sports teams. In the UK, the top 92 teams have a combined following of around 322m. Premier League alone pumped out more than 4.5k posts in February 2026, an average of 226 per club or eight per day. That's a lot of content.

Reels (videos to you and me) are one of the most dominant content types on the platform. They're vertical videos - think TikTok - that users can swipe through.

In April 2025 Instagram introduced a separate mobile app, called Edits, to make creating Reels easier. While a lot of teams will rely on external tools like Premiere Pro, Instagram is trying to tempt users over to using their app by including unique features that enhance the viewing experience.

One of these is the latest feature: links.

What are links?

In short, they're clickable links that you can include directly in your Reel. They look a bit like the photos from Harry Potter as they play in full within the snapshot you can include. You can also link people to an Instagram account (either your own or someone else's).

Tapping on any of the included Reels takes you straight to it, allowing you to watch it immediately. This is one of the first opportunities on Instagram for clubs to be able to take people to content they've published previously.

As you can see from my example above, you can also link to other Reels on the platform. You can't link to other link Reels though (I tried this), so there's no potential to do an Inception-style link through.

Why is it a good opportunity for clubs?

This is an attention-routing tool, rather than one that's going to have an impact on sales. At least until Instagram lets you include direct links to websites (which is being worked on at present for paying subscribers).

In my experience, teams are trying to do one of three things with content:

• Get more views.

• Grow priority accounts.

• Keep fans engaged in official content for longer.

Links helps with all three because it reduces the effort needed to find the next piece of content to watch. And anything that makes things easier is a good thing.

How is it being used so far?

Like a lot of trends, this seems to have taken off quite quickly since it was first noticed. I went from not seeing any at all on Tuesday, to seeing loads by the time of writing this (Thursday evening). So let's take a look at what uses there have been so far.

For the examples I've linked to them on Instagram alongside a short GIF of the Reel itself.

Relive the match day

Definitely only one to try if you win.

The morning after (or later in the day depending on the kick off time), you can do a round-up of all of the goals or big moments.

So far this has been the main use, as you can see below from WBA, FC Porto, and Southampton.

Here's what you've missed

This could work as a monthly round-up. Spotlight your top performing Reels so that people can catch up on what they might have missed. It gives some content a potential second lease of life.

That's what CF Montreal have done with their "in case you missed these" round-up. I assume a lot of these early posts are testing the format.

Themed collections

Scored a lot of good team goals this season? Is one player known for scoring worldies? Or do what Napoli have done and show the top six celebrations so far this season. What this one has done differently compared to the others featured is edited the Reel to make the links pop in as it's playing.

I've also had a few other ideas that I haven't seen used yet. Feel free to steal them, and let me know when you do so I can highlight it.

Grow your other accounts

If you're running men's, women's, and academy accounts - and maybe others, like a separate stadium one - then you've got a chance for a bit of cross-promotion. You can either link directly to one of their Reels or to the accounts themselves. It's also possible to do this with content published by players.

Build weekly recurring content formats

This could be quite powerful. If you're doing a semi-regular series, link back to the previous instalment at the end of the current one. If this is the first one people have seen then they'd appreciate easily being able to find other ones.

How do you link Reels?

Right now, this new format can only be created in the Edits app. When you start a project and choose your initial image or video - which will be used for the background - you'll see the Links button underneath the editor.

Tapping this will give you the choice of linking to an account or a Reel. When you select Reels you can search for them, navigate through your own, or go to any that you've got saved.

When adding a link to an account you'll need to type in the full URL if it doesn't appear in the list of recommended accounts. I'm not sure why there's not a way of just searching by username.

Other news and updates

Here are a few other bits and pieces you might have missed.

• Fulham are now on Reddit! They hosted an AMA with Antonee Robinson this evening on r/soccer that seems to have gone down well. The community has been really appreciative of these recently, including the Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall one from earlier this week. If you're after any advice or guidance in getting started on Reddit let me know, I'd love to talk.

• YouTube are partnering with FIFA for this summer's World Cup. Some channels will be able to stream full matches, which is an interesting move.

And finally

This is lovely from Wolves. After spotting a young fan getting upset at his dad taking his last chicken nugget during a home game they surprised him with a fresh box of them along with a kit and junior membership. They also had a home visit from the club mascot.

The video had the third highest post interaction rate in the Premier League last month, showing that these moments are worth making the most of. They've even had some press coverage because of it, with the local Aldi getting involved too.

As someone who either oversees or creates a club's social media output, you're in a very privileged position. You've got access to things that fans can only dream about, such as pitchside, behind the scenes on match days, and the training ground. And not only that, you've got access to other members of staff with their own unique perspectives on things.

Fans are already well served with match highlights, press conferences, and post-match interviews. And if you're looking for a low-lift, low risk way of bringing some fresh content to your feed then POV videos are the way forward.

They're not a new format, but I want to highlight some of the different twists and approaches that teams have taken recently to hopefully inspire you. And, crucially, I want to be able to explain why they work as content.

What is a POV video?

POV is point of view. The intention is that the video is filmed from one perspective in its entirety - we see exactly what one person sees.

However, there has been a trend on social media to use POV in an on-screen caption for a video that isn't technically from someone's point of view. Like this example below.

The idea is that it's content that places us, as the viewer, inside the moment. It's like we're there. As a result, you feel closer to the action.

Traditionally filmed video says "here is what happened", where POV content says "you are here".

How have teams used them?

There have been some good recent examples of teams using these to good effect. All of these examples have been taken from Instagram, however they can work anywhere that accepts video.

FC Red Bull Salzburg

Salzburg have had some successes already in 2026 with two examples. In one, they hand out VIP passes to fans, and in the other they AirDrop the passes instead.

In both examples the cameras then follow the lucky recipients through their experience. While we start in a traditional POV and then move to watching how the different experiences unfold, they're still good examples because of how they begin.

One of the big benefits of a POV video is seeing real, raw reactions from fans. The delight as they realise what they've been handed is infectious. And we also get POV shots of the person behind the camera taking photos as well - it's a real 'in their shoes' moment, and we feel fortunate to be observers.

Newcastle United

Two examples from Newcastle United as well. In the first, we see them handing out club branded teddy bears on Valentine's Day as a random act of kindness, and in the other we follow them as they make the long journey to Azerbaijan as a fan rather than on the team flight.

Similar to Salzburg above, we get to see the - often confused - reactions from fans first hand. But in the other we get some empathy with the fans who have made the journey, and it comes across as appreciative of the effort that's been taken.

U.S. Sassulo

In this example, Sassulo's social media manager has done a 'day in the life' video from the perspective of the club's kit manager.

This time we get some appreciation of the other people at clubs who don't get a lot of headlines. We can see what they go through, and it gives us that good insider view of the club. Again, it's a different perspective of the action.

Morecambe FC

Staff are great, but what about club mascots?

In this video - criminally posted to the foundation's feed rather than the main club's - we see what the club mascot sees on a match day. They head to parts of the ground we wouldn't normally experience and give fans surprises - again we get real, unfiltered reactions to having a mascot turn up. And we get to be in a selfie!

HSV

In this example, HSV film the action from the point of view of a pitchside photographer.

The added twist is that we see them take the photo, immediately print it, and then hand it to the player at the end. We get to see their reaction and appreciation, meaning we've seen a whole process from beginning to end.

It's similar to this from Plymouth Argyle, however they were also in the right place at the right time to give us a unique perspective of the celebrations following a goal. It doesn't always work out this way, but it never will if you don't get set up in the first place.

What's the science behind them?

There are a number of marketing and psychology theories that explain why POV videos are so effective. We've seen a lot of these evidenced through F1's Drive To Survive series - by placing fans inside environments and situations they don't normally get to experience we increase immersion and attachment.

Transportation theory

Firstly, we've got transportation theory. First person videos transport us into a narrative, making them more persuasive. And we're also more inclined to accept what we see because it feels like we're seeing it with our own eyes. We can imagine being in that situation and it increases emotional intensity - this drives recall and loyalty.

Parasocial intimacy

Parasocial intimacy is the idea of people forming relationships based on media exposure. It's one-sided, but we feel closer and more attachment to a business (or team) based on what we see. POV videos feel more personal, and the camera can mimic eye contact if positioned properly which adds to the experience.

The endowment effect

The endowment effect shows that fans value something more once they feel ownership over it. By being 'part' of things that are going on - whether it's the journey to Baku or cleaning the players' kits - we form closer relationships. And the closer you feel the more likely you are to buy tickets or merchandise.

Visibility signals professionalism

Finally, by showing how well-run your club is behind the scenes - especially POV videos from training or the match day experience - you demonstrate to the world how competent and professional you are. This can help when trying to attract premium hospitality or international fans. It looks like you've got nothing to hide, which is also attractive to commercial partners.

How can you use POV videos?

As well as the examples listed above, here are some other scenarios you could film:

• The arrival of players.

• The tunnel walk.

• Mascots accompanying players onto the field (this video got very close).

• Training drills.

• The social media or marketing routine on match days.

• Showing a day in the life of grounds staff, or other operational team members.

The main thing to remember is these don't have to be glossy, over-edited productions. Keep the natural sound so we can hear reactions, trim the video for length, but otherwise what you show should be as authentic as possible. Too must post-production makes it feel like advertising.

Football clubs are more than just teams: they're brands powered by fans' emotions, history, and loyalty.

A 2024 study in Türkiye looked at developing a brand positioning strategy for clubs based on fan-based equity. For a traditional business, their brand is built through advertising or product quality. For football clubs, the strength of their brand comes mostly from supporter perception, loyalty, and emotional connection.

This means "fan-based equity" is the value that the club's brand has because of the way fans see it, feel about it, and choose it over others. Think about it as the value of your club in the hearts and minds of your supporters. It's how much fans:

• Care about the club.

• Recognise and identify with it.

• Believe in its quality.

• Feel connected through memories and emotions.

When fans feel all of this, you earn their trust, passion, and word-of-mouth support. That's what builds a strong brand. And the stronger the bond, the more likely fans will keep turning up, buying shirts, and passing on their love of the club to the next generation.

The best bit about the study's findings? They're things that any club can use, no matter the budget. In a nutshell, they are:

• Team history and success.

• Social interaction among fans.

• Handling criticism.

• Management, staff, and stadium features.

• Fanaticism (passion and identity).

• Club loyalty to fans.

Below I'll summarise each one and give you examples of how you can use them.

Team history and success

Fans take pride in their club's past. It doesn't matter whether it's lifting trophies or winning local derbies, you should play up on your successes. The more recent the better!

For example, celebrate club milestones. It doesn't matter how small they may seem, remember these achievements are all relative. "10 years in the league" can be an achievement, as can "the famous cup upset",

York City recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of them beating Man United 3-0 at Old Trafford. They produced a special edition matchday programme which contained an interview with one of the goalscorers as well as a curated feature from the club historian. And the content surrounding it on Instagram performed well compared to the other matchday stuff going on that same day.

Social interaction among fans

A big part of supporting a club is being part of the community. While the big examples of these include fan zones and support groups - which can be local or around the world - there are ways of facilitating these online that go past just "posting to social media".

You could host online watch parties, beambacks, or even get involved in a platform like Reddit. That's what Spurs have done. And Arsenal are currently recruiting for someone to look after their official Reddit presence, so expect to see them joining the party soon.

Give plans a place to talk and meet likeminded people. Your community is something to be proud of. It's why initiatives like the Premier League's events in America do well.

Handling criticism

No club gets it right all of the time. But how you deal with those setbacks can help strengthen your brand.

First of all, transparency builds trust. Be open and honest. If results are poor, explain why. Share the challenges your club is facing and bring fans along for the journey.

When the news broke recently that schools in Scotland were selling tickets to Newcastle matches, fans were angered due to the difficulty in getting hold of tickets for members. The club took action after discovering that there was a "batch of season tickets sold to a small number of tour organisers during the 2015/16 season" that were still being used despite "no formal contract".

Management, staff, and stadium features

Fans respect professionalism, both on and off the pitch. For example, new modern stadiums boost a club's image. Fans get proud and protective of their team's homes. Obviously this isn't feasible to do every other week.

Instead, tell the stories of staff who have been around the club for a long time. Shine a spotlight on the volunteers who make things happen on a match day. And be sure to let fans know about improvements to your stadium, no matter how small.

Bradford have demonstrated this by showing the work being done to replace signage at the stadium recently.

Fanaticism (passion and identity)

Fans want their club to feel like part of who they are. This factor is the level of passion and intensity that they feel for the club.

The stronger the fanaticism, the harder it is for fans to drift away in tough times. These fans create the atmosphere that gives clubs their personality and appeal. It then fuels traditions, songs, flags, tifos, and the culture that makes a club unique.

In the Bundesliga in particular the ultras scene is particularly strong. They often use megaphones to start chants during games, and some teams have drummers that go to every game to build the atmosphere.

It's what you have that makes you memorable and unique. Portland Timbers, for example, have Timber Joey who saws a slab off a log for every goal the team scores and presents it to the goalscorer.

What can you provide fans that is unique to your club?

Club loyalty to fans

This is the other side of the relationship: fans want to feel like the club is loyal to them. How do you treat fans in good times and bad? Fans should feel included, valued, and never taken for granted. This builds trust and goodwill that can carry you through tough seasons.

You don't need to do big gestures to demonstrate this one. A simple thank-you to long-standing season ticket holders, birthday messages, or spotlighting loyal fans on social media shows your appreciation.

It's something Sunderland are doing particularly well following their promotion back to the Premier League. The team are telling the stories of the fans who follow them as they recognise how central fans should be to their identity.

In conclusion

At every level of football your fans are your brand. It's not enough to be successful on the pitch - not every team can do that every season - you also need to nurture passion, loyalty, and identity among your supporters.

By celebrating history, connecting your community, and showing fans they matter, you can build this bond regardless of the size of your budget.

Start small. Pick one of the factors, put it into action this season, and watch how it changes the way your fans feel about the club.

The football season in England is well and truly underway now. Teams across all four of the top divisions have played at least three games, and as I write this the transfer window has been closed a little over 24 hours.

This is my first round-up of the season. I'm going to commit to doing these monthly and having a look back at how clubs' use of Instagram is changing across the months. Below you'll find the following:

• How many posts are clubs sending?

• How have their follower counts changed?

• Which teams are getting the most likes and comments?

• Which post formats are most popular?

• And which are the top performing posts in each league?

I'll throw in anything else I find interesting as we go. I'll start with an overview of all four leagues before breaking them down. Let's start.

Across the divisions

Brace yourself. Here's how active the 92 clubs have been on Instagram.

• Number of posts: 16,849 (average of 183 per club).

• Most popular post format: single images, accounting for 44% of all activity.

• Total number of likes: 393,687,298.

• Total followers: 315,865,563.

• Total growth across all clubs: 1,422,235.

Now let's look into the leagues separately in more detail.

Premier League

Starting with the Premier League, here are the headlines:

• Most followed club: Man Utd (64.7m).

• Most new followers: Chelsea (246k).

• Most new followers as a percentage: Sunderland (20.05%).

• Most posts: Spurs (598).

• Least posts: Wolves (101).

• Most posted format: videos (35% of all activity).

• Most likes: Liverpool (110m).

• Highest share of total post interactions: Liverpool (29.2%).

• Format with the most likes: videos (39.5%).

The most liked post in the league this month was Liverpool's video of Dominik Szoboszlai's free kick against Arsenal.

The post with the highest interaction rate (average interactions on posts per follower per day) is Forest's third kit announcement which had a rate of 35%.

Championship

Moving to the Championship, here are the headlines:

• Most followed club: Leicester (7.9m).

• Most new followers: Wrexham (15.7k).

• Most new followers as a percentage: Coventry (4.6%).

• Most posts: Middlesbrough (297).

• Least posts: Birmingham (96).

• Most posted format: single images (41% of activity).

• Most likes: Wrexham (1.6m).

• Highest share of total post interactions: Wrexham (12.6%).

• Format with the most likes: single images (43.3%).

The league's most liked post was this contract announcement for Ipswich's Elkan Baggott.

The post with the highest interaction rate (average interactions on posts per follower per day) is QPR's match day post with Chloe Kelly that had a 34% rate.

League 1

Here's the picture for League 1:

• Most followed club: Luton (396k).

• Most new followers: Luton (1,320).

• Most new followers as a percentage: Stockport (1.81%).

• Most posts: Bradford (292).

• Least posts: Port Vale (29).

• Most posted format: single images (50%).

• Most likes: Luton (434k).

• Highest share of total post interactions: Luton (14.1%).

• Format with the most likes: single images (45.6%).

Northampton Town had the post with the most likes in this league, with this video of Ethan Wheatley's first professional goal. It also had the highest interaction rate (average interactions on posts per follower per day) with a staggering 95%.

League 2

In League 2, here's how things stand on Instagram:

• Most followed club: Salford (289k).

• Most new followers: Grimsby (15.6k).

• Most new followers as a percentage: Grimsby (22.42%).

• Most posts: Bromley (3524.

• Least posts: Grimsby (33).

• Most posted format: single images (54%).

• Most likes: Grimsby (149k).

• Highest share of total post interactions: Salford (19.6%).

• Format with the most likes: single images (50.8%).

Grimsby's growth this month was no doubt fuelled by their win over Man Utd in the League Cup. Their 22.42% growth was the most of any of the 92 clubs, slightly ahead of Sunderland's 20.05% and way ahead of third-placed Coventry's 4.55%.

Their post celebrating their team after the victory was also the league's most liked with 33k. It's a great post that really captures the emotion of the moment. Nothing posed or setup, just a natural dressing room shot.

The post with the highest interaction rate (average interactions on posts per follower per day) is Barnet's sad announcement of the passing of academy player Arash “AJ” Javanmardi.

ICYMI

Bolton hand fans the keys to content

The team at Bolton Wanderers have had a novel idea: give fans access to raw footage to edit and share as much as they like.

They spotted that fans were screen recording posts to make their own content so added it all to Dropbox and posted the link.

The club benefits from free marketing as a result of this. With easy access to high quality video there will likely be more edits made and posted online, furthering their reach. It also helps fans be part of the storytelling, creating stronger bonds by allowing them to join in. It'll also give the team more posts to share.

Man Utd and personalisation

Personalisation is one of the most powerful tools you have for making fans feel invested in your club.

Man Utd's approach is one of the best in the world. They've welcomed me and given me a virtual shirt that I can add my name and chosen number to (left). And, when new shirts are released, they can show you what it'll look like with your name on (right, courtesy of the club's head of CRM Matthew Watts).

If you're launching a shirt you should definitely be thinking about how you can add personalised assets to the reveal. It increases fans' attachment to the shirt and allows them to see what it looks like with their names on.

This past weekend saw the Premier League kick off, following on from the Championship, League One, and League Two earlier in August.

Games were played across the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th, with all 20 teams featuring across the opening weekend. To try and keep the below figures more comparable, I've only included their posts from the days where their games took place unless I mention otherwise.

NB: All content referred to is what appeared in clubs' main feeds. Stories from accounts that aren't your own can't currently be tracked using Meta's API.

Overall activity

Firstly, there's a huge variation in the amount of activity that clubs shared on their respective fixture dates.

Liverpool were the leagues by this metric, sharing 52 posts on the 15th. This includes match updates such as line-ups and goals, but also a new signing announcement on the same day. They were followed by Spurs (47), Manchester City (40), Sunderland (39), and Nottingham Forest (28).

The average number of posts clubs shared on their game days was 21, with Bournemouth posting the least (7).

In total, clubs posted 428 times. Of these, 181 were single-image posts, 130 were Reels, and 117 were carousels. Single-image posts do tend to be the most popular across a normal month but the gap isn't usually that big. Clubs seem to prioritise these when content needs to be a bit more timely.

Post engagement

Across these 428 posts, clubs picked up 31.8m likes in total. That's an average of 1.6m per account.

In terms of teams that attracted the most likes, Liverpool win this one again with 12.7m. That's an average of 244k likes for every post across. the day. Manchester City's 5m is only enough to get them second place, followed by Manchester United (3.8m), Arsenal (2.8m), and Spurs (2.4m).

Despite only posting seven times across the day of their game against Liverpool, Bournemouth came eighth for likes per posts. They received an average of 37k likes for each post they shared.

There's a slight difference if we look at the number of comments, with Manchester United winning this particular race (79k). Liverpool have to settle for second place this time (58k). In total, clubs received 279,618 comments on their posts.

Sunderland grew their following by 1.9%, with another newly promoted side, Leeds, in second place with 0.17%. Across the four-day opening weekend in total, Sunderland grew their following by 6.7%. Bournemouth were their closest competitors on 0.67%.

Bournemouth did, however, have the highest post interaction rate on their opening day (average interactions on posts per follower per post) at 3.9%.

Most popular content

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given they attracted the most likes and there was only one game on the opening day, Liverpool come top of the most-liked posts for the 15th August with the following getting 738k likes on the day it was posted.

Liverpool had eight of the 10 most liked posts this day, with their clean sweep ruined by this post from Manchester City in second and this from Manchester United in third.

When looking at post interaction rate, however, Bournemouth's post supporting Semenyo was the winner with 16%.

On the Saturday, where there were five games, Liverpool also managed to get three of the top five slots for most-liked posts. The below Reel of Chiesa's goal was top, but it was also the most liked post in total over the four days with 1.1m likes.

When looking at post interaction rate, Sunderland and Bournemouth each had posts that achieved 17%.

For Sunderland, it was them announcing the result of their game against West Ham. Bournemouth's was a Reel of Semenyo's goal the previous evening.

On the Sunday, it was Spurs' turn to top the most-liked post charts. Their Reel of Richarlison's goal picked up 543k likes. In terms of post interaction rate, however, Sunderland's announcement of the signing of Nordi Mukiele was top with 22%.

Finally, on Monday, Manchester United came out on top with the most likes with this Reel of a piece of skill from their game against Arsenal on Sunday getting 368k likes. When looking at post interaction rate, Burnley's 5.9% for this picture of owner JJ Watt attending their game was the winner.

Interestingly, despite Leeds and Everton playing on this day, only Leeds had any posts in the top 25 for likes and interaction rate. Leeds posted 24 times and eight making it into the list, while none of Everton's 17 posts appear.

Club development program

I'm delighted to announce that I've started working as head of FBIN Education. One of our ongoing projects is the club development program, developed in partnership with the Slovak Football League.

This is a hybrid training course involving two in-person sessions in Bratislava as well as online learning over a period of nine months. The purpose is to help you understand the different areas of working in football, covering commercialisation, fan engagement, financial management, brand development, and communication and marketing.

All sessions are pre-recorded and delivered by experienced industry practitioners, and the next cohort starts in October. If you're interested in finding out more, you can register your interest below or reply to this email and I can give you more information.

(And I promise I won't be promoting this kind of thing in every newsletter unless it's relevent)

Watford's post-match interviews are a breath of fresh air

Watford have a new way of conducting post-match interviews and I think they might be the best I've seen in a long time. Yet also the simplest.

In short, they speak to players conversationally as they're still on the pitch applauding the fans. The result is something that feels authentic - it's unpolished, it's timely, and it makes you feel like. you're getting insights from the "real" player.

This type of content is a lot more likely to be remembered and, therefore, watched. It's natural storytelling at its very best.

The best bit? You could do this too. And it's easier than having to get a full media set-up. You need a camera (or phone) and a microphone - then you're off!

You get good results like these if you focus on the content first rather than the format. If something is good, it doesn't matter how polished or edited it is.

Social media updates

Some generic updates from social media platforms that might be useful.

• Threads has reached 400m users, meaning it's getting even closer to matching X's 600m.

• TikTok is starting to restrict some users to a maximum of five hashtags on posts in a bid to boost the user experience.

• Reddit have published a sports playbook which shares a bit more about the culture of fandom on the platform.

By my reckoning, Tottenham Hotspur are the only English football team to maintain an active presence on Reddit.

I've covered Serie A's presence previously (tl;dr it's not very good). But as more clubs - and leagues - are beginning to explore it seriously, it feels like a good time to take a look at how Spurs have used their account since joining last summer.

The soft launch

Unlike Serie A's statements and announcements, Spurs' beginnings were incredibly low-key. They looked at the r/coys subreddit, saw people posting the announcement about their new kit, and used that as their way in.

You can see from the comment underneath how much of a shock this was at the time.

This is one of the main things to understand with Reddit: it's not a space you own. Subreddits for clubs will have existed long before you get involved - the Spurs one was set up in 2010, for example - so you have to lean into the conversations and pick your moments.

Use native formats

Reddit's main strength is its community. And they love seeing content that exists only on Reddit.

AMAs (Ask Me Anythings) are a good way to add value to the existing communities. These are events where people submit questions in advance and you get someone to answer them.

In Spurs' case they've hosted two of these so far. One with two current players, and one with an ex-player ahead of a legends game.

In both cases the team set aside some time to sit down with the players and respond to questions.

But it doesn't have to be players. Good AMAs just need to be held with someone with a story to tell - this could be groundstaff, the ticket office, or the marketing team. The beauty of a Subreddit is you've got a pre-existing community of passionate fans. You can go deep.

Speak the language

You're on Reddit. People are there mainly to be entertained. Join in. Share the fans' voice. It's what the Spurs account does well. It keeps an eye on what's going on and, when appropriate, jumps in.

In this case, they knew what comments had been made and revisited it when the time was right.

It's also a good place for memes and in-jokes. The fans are creating them anyway, you might as well get involved.

Keep your eyes open

I've mentioned a few times that Reddit is a community. And the good thing about communities is that people share their stories in them.

In this case, the Spurs team spotted that someone was looking for a contact at the club to help celebrate their grandfather's 100th birthday.

This is a more basic example, but it's the kind of thing you can find out and use for further content if you're paying attention. You can imagine finding out about fans' stories here and the potential to move those to other channels and explore them further.

And that's Reddit. I feel like the next 12 months are going to be big on the platform. I already know of a few clubs and leagues across Europe who are in talks with the platform with an eye on joining ahead of the season starting in August.

Last week, Newcastle United announced that they were taking the decision to update the club crest. According to the statement on the club's website, the current crest "was created in a different era" and "doesn't always translate well in today's digital world".

Let's explore what this means, why clubs choose to rebrand, and look at several recent rebranding projects to see what was involved.

Why would a club change its crest?

The reason given for Newcastle's rebranding is a common one. In the age of social media, clubs have more than one eye on their digital presence. A logo, as with any business's brand, should be instantly recognisable. The problem with things like phone screens is there's not much room for logos and they tend to be quite small, so the more intricate your design the harder it is to recognise quickly.

That's bad news for branding.

Speaking as a marketer, when you're rebranding a business - which is increasingly how football clubs see themselves these days - you want a logo that is simple, recognisable, and original. I was always told by designers that good logos should be designed to work in one colour, which is interesting to see in the context of Newcastle as they've tried a single colour version at times this season.

Ultimately, the club obviously feels like the current crest isn't suitable for their commercial plans.

Peterborough United are one of the more recent English teams to have also announced they're going down this route. Earlier in 2025, they said they were looking at a "brand evolution" that could involve a new crest.

Speaking to the BBC, the club's head of media and marketing, Clive Edwards, said they had to consider how the crest was used on platforms that didn't exist when the current one was created in 2008.

There is also the added production costs. More colours and intricate designs means merchandise can't be made as cheaply, which either eats into profit margins or increases prices for fans. Especially for embroidered logos.

Simplicity was also a goal for the Premier League when they did their own rebrand way back in 2016. Gone were the intricacies and multicoloured approach of the old logo, and instead it was replaced with something simple and instantly recognisable. Crucially, the lion's head could be used on its own as a logo mark without the league's name and it would still reflect the brand. This has been behind recent decisions from Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur to just use the Liver bird and cockerel, respectively.

While the digital era has been explicitly given as a reason for a lot of recent rebrands - like Norwich City, Juventus, and Cambridge United - there can be other reasons behind the decision too. Rebranding to position yourself differently to an audience, or shed a past reputation, is a common reason.

For a long time, the Czech First League would simply adapt the brand identity of the league's current sponsor. In 2024, they launched their own distinct brand so that they could have more control over their marketing and be "an attractive product for the younger generation".

The result lets them put their own stamp on their marketing and try to attract new fans who buy in to the new look and feel.

How do you do it well?

One of the better received rebrands of recent years happened at Norwich City. The club started with a consultation, rather than thrusting a design on fans. Design studio SomeOne won the work through a tender process and immediately started by consulting "5,000 supporters, club directors, club legends, fan groups, staff, first team, and academy players".

This ensures that fans feel they've been consulted from the beginning of the process, rather than at the end. Getting that early buy-in can be crucial to the success of the project as a whole.

It's a lesson Cambridge United learned the hard way in 2023 when they announced a new badge for fans to vote on, having had minimal consultation about the process. The club admitted they got it wrong, took a step back, and came back with a proper consultation process. They also published the results of the surveys with different groups to give full transparency.

And then there's the case of Aston Villa, who announced a rebrand, rolled it out, and then went back on it a year later due to it "not having the desired effect". The rebrand was revealed a week after the club hired a new president of business operations who has since said he wasn't aware of the impending change when he started.

If you're going to roll out a new identity, don't forget to make sure everyone agrees with it.

How Aston Villa are using Instagram to engage with an American audience

More news from the world of Aston Villa: at the beginning of April they launched a specific US-focused Instagram account. Given the club's increased profile this season thanks to their performances in the UEFA Champions League, this doesn't come as a huge surprise.

The club's original account has had a good level of growth this season, gaining 400k followers. Around half of that number joined following the January transfer window, boosted by some high profile signings. So now is probably a good time to capitalise (despite the fact this has probably been in the works behind the scenes for some time now).

One way they're differing content is by being more selective about what gets shared. In the US account's first 30 days there were 17 posts, compared to 381 on the original one. Information is being more carefully chosen, with final results being the main way match days are promoted overseas, rather than line-up graphics and updates.

When it comes to sharing match day information, they're very careful to tailor things to a US audience. This includes things like kick off times, as in the graphics below.

Spot the subtle difference between the US (left) and the original (right)

And they've leaned into the club's highest profile American fan, Tom Hanks. In this case, it's a collaborator post with the Premier League's US account - a good partnership, and one that can only help boost Villa's efforts to increase the account's following.

Speaking of followers, this has resulted in just over 7,000 followers since the account launched. Not a bad start.

Newcastle's increasing commitment to fan-focused content

Another repeat mention for Newcastle United here.

Over the past few months there's been a concerted effort to feature fans more in their content, whether that's through pre-match photography or showing the fans' match day perspectives with external content creators.

The latest example is this recent footage of supporters being filmed watching the games in the stadium with microphones attached, so we can experience first-hand the emotion of a game.

I'll never get tired of seeing fans front and centre of a club's content. If you spot any good examples of these - or if you're trying this kind of thing yourself - please send them my way.

Speaking of Newcastle United, this weekend I'll be ziplining from the top of the stadium and across the pitch to raise money for the Newcastle United Foundation. If you've ever visited as an away fan then you'll know how high up it is from the back of the stands!

The charity do incredible work in the local area to use football to inspire and motivate people. Sport has been life-changing for my physical and mental health over the last few years, and I'm proud to be raising money so that they can offer opportunities to more people from all over the region. If you're in a position to, you can donate below.

Donate

Serie A subreddit set for first official AMA

More than a month since the partnership was first announced, we're finally seeing the first AMA (ask me anything) to be hosted by a professional sports league on Reddit.

Serie A's first Q&A will feature Christian Vieri and Ciro Ferrara. They'll be answering questions from 3pm CET on 13 May (today). You can see how it unfolds on Reddit here. I imagine there'll be quite a few interested parties checking it out.

Social media news and updates

Finally, some bits and pieces you might not be aware of:

• After testing out unlockable Reels from its own @design account recently, Instagram has allowed the Weeknd to use the feature to hide a clip from his new film behind a similar lock code. That particularly one has now expired, but there are some cool potential uses for this for kit reveals and new signing announcements.

• Threads has hit 350m monthly users. Someway off X (600m), but the gap isn't as big as it once was.

• Reddit Pro has some new profile tools for businesses (and they're all free).

• X is doing some testing of allowing upvotes and downvotes on content, similar to Reddit.

Thanks for reading. If you've made it this far, and you look after the social media channels for a football team, I'd appreciate it if you could complete the State of Football Social Media Survey. It's an annual survey where I attempt to understand the priorities for clubs over the next 12 months, with the results published anonymously.

By Charlie Fox

Baller League is a German export to the UK, the genesis happening in late 2023 and launching in 2024. A collaboration between German entrepreneur Felix Starck, Mats Hummels, Lukas Podolski, and a disused aircraft hanger in Cologne saw the series born. Twelve teams fight out to be in the top four come the end of the season, with those making it past the regulation games fighting it out in the Final Playoff to see who emerges victorious. 

The UK version is headed by Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji, better known as KSI, one of, if not the definitive face of new media in the UK. The season kicks off with a draft, with 160 players up for grabs. These players come from all pedigree, former Premier League and Football League experience, non-League journeymen, futsal stalwarts, all up for grabs.

"Who would have thought that this little idea I and my wife had at the kitchen table could potentially change football forever?" - Felix Starck

Making the selections are the managers of the teams, who, just like the very players they're selecting, offer a cross-section of the online and sporting world. Arsenal invincibles, Premier League winners, four million plus Twitch followers, faces of the women's game, one of the most recognisable TV presenters in the UK, creator of one of the most desirable streetwear brands of the century, a platinum-selling artist and a Ballon d'Or winner. 

As for the game format, this is the closest you will see to Powerleague televised. 30-minute games, 15-minute halves, no corners and rolling subs. Gamechangers contain a mandated three minutes of chaos at the end of each half. A lucky dip format flip, manifesting in many forms, 3v3, only passing forward and long-range goals counting as double.

At 5 PM GMT every Monday, a six-hour stream (available on YouTube and Twitch), and an average of one million views per night has been the early result so far . The combination of the world's favourite game and UK's favourite people has, to no shock, proved to be a popular one. A situation that was pre-empted by Sky Sports, who snapped up the rights to broadcast live on their TV channels.

The early snapshots that are available reflect that the reception is positive, and can be illustrated solely by engagement with the content.

From just YouTube figures alone, via SocialBlade, it is calculated that by this time next year, Baller League will have generated more than 150M views. Views are the aim of the game for any sports league, with more eyes meaning more revenue. Current figures are just as impressive, generating just short of ten million views from fewer than 200,000 subscribers, demonstrating the power of names attached to the project. 

This is not just a YouTube-specific win, with Instagram showing an equally promising set of stats. Baller League sits at a 4.9% engagement rate to date, dwarfing any other football league within the UK. The Premier League account sits at a 0.13% ER with the EFL account not bettering that result by much, on a lowly 0.31%ER. Even the Champions League are failing to match the numbers, with Real Madrid and Barcelona fans propping up a 0.22% ER figure. (SocialBlade).

Whilst being counted as a vanity metric, engagement is a strong pillar of a successful social media strategy, a point amplified by Rochi Zalani of Buffer.com, "After all, engagement makes social media “social” in the first place. You want to reach the right people, spark conversations, and help each other. Which is why a social media engagement strategy can be incredibly helpful for achieving your social media goals".

Baller League is an example of the power of authority figures in both old and new media. Both offer the same kind of validation of the concept, whilst being able to amplify it to different areas of the media landscape that it may not have found before. The pivotal part is that they find different audiences and appeal to the cross-section of society. 

Blue-chip productions require blue-chip sponsors, and Baller League is no exception. Both UK and German iterations have brands taking a unique opportunity with both hands.

The roster that the Baller League has is a wide-reaching one. With a selection of brands with various marketing strategies and plans. Vodafone, Nike and Citroen can be visible in German production, whilst the UK has FootLocker, Pepsi and Cupra. The striking bit about them is that they are universally consumed across all demographics, a clear message that BL is for everyone.

Philips, via its OneBlade product, is taking full advantage of the innovative format, potentially more than others. Players receive the barbershop treatment live on stream, as a captive interviewing opportunity for presenters and to further demonstrate the capability of the product. The backdrop is plastered in boxed razors, clippers and assorted shaving products, and although they are never referenced directly, it is abundantly clear that it's product placement. The whole thing is slightly bizarre, which further adds curiosity to the proceedings.

@neveroutinregardless Live scenes from ballers league match day 1 😂 #specsgonzalez #ballersleague ♬ original sound - NeverOut Clips

However, it isn't too far detached from Philips's venture into social media as a whole. The Philips UK account uses influencer collaboration as a sort of crutch for the channel, in addition to giveaways and expert testimony. Philips UK and Ireland began posting Baller League content at the beginning of April and have seen their biggest month of growth as a result; 343 followers have been acquired over the last 30 days, a rise of around 1.5% overall. 

When the Baller League signed Cupra as 'Official Automotive Partner', Starck stated "A forward-thinking approach to the game requires a pioneering partner, and CUPRA’s vision for performance and innovation perfectly aligns with our philosophy.” And that is the key theme, innovation. 

The Baller League wants to position itself as a new era of football. It is one that fans who are disenfranchised with the state of league football can find themselves more related to. This new era will be dominated by brands that can closely relate to the path that BL is on, that of innovation and forward-thinking.

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 Serie A's reddit adventure gets off to a flat start

Last month I discussed how Serie A have become the first professional football league to have an official account on reddit. I've been watching their progress with interest, given I know of a couple of other teams and leagues who have been exploring the platform.

There's not really much to report back on just yet. In the five or so weeks since the partnership was announced they've posted 14 times and left six comments. So far their activity has been posting highlights videos and running an elimination campaign where commenters can vote out former players.

It's not been the most encouraging or innovative start. There's been no actual fan engagement from the league, save for a couple of replies early on, and none of the promised AMAs (Ask Me Anything) have materialised yet. As the season draws to a close, maybe it's something that will ramp up again from July onwards.

Interim results from this year's State of Football Social Media survey

I'm nearly there with this year's State of Football Social Media survey. If you've got a spare five minutes to add your thoughts then you'll make the results even more useful to teams all over the world.

Here's what I've discovered from results so far:

• YouTube and Instagram are the most widely used social networks among football teams.

• Most clubs say Instagram is their most important social media channel, replacing X since last year (which is now in second place).

• 19% of clubs don't send at least one email a month to a mailing list.

• 38% of teams worked with an influencer in 2024.

• Facebook is the most popular platform for clubs to advertise on, followed by Instagram.

• 48% of teams are using WhatsApp Channels, with more planning on launching this year.

• More than 50% of teams don't have a documented social media strategy.

Want to make the results even better? You can contribute to the survey below. If you've already completed it, I'd appreciate it if you could share the link with colleagues at other clubs. It's entirely anonymous, and the results are always interesting.

Making fans feel part of the celebrations

Two examples here from recent league wins and promotions.

First up, Port Vale - or (P)ort Vale as they're now known on X - recently secured promotion to League Two. And the media team have decided to have a bit of fun with it.

They've been leading the way in terms of digital fan engagement for a while now, specifically through the amount of time they spend responding to comments and interacting with people. And they've taken this up a notch since they won promotion.

We've seen them join in with the banter.

Leave tongue-in-check comments to fan questions.

And - in a move that is surprisingly rare for professional football clubs on social media - actually thank people for renewing their season tickets.

While the two things aren't related, and on-pitch success is a big driver, they've also revealed that they're up to 4,000 season tickets sold ahead of this weekend's deadline. And 18% of these are going to first-time purchasers.

Promotion and winning leagues is one thing, but I'd imagine that feeling valued by the club for your commitment is another motivating factor behind some of the purchases.

A few leagues higher, and Liverpool were crowned winners of this year's Premier League. This gallery of photographs of their fans was a really nice addition to the general celebratory posts.

I'm a huge fan of seeing other perspectives of things, and the collection of photos shows people from all walks of life supporting the club. It's a really stylish additional viewpoint of the league win.

THAT selfie

Speaking of Liverpool's title win and getting the fans involved, Mo Salah took a selfie with supporters following his goal. He grabbed a phone from a pitch side photographer as part of the club's ongoing partnership with Google Pixel.

It was a great moment that looked completely natural in the moment, but it'll be interesting to see whether the leagues or broadcasters clamp down on these kinds of sponsorship activations in future.

If they do then it'll be a bit of a shame. They create great viral moment and make fantastic memories for the fans involved, and at least it's not plastered with logos.

Awards, events, and podcasts you might like

FBIN Marketing Excellence Awards

This year's FBIN Marketing Excellence Awards are now open for submissions. I'm pretty chuffed to have been asked to join the judging panel for these. You've got until the 6th May to get your entries in.

Life with football legislation: Preparing meaningful fan engagement and consultation

Think Fan Engagement are hosting an event in May to help people in football understanding the emerging statutory requirements of the new football regulators. The session will help you plan and implement compliant fan engagement and fan consultation activities.

Increasing attendances among teenagers

A recent edition of the Fan Experience EXPERIENCE Podcast with Exeter City's Supporter Liaison Officer Richard Knight touched on an interesting problem for clubs.

They can do a great job attracting in junior supporters when they're young, who also enrol their own children decades down the line, but there's a big gap in the 12-18 age range where clubs struggle to engage with fans. They join different social groups, do different things, and maybe don't follow their club on the terraces as much as previously. The issue is trying to find activities and entertainment that cater to them.

As host Mark Bradley said:

I wonder how many clubs are asking groups of young people to come to a game and sit down with them afterwards and ask "what did you think?".

We probably all know what the answer is. But your fans are the best source of feedback possible. Speak to them, find out what they do and don't like, and make changes where needed. If you're not proactive, you'll never know.

You can listen to the full episode below.

Marketing and social media news and updates

A quick round-up of the headlines.

• Instagram's new free video-editing app, Edits, is now available. My early impression is that it's a bit like a version of CapCut with the stabilisers on.

• X has had a 10.5% decline in EU users since August 2024 (NB: This doesn't include UK users).

• Posting videos to LinkedIn? They've recently updated their guide to video specs for the platform.

• If you've spent time moving to cookie-less tracking, Google's actually abandoned their remaining plans to remove third-party tracking from Chrome.

• Instagram is experimenting with a Storylines feature, which will mean you - and people who follow you back - can post to a collaborative Story. An app research discovered the test. This could be a nice match day feature.

• TikTok have renewed their media partnership with MLS.

In the last week, Serie A became the first professional football league in the world to have an official Reddit account.

A statement published by the league said the following:

"Reddit, known for its vibrant and passionate communities, provides Serie A with a unique opportunity to engage with fans in an authentic and meaningful way. Through its official Reddit account, Serie A will host AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with players, coaches, and league officials, share exclusive matchday content, and foster discussions around the league’s most exciting moments.

"Fans will also have the chance to participate in polls, contests, and other interactive initiatives, making them an integral part of the Serie A experience. This partnership underscores Serie A’s dedication to innovation and its mission to connect with fans across the globe."

And it's about time. Football as a sport has been incredibly slow to spot the potential of Reddit, despite it regularly among the top 10 most visited websites in the world each month. In terms of social media sites, only YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X are ahead of it (as is WhatsApp, but that depends on what you class as a social network).

What is Reddit, anyway?

The closest comparison to Reddit is a website forum. Reddit is a collection of a series of smaller forums - known as SubReddits, or Subs - that provide places for people to talk about their interests. They can be on a variety of topics, with popular ones devoted to individual TV shows, computer games, or sports teams.

Each Sub is looked after by a team of volunteer moderators. And anyone can create their own Sub - while there's no exact number available online, most people estimate there to be more than 3million, with around 135,000 of these classed as active.

The Serie A SubReddit was created in August 2010 and currently has more than 500,000 subscribers. This puts it in the top 1% of Subs on the platform.

By contrast, 5m people subscribe to r/PremierLeague, r/Bundesliga has 1.3m members, and r/LaLiga has more than 680k members. Each of these should be looked at as fertile ground for leagues, as audiences are often incredibly diverse and spread out around the world.

The u/SerieA account has announced its arrival on the Serie A SubReddit. So far they’ve published a few comments and posted one additional post which asked for predictions for the coming gameweek. Since then they’ve been quiet, which feels like a misstep after building a bit of hype. Hopefully they find their feet and start engaging with other users over time.

What is sport's history with Reddit?

Patchy at best.

Only a handful of teams in England (and, from what I can tell, Europe) have looked at it as a viable channel for promotion.

England Rugby are quite active, especially around major tournaments. They often post in the r/RugbyUnion SubReddit, sharing highlights and team news. They also host AMA events (Ask Me Anything), where fans can submit their questions for players to respond to during a given timeframe. Most recently the team's nutritionist answered questions ahead of the last game in the Six Nations.

Around six years ago Arsenal went through a phase of engaging with fans on Reddit, taking part in AMAs on the r/Gunners Sub. Players such as Henrik Mkhiraryan, Petr Cech, and Rob Holding answered questions from fans. After a short spell this stopped, and they haven't been spotted since.

There‘a been a bit more success in America, where the NBA has had an official account since August 2007. While they regularly host AMAs, they also share highlights in the NBA SubReddit and on those of teams in the league where appropriate.

What opportunities are there for sports teams on Reddit?

Reddit has been pushing hard over the past 12 months to attract more sports-related content, possibly inspired by the issues faced by X. Clearly they've identified a gap in the market.

SubReddits are full of people passionate about their interest, often from all over the world. It's a primed, pre-selected audience that you can leverage for your marketing.

If you're going to do it, you should start by creating an account with your team's name and approaching the moderators of your chosen SubReddit. These are listed on the right hand side of the screen when you find the right Sub. You'll likely need some way of proving your account is real, you can't blame the moderators for being too careful.

While AMAs are the go-to for content on Reddit, there are other ways you can add value to your team's Sub:

• Sharing exclusive content, such as behind-the-scenes videos.

• Replying to comments or questions.

• Running quizzes or posing trivia questions.

The important thing to remember it's a very democratic place that doesn't take too kindly to sales-based messaging. It's why businesses have always historically struggled on the platform. But by getting involved in the community over time you could attract more fans from across the globe.

And, with the recent introduction of Reddit Pro, you can even access your views and upvote numbers to report on the visibility you're getting.

Wycombe Wanderers' fan collab

I'm a sucker for content like this, especially when it's produced by fans. Wycombe recently published a collab post on Instagram with a family-focused account.

You get to experience the match day experience through their perspective, which does more than any official videos ever could.

It's the classic 'show don't tell' in action. And a collab post is a good idea as it'll go out to both audiences at the same time, pushing your reach even further.

Club Brugge + Roblox

Speaking of new, niche communities, Club Brugge launched on Roblox towards the end of 2024.

By the end of January the club's Goal Clash game had been played more than 1 million times. And all through organic growth. After that first month, more than 60% of users had been under the age of 18. It's part of a wider push from the club to attract more young fans to games. This has included initiatives such as the Young Blues Reporter, where they looked to identify an "influencer of the future".

Social media updates

A few updates it's worth knowing about:

• Instagram reposts (for those who have access to them, they're rolling out very slowly) may now appear in your followers' feeds. Previously you could only share someone else's content to stories.

• Speaking of Instagram, if you were using notes on posts and Reels you won't be able to anymore because they haven't been popular enough.

• YouTube have clarified how views on Shorts are counted - essentially, anytime your Short is on screen it counts as a view.

• Finally, Instagram's bespoke video editor is launching in the UK at the end of April. You can pre-order it on iOS now.

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This year's State of Football Social Media survey is closing soon, and we're still a bit short of matching last year's contributions. If you work in football social media, please consider taking a few minutes to answer the questions.

This year's State of Football Social Media survey is now open! If you manage a social media account for a club, national side, or league, I'd appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to let me know about your club's social media marketing. All entries are anonymous.

This is the fifth consecutive year I've ran the survey, and with every passing year it gets more interesting to compare how the results are changing. The survey is the same as ever, for the most part, but I have added in Bluesky as an option to a few of the questions to bring it a bit more up to date.

Take the survey

Instagram Broadcast Channels add interactivity

One of my previous criticisms of Instagram's Broadcast Channels was the lack of interactivity. Emoji reactions and polls are great, but I always thought it would be useful to be able to open up a brief window for comments that you can use for inspiration or to respond to.

The new prompt card does this.

In this example, NYCFC are asking fans what they want to see more of and responding accordingly. People can see the comments left to the prompt and leave emoji reactions against them, which would be used like a voting system.

I like the NYCFC approach to naming theirs as a "behind the scenes" feed. It makes it feel like you're getting an exclusive look inside the club. But I don't like that background as it makes white text hard to read. Don't forget accessibility when choosing things like this.

How to create a content strategy

Newcastle United's recently appointed head of content Simon Meehan, formerly of Brentford and Chelsea, knows a thing or two about leading teams to create engaging content. I featured one such example of their website content in 2023 when writing an ode to the long read.

Earlier this year Simon took part in a webinar with Sports Business Institute Barcelona to talk all things content strategy. I would definitely recommend catching up on the recording if you want to find out more about how content can help teams win off the field.

In this talk you'll hear Simon talk about concepts such as sales funnels and customer journeys. I plan to write a few things about these over the coming weeks and add my own perspective on them.

The future of social media

The Athletic's Steve Madeley has written about how players are moving away from X, and why clubs can't tear themselves away from it just yet.

There's no denying that the landscape is changing. The bulk of the people I speak to in the sport don't enjoy being on X due to the negativity and declining experience, yet can't deny that it's where the eyeballs are. One of the first lessons in marketing is that you should be where your customers are, so I don't envisage teams moving away en masse just yet.

If you are thinking about jumping to an alternative like Bluesky, whether that's instead of or alongside your presence on X, I've started compiling a list of official English team accounts I've found there. You can follow it to see how it's being used before deciding whether to join. No doubt I'm missing a few, but I do keep a regular eye out and update it.

One of the things picked up on in the Athletic piece above is that teams rely on X for directing people to their website. Some experiments in other sectors have found that Bluesky is a better source of referral traffic, even on smaller followings, because it doesn't actively reduce the reach of posts containing links.

The article also makes mention of platforms such as reddit and Discord. Both are still hugely underused in sport. Blackburn Rovers' subreddit, to pluck a random one by way of an example, has 2,000 subscribers and is in the top 16% as a result. There's a pre-engaged audience there that would no doubt welcome some form of official involvement.

Speaking of alternative social networks, if you're interested in a short guide on how to set up and use Threads then Meta have you covered. And Snapchat (remember Snapchat!) have published some research into how sports fans use their platform.

Maximising the Instagram algorithm

While I've never been a huge fan of trying to "play the algorithm", it's impossible to deny that knowing how social media sites rank content is useful. Luckily, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has you covered.

The three key factors are:

• Watch time.

• Likes.

• Sends.

Essentially, if something triggers people to do something then it fuels the algorithm. If a lot of people click like, Instagram shows that content to more people.

For teams, this means that content strategies should revolve around creating posts that people are going to want to watch, like, and forward to their friends. Focus on providing insights that inform, educate, or entertain your fans. This is likely why ticket offers and merchandise sales don't perform as well as everything else.

Mosseri also talks about adding audio to everything - even photos - and keeping videos under three minutes. Posting to your grid is the recommended way to maximise your reach, as Stories are intended for "your most passionate audience".

You can watch the series of videos on Mosseri's Instagram account.

A final reminder that this year's survey is now open for submissions

Names have power. Making people feel like people can elevate a generic email or message and make it more likely they'll read or respond.

In How To Win Friends And Alienate People, Dale Carnegie says:

A person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language

It's a quote I use repeatedly when teaching customer relationship marketing.

The idea of customer relationship marketing is that we make our customers - or fans - feel like we really care about them. The secret is that you don't need to care about fans. It's easier and more effective if you do, but they just have to feel special or valued.

Personalisation is a really powerful way of doing this. And there's nothing more personal than a name.

The psychology of names

In 2012, Starbucks made a big change to how they were going to distribute orders. Rather than writing an order number on drinks, they were going to start writing - and calling out - the customer's first name.

It was out of a desire to increase the personal connection between staff and customers. This can get lost as a brand grows.

Earlier this year, the Journal of Retailing carried a study that showed that people are happier with their experience when their names are used, rather than numbers. And that it applies in-store and online. They've termed this "The Starbucks Effect". Science Says has also covered the study.

Numbers make us feel less human. If you've ever seen Les Miserables you'll be familiar with prisoner 24601 who reminds us whenever he's referred to by that number that "my name is Jean Valjean".

How to use names in your marketing

If you're collecting customer data, then you'll likely have peoples' first names. And that's all you need.

Email marketing

Email is the most obvious way of using your fans' names in marketing. Placeholders and mail merge mean you can switch out the content depending on who's receiving the message.

Here's a quick example from Charlton for their upcoming fixture against Wrexham.

This one puts my name in the subject line - "Scott, don't miss out" - as well as in the introduction. There are tons of examples of these. They're nice and simple, and add a little touch to help them stand out (the overwhelming majority of club mailing lists I'm signed up to never use my name).

Taking this one step further, Aston Villa used my name to welcome me when I joined their mailing list a few months back.

The subject line included #WelcomeGoodacre, which adds to the direction to make you feel like a new signing. I also like the use of "finalise your contract" to get me to confirm my address. There's no laws around double opt-in messaging having to be boring!

My favourite, however, is how Wolves did it.

My own shirt! I can see how it would look if I was part of the team, which is a nice feeling to get from a mailing list.

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You can create custom graphics like this using Nifty Images, which has a fairly generous free plan.

Of course, if you've got the data you could follow Southampton's Season In Numbers campaign and remind people about what they've seen over the past 12 months.

Social media

While social media doesn't operate the same way as email, there are still opportunities to include peoples' names in your content.

One way is in replies. When you're talking to fans, find an opportunity to naturally get their names into your responses.

There's also the opportunity to create custom wallpapers for some lucky followers. Bromley FC did this a few years back, spending time putting fans' names and numbers onto the back of their shirt as part of #WallpaperWednesday.

This is also a natural way of getting the sponsor into things too. I've always thought it would be a great idea as part of a kit launch - obviously limited to a certain number of requests and definitely not automated given the issues we've seen with these tools in the past.

While there's a resource issue in rolling something like this out regularly, as part of a new kit launch it could be a powerful tool to build connections with fans.

The State of Football Social Media

This year's State of Football Social Media is coming soon... with a bit of a twist this year. Subscribers will be the first to know when the survey is open, so watch this space.

You can take a look at last year's results below.

For a lot of clubs, SEO isn't at the top of their priorities. Most of the content you publish on a day to day basis isn't created to rank well in search, it's often just there for fans who want to be kept up to date.

But what if you do have something that you want people to find when they don't know what they're looking for?

This is often the 'extra services' clubs offer, such as venue hire. That's when you need search engine optimisation.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of setting your website up in a way that it appears in search results. For the benefits of this, I'll refer pretty much exclusively to Google. They've got the bulk of the market so it makes sense.

Businesses are always trying to get their pages to the top of the listings. It's not easy, and it can take a while to see results, but it helps you compete with companies offering similar products and services. Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO is a great starting point to understand what it's all about.

For this, I'm going to assume that you have an introductory knowledge of SEO and show you a tool that helps you assess your site's current search engine performance.

Google Search Console

If you're vaguely interested in SEO, Google Search Console should be your go-to source. It's part of Google's suite of website tools that includes Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Google Looker Studio. These help you measure and report on your website's performance.

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I deliver training on Google products. If you want a remote session, or something in person with your team, reply to this email and we can discuss how it works and what it costs.

The good news? They're all free. But they do need setting up. I'm going to cover Google Search Console as that's the one that looks at SEO.

It can tell you the following:

• Which pages appear in search results.

• What position they appear in.

• Which search terms they appear for.

• Which sites link to yours.

There's more, but they're the key bits we'll look at here.

Setting it up

You can search for Google Search Console to get started, or use this link. You'll get their landing page. The first step is clicking the blue 'start now' button in the middle of the page.

You'll be prompted to sign in to a Google account. I can't help you with this bit. If you don't have one, you'll need one to use Google's products. Your team may be using Google Workspace which means you can use your work address to log in. It's worth checking.

NB: If you work for a bigger team or club please check with relevant departments if you're able to create a teamx@gmail.com account or similar. And make sure several people have the details to access it just in case.

If you've never used this before, you'll be asked to create a new property. That's their word for website. If you do have a website in there already you can skip ahead a few steps.

Creating a property

This bit can be slightly tricky. You have two options: domain, or URL prefix. The best solution is the first option, domain.

The only stumbling block is that the best way to verify it is using DNS verification. This takes less than 30 seconds to set up if you know what you're doing. You need to log in to your website's registrar (where the domain was bought) and add a TXT record. I'd recommend speaking to your IT department or web company to do this.

A URL prefix can be authorised if you're logged in to the same account that has Google Analytics installed on the site. But you don't get the full picture when you're logged in.

If you're struggling to get approval to set things up, hopefully seeing the benefits below will help convince senior staff that it's worth doing. The good thing with Search Console is all of the data is there the second you get access - it doesn't only track from when it's installed, like a tool like Google Analytics does.

Measuring search performance

When you're in, you'll see an overview showing your website's performance over the past three months. Search Console usually updates every day.

All of the examples you're going to see are for this site.

We're going to be focusing on the 'search results' tab on the left, under 'performance'.

This screen shows you how many clicks (blue) you've had from search results, and how many times you've appeared (purple). Impressions will always be higher than clicks, often substantially higher. This is because your site may be turning up in irrelevant searches at random so you wouldn't expect them to click on yours. It's nothing to worry about on an overview level.

You'll notice two other metrics - average CTR, and average position. Click these to turn them on. You'll see them added to the graph, as well as the table below.

From here you can turn any of those four metrics on and off. They'll disappear from the graph and the table. I like to leave them on, as it's the table I'm most interested in.

You can also change the date range above where you enable the metrics. I'm going to look at the last 12 months to get a longer term picture.

What you'll immediately notice from this is how volatile the results are. Your site will likely have been up and down for months. Again, perfectly normal. Like a lot of analytics tools, the dashboard or overview page isn't the best place to draw conclusions from.

Scrolling down will show you all the queries (or keywords) that your site has appeared for. It should be ordered by clicks, but you can select any of the column headers to switch this.

See what I meant about irrelevant search? This site ranks relatively well for searches around the Everton subreddit - that's three of the top 10 queries that it's shown for.

If you want to find out which of your pages is ranking for that query, click the query.

Here you can see the history. The impressions - and position - have tailed off since the start of 2024. I've absolutely no idea why right now.

Change to the 'pages' tab in the middle of your page.

This screen now shows you all of the pages on your site that rank for that query. We can see that this page from 2016 is the reason for three clicks and 16,545 impressions. Put your cursor over any of the pages and you can either copy the URL, open it in another tab, or look at it in more detail (you don't learn much from looking at it in more detail).

To reset things a bit, find the filter at the top of the page and click the X to remove it. I'm going to remove the "query: everton reddit" box.

That will take you back to the starting point.

From here, switch your view to the 'pages' tab. This is a bit more insightful. Queries are useful, but not from a whole site perspective. You can see that there are 1,000 queries in my list, and a lot of similar words and phrases. Instead, you want to see how your pages are performing.

These are the pages that have the most clicks on them from Google. Click any of the results to look at it in more detail. Like with queries before, this gives you more insights into how a specific page is doing.

From here, move across to the 'queries' tab again.

This is more like it. Now you can see all of the queries that this single page appears for in search results, and how it ranks for each term.

This is where you will see a lot of similar queries. People search for things using tons of different variations of the same phrases. You'll likely have hundreds of query results for each page.

Clicking any of these queries combines the query and page to show you figures for that combination.

You can see any changes or shifts. In this case, around September 2013 there was a big spike in impressions which followed a drop in position. It can be for all sorts of reasons.

The best approach with SEO is to make changes, measure the results, and see if you've moved up or down the rankings as a result. Rinse and repeat.

Finding links

When Google was first created they introduced a system of links equalling votes. Every link to your website from another one is that website saying "I recommend going here". They've been used to judge the importance of a page in various ways since then.

We can find all of our current links by finding "links" in the left hand menu. You may have to scroll for this.

You can see two columns: external links and internal links.

External links are links to this site from other website. Internal links are links between pages on here. They're both important, but we'll just look at external ones.

You have a list of 'top linked pages'. Choose any of these to look at them more closely.

It's worth noting that you may see a lot of spam in here. Websites of no real value or relevance that have links to your pages. That's fine. You can't do anything about it. You may also see some social networks too.

In this case I have four websites linking to this article about Wrexham. Clicking any of these results shows you which page of that site the link is on.

Putting your cursor over the linking page lets you visit that URL to see it for yourself so that you can see what context it's in.

In this case the article is listed as a reference for a case study. I'll take it!

Tips to improve your site's performance in search

SEO is a big, complicated world. And there are very few guarantees about what will make an impact.

Links

Links have always been a big factor, although there's been a lot of talk of their importance declining recently. Around 18 months ago this site was listed as a source on a Wikipedia page. Because of Wikipedia's reputation as a website, it boosted a lot of the pages across this site in the results. Until someone removed it, anyway (you win some...).

If you're pursuing links you need to be attracting them from relevant, reputable websites. Usually sites that have a look of good quality links to them themselves. This is often newspapers and magazines (social networks don't count as they're too easy to manipulate). It can also be the websites of suppliers or partners.

Content

The content on your page matters too. You don't need to hit a minimum word count or anything like that, focus instead on providing good quality content that your fans want to read and share.

Some of Google's most recent updates have been around prioritising "helpful content" in the results. This includes things like reviews and first-hand accounts of experiences. A lot of the changes are because Google wants to promote trustworthy, authoritative sources of information.

As a sports team you're definitely one of these. And it's incredibly likely that your site has a high level of trust assigned to it already as a result.

Page experience

The experience people have on your site is important. It should load quickly (three seconds is often the figure quoted), work on mobile, and shouldn't have distracting auto-play videos or pop-ups that block the content on the page.

You can check loading speed using a tool like Google's Pagespeed Insights. Look for the speed index score.

And that's it

This is very much a quick introduction to SEO and how you measure your site's performance.

Google Search Console is your 'must use' tool for this. I'd recommend getting it set up and starting to use it as soon as you can.

There's an old sales phrase that "people buy people". We're drawn to other people, and there's nothing we like more than seeing them smile and enjoying themselves. I spoke about it when discussing fan-first content earlier this year.

What I haven't gone into detail with, however, is how clubs are using players themselves in their content.

Why personalities matter

As well as liking to see people in content, particularly star names, there are other benefits to having players in content.

For teams, it increases visibility. Especially if you have a player with a big following - such as Lucas Paquetá at West Ham who has more followers than the club does.

For players, it's about showing off your personal brand. If you've got an eye on sponsorship or commercial opportunities, you want to take every opportunity to show the world what you're like. It's never a bad thing to be more marketable.

If you're a fan, seeing your team's players out of their natural on-pitch environment can make you feel closer to them. And it can make you feel like you know them better too.

Here are the ways you can make most of the opportunities that happen in a normal week.

Arrival content

A few clubs are doing good arrival content that doesn't just rely on footage of players walking into a stadium.

At Exeter, they set questions for them to answer. These are often themed, such as this one around movies during Oscars season.

It doesn't need to stop there though. Before one game players were asked who they'd least like to be stuck in a lift with. After receiving a lot of nominations, the club were inspired to launch a new series where goalkeeper Shaun MacDonald actually spends time in a lift with those who nominated him.

This type of content only comes about if you take the time to experiment and let personalities come through. It obviously takes buy-in from the players themselves.

At Tottenham Hotspur, the arriving players are often set challenges to complete. In this case, a putting challenge in honour of the Masters.

This example from Spurs goes one step further by also showing the players in 'normal' clothes. That's a pretty big insight into the type of people they are.

The most common approach from clubs is a simpler point of view video showing them walking in. Leeds published a textbook example of it for their recent game.

These are still good ways to show the individual players' personalities. Seeing the different ways they interact with staff and a bit of how they are behind the scenes is always interesting.

At the training ground

You don't just need to capture players being put through their paces and working on drills. The training ground is a good place to grab players away from the pressures of a match day.

In Brighton's case they were filming in time to catch an opportunistic shot of a player just being themselves.

You could also catch snippets of conversation when players play up for the camera, giving us an insight into their relationships. That's what Watford managed this week.

You also get the chance to try different bits. Crystal Palace turned two awards into a short piece where the players had to guess which one they had won.

Again, it's a different way of showing the players' relationships. You can't script or plan these things.

At the final whistle

In this case, full-time celebrations are only really useful if the team's won. Otherwise you don't get the kind of reactions you'd likely want to broadcast.

The important thing is to get onto the pitch and get among the action, and it means you can get quick snippets like Bristol City managed.

And then be on hand for the triumphant return to the dressing room afterwards, in Newcastle's case.

Use your access and show fans the players in these unguarded moments. It'll increase closeness and build the players' own brands - you'll soon find they're all trying to be front of centre of your ideas.

Writing is one of those skills that can make or break your content. Whether it's long-form pieces on your website or in a programme, or a social caption, the quality of the words you choose have a huge impact on whether something is understood and acted on. Or not.

In this piece I'm going to cover advice and guidance on how you can write more effectively for your audience and why this important.

NB: The headline of this piece is deliberate. The phrasing is designed to jar, making it more memorable. Did it catch your attention? Then it's working.

People are busy

The first step towards being more effective with your writing is recognising that people are busy. We're shown more content than we ever have been, with millions of posts being uploaded to social sites every day and our inboxes being bombarded with emails (yes, the irony isn't lost on me here).

Think about the last time you were browsing social media. You likely didn't have one thing on your mind. At any one time we can be thinking of many things; what we're eating later, our weekend plans, present ideas for an upcoming birthday, a meeting that starts soon, something we watched last night. Good communication needs to cut through all of this and capture attention.

When we're reading things our brains do quick checklists based on what they see:

1. Do we read this now?

2. Do we read it later?

3. How much effort are we putting in to reading this?

4. Do we respond or react?

We don't know we're doing these things. I call it the "What's in it for me?" principle. If what you've published doesn't mean anything to someone then they'll ignore it. We're always looking for things that speak to us.

With this in mind, here are some tools and techniques that can improve your writing.

Use the active voice

Sentences that use the active voice are more straightforward to understand. They are written to be clear and direct. The idea is that the subject of the sentence is the one that performs the action. Here's an example:

• Shearer scored the winning goal.

• Newcastle won the match.

• Newcastle and Sunderland contested the game.

These are simple, but they show a subject ("Shearer", "Newcastle", "Newcastle and Sunderland") doing the action described by the verb ("scored", "won", "contested"). The subjects are all doing something in these examples.

Those same two sentences written in the passive voice would look like this:

• The winning goal was scored by Shearer.

• The match was won by Newcastle.

• The game was contested by Newcastle and Sunderland.

In these cases, the subject is acted on by the verb. Usually a preposition such as "by" is used in passive voice sentences. It often sounds a lot more formal to write this way. If you can remove the name of the person or team involved and still have a grammatically correct sentence then more often than not it's in the passive voice.

Sometimes teams use the passive voice to avoid naming opposition players. Take a look at the two examples below, both covering the same incident. The passive voice also reflects the mood of the team posting.

The first post from Blackpool is passive - you can remove "by the goalkeeper" and it still makes sense. Fleetwood's is written in the active voice as it names the subject first.

Here's how the Blackpool post could read in the active voice.

The passive voice isn't bad. There's a time and place for it. But the active voice is a better way of writing emails, social posts, and articles. It's more engaging, carries people along, and is simpler to understand.

Always talk to your audience

Your audience are the single most important thing in your marketing. Everything you write is trying to convince someone to do something, whether it's click, read, sign up, or buy. You should always address them.

To do this, make sure you use the word "you" in your writing (like I'm doing throughout). Your club isn't about you, it's about the fans. Everything you publish is for their benefit.

There are few words in marketing that have the same impact as "you". It makes things personal, which is engaging, and immediately makes the person reading it relate things to their own situation.

Think about how impersonal the below sounds.

The use of "Boro fans" isn't the most welcoming. With a slight tweak the post can be made to sound more personal.

In any content, "you" should outnumber "I" or "we" (or, shudder, "the Football Club"). Some people say that it should be 80% second-person (you, your, yours) and 20% first-person (I, me, mine, we, ours). Don't get too stuck on percentages, just make sure you're using more second-person pronouns and you're on your way.

Plain English

The plain English campaign exists to make people re-consider the language they use. They provide a list of alternative words you should use to help make your writing more widely understood.

The purpose of the campaign is to encourage companies to remove jargon from public information. You can apply all of the same approaches to your work to make sure people can understand it easier.

Keep it simple

One of my favourite quotes to do with keeping things simple is that "it's not dumbing down, it's opening up".

When we use short sentences, plain English, and the active voice, we make things easier to understand. By contrast, when we litter sentences with superfluous and jargon-y phrases as a way of trying to demonstrate our own superior knowledge of a complex subject we can lead to a situation where a lot of people don't understand what it is we're writing about and they switch off halfway through the sentence because there's far too much to pay attention to and retain.

Hopefully that last sentence made the point clear.

If we use short sentences and familiar words, more people understand things. That includes people who may have higher literacy levels. Nobody is excluded when things are easy to understand.

The average reading age in the UK is estimated at being around nine years old. That means a good way of looking at your writing is to try and figure out if a nine year old would be able to understand it. If not, revise it.

The Hemingway editor is a good tool for this. It measures in American grades rather than English levels, but the end result is the same. Copy your last email or social post into it and see how it's graded. Then try and improve it.

Another way of keeping your writing simple is to limit the number of ideas in it. Each social post should focus on one thing. Each email should focus on one thing. Don't give people three or four different ideas in the same piece of content. By doing so you dilute the message, meaning fewer people will get what you want them to do.

In this year's State of Football Social Media report, 87% of teams ranked Instagram as either 'very important' or 'somewhat important' to their marketing. Most respondents to the survey said their team had a profile there, it remains one of the most popular platforms alongside Facebook and X.

None of this is a huge surprise.

Instagram's ability to display photos and videos, as well as copying popular formats like Stories (from Snapchat) and Reels (from TikTok), means that it's the only social network that works with most formats. The only exception is text-based posts, which are usually in the minority for teams anyway.

For this week's newsletter, I've been through club profiles to see how they're using them. Teams are optimising their profiles in all sorts of different ways. Plenty of teams aren't using a lot of the features I've highlighted below, so if you're one of them it may just give you some inspiration for making changes.

The first thing to make sure of is that you've turned your account into a business one. This opens up additional options for your profile, such as the ability to tag products and link it to a shop. Great for kit promotions.

The Instagram bio

Your profile is the gateway to your team. First impressions are important, so as well as making sure it looks tidy you also need to signpost fans and followers to key messages and content. Your club's bio is perfect for this.

You get 150 characters to introduce yourself. Ideally you should mention who you are, but it's also a good idea to highlight all the other sides to the club.

In Everton's bio they've listed four other Instagram accounts fans can follow: Everton Women, Everton in the Community, their USA-focused account, and the account for their upcoming new stadium.

This acts like a digital directory of accounts on the platform. Each one turns into a link that fans can tap on to visit and follow. It's a great use of the club's main account, as people may not be aware of everything else you're up to.

But you can also change it as often as you like, so it's also a useful place to direct people to whatever your main promotion is at the moment. In West Ham's case they're pushing a documentary they've published on YouTube.

They've updated their bio and added an emoji to draw your eye down to the link underneath. It's slightly ruined by the address being in between (a feature of business accounts), but it works.

With this approach you can only promote one link on your profile at any time. Otherwise you can have up to five separate ones, as evidenced by Blackburn below.

Tapping this link opens up a pop-up that allows fans to choose between your current links.

If you don't want to use a third-party service like Linktree then this is the best solution.

Telling Stories

If you're on Instagram, you're probably publishing Stories. These appear at the top of peoples' feeds, or can be accessed by tapping on your profile image, and last 24 hours.

To avoid these from disappearing for good after that time you can add them to your highlights. These then sit permanently above your profile grid. You can even customise the thumbnail for them.

The most common use is to make highlights of Stories from certain fixtures, as Forest Green Rovers and Mansfield have done (click the image to make it bigger).

These ensure the work you've put into graphics doesn't disappear. And they tell a story of the season so far, so fans can relive fixtures as they happened.

There are other ways of grouping your stories, however. Fleetwood Town do them by month, for example.

And Chelsea Women focus them around events and campaigns.

One method, used by New York Red Bulls and West Ham, is to group Stories based on the players who are in them.

With this approach fans of certain players can quickly access the relevant content on your profile. Good luck figuring out the right order to feature them if you aren't going alphabetical.

One final approach is that of Bristol City. They've got one highlight showing fixtures for the current season.

It's minimal, but it does give quick access to something fans tend to look for often.

Pinned posts

The final thing to look at on profiles is the posts you're pinning to the top of your grid.

You can pin up to three posts at the top of your profile. To do this, post a picture and tap the three dots in the top right of them. You'll see the option to pin that post.

In Stenhousemuir's case, they've used this to highlight their fixtures over a three month period (it's outdated now, but I'm sure they'll be on it soon).

Like the Bristol City example above, this gives visitors quick access to useful information. And it's likely that this is information they're looking for regularly.

In the case of Hibs, they've pinned three posts from their recently launched season ticket campaign for next season.

On a separate note, this is a brilliantly executed campaign. Each of the videos features a separate fan - covering fans from all walks of life - talking about their memories of the club and what supporting the team means to them. They're great examples of fan-first content.

Take the opportunity this week to look at how you're using your Instagram profile. Can you add links to your bio to direct people to your other accounts? Or can you highlight specific posts that push your current marketing campaigns?

I haven't done this, but I guess that if you ask everyone who works in marketing what their favourite marketing channel is email won't feature high in the list.

Podcasts are trendy. Social media gives you instant gratification. Videos look great. A lot of the 'action' with email happens behind the scenes. Nobody reacts to them in real-time, people rarely respond to them, and I can't remember the last time a friend shared one with me.

Yet they remain a reliable source of conversions. And open rates have never been higher in the last 20 years.

Statistically it's better to trade 1,000 new followers for a single email subscriber.

According to Mailchimp, emails from sports businesses see an average open rate of 41.84%. That's you. And the highest unsubscription rate from any industry is 0.37%. That's tiny.

I spoke to a few clubs about their figures and what they can attribute to email marketing in tools such as Google Analytics 4 (which will tell you where your customers came from), and email marketing was consistently the third or fourth highest converting channel. Typically it ranks behind direct traffic (people typing your web address in), organic search (people using Google or other search engines), or occasionally behind paid search depending on the advertising budget (where people are paying to advertise in a search engine, usually Google).

You can't find any specific figures about how many people see social media posts. It changes depending on the team involved, and other factors such as performances and results. However, it's hard to find any estimates higher than 10%. And then there are considerations like the algorithms.

So I thought it would be useful to look at how the top 92 clubs in England are using email newsletters. I've also provided some advice if you're thinking of changing your newsletter platform.

How is email marketing being used?

On Tuesday 5th March I visited the websites for all 92 clubs across the Premier League and English Football League. I was looking for a few things:

• Was it clear how to sign up to their email marketing?

• Where do clubs have their sign-up forms?

• Did I receive a welcome email after signing up?

I limited my search to each club's home page and main navigation. I figured if it wasn't in either of those places then it wasn't a priority for teams, and that fans also wouldn't be able to find it.

I also only counted clubs where they specifically state that you're signing up to receive regular emails. Quite a few bundle newsletters in with wider digital accounts that give you access to ticketing and video content. I only signed up for these if one of the benefits listed was being part of an email list. And I only clicked to find out about the accounts if there was a relevant call to action, such as "subscribe" or "sign up". I didn't if the buttons said "register" or "create account". So there are some judgement calls being made here. I tried to keep it as close as possible to how I would expect regular fans to interact with websites.

NB: As ever, I'm only going to name the good examples of what I found. I'll keep everything else anonymous. If you work for a team and want some specific advice about the experience of signing up for your newsletter, reply to this from your club email address and I'll happily send you my notes.

Firstly, I managed to subscribe to 46 mailing lists. That's slightly over half. Technically I subscribed to 48, however after signing up to what one club said was an email list I received a confirmation email with a supporter ID number and information about my new ticketing account. The other club thanked me for submitting my entry and said they would be in touch if I was successful. I'll let you know what I win.

Out of the clubs I didn't manage to subscribe to, a lot of these were because all of the registration page only talked about exclusive video content and other perks. So it wasn't clear enough that there even was a newsletter. Thing is, I know plenty of other clubs send out weekly emails as I've worked with some of them. But it doesn't appear like encouraging sign-ups is a priority.

I'm hoping this convinces you otherwise.

One club's sign up form went to a 404 page (since corrected), and one other gave me an error each of the five times I put my email address in so I gave up.

What's the most popular way to drive subscriptions?

A lot of clubs in the Football League are using the league's standard template design. This is a rigid design, so the clubs using this have fairly consistent approaches to subscriptions.

Here's how Crawley Town's website, chosen at random, uses this approach.

You can see from the menu that there's a 'newsletter sign-up' option. This was the preferred method for 31 of the 92 clubs I looked at. It's an automated newsletter that picks the top stories from your website and sends them out every week - very low maintenance, and part of the existing digital contract that some EFL clubs are subscribed to. This deal expires at the end of this season, so we can expect to see more varied approaches in future.

Clubs do have the option of setting up their own solutions, but understandably these come with higher set-up and maintenance costs. When you have a smaller marketing team and a wide range of responsibilities, knowing the website and newsletter is being dealt with is quite reassuring. I do think the newsletter, at least, should be given more importance.

If I was at a club that used the standard EFL solution, I would absolutely be prioritising creating my own list of subscribers and having full control over what gets sent out and when.

What I did find interesting was that despite using the same template, AFC Wimbledon have a pop-up on the homepage that lets you sign up.

Only two clubs out of the whole 92 use the pop-up approach. Wolves are the other one.

Pop-ups are an effective way of encouraging sign-ups to a newsletter list. You've got a good idea that they're interested because they're on your website, and you know they're going to see it.

Other clubs use pop-ups, but they're carrying sales messages instead. They may use email messaging at other times of the year.

The next most popular approach was to carry a subscription message or form in the footer. Probably the most common place for any other type of website. This is where eight of the 92 put their prompts, with Wolves the only team who had their form in two places (pop-up and footer).

Here's how this looks on Stockport County's website.

You can't miss that nice big yellow button (which is on brand too).

For messaging, I really like Burnley's wording. I'd argue that it's maybe not the clearest so that you know what you're signing up for. Hopefully nobody's made the mistake of thinking they'll be turning out for the first team.

All told, only 10 of the 92 teams I looked at featured a prominent way of subscribing on their home page, whether that's through a big button or an embedded form (I didn't include the ones in menus in this number as the option is slightly hidden).

And a final shoutout to West Bromwich Albion, who are the only team to feature a subscription button in their header.

What happens after you sign up?

After signing up, I expected a deluge of emails from clubs welcoming me on board.

I received six in the first 24 hours.

Because there aren't many, I can list them:

• Bristol Rovers.

• Brentford.

• Newport County.

• Stevenage.

• Wolves.

• Wrexham.

NB: I covered Charlton's great welcome email on X, however it's generated after subscribing for a ticketing account rather than signing up to a newsletter.

The purpose of a welcome email is to keep people 'warm' after subscribing. It's a point when they're likely to be fairly engaged because they've signed up, and you'll be front of mind already when the first email lands. Also, if you only send out a weekly update, it's a way of filling the space between them if they sign up five days before the next one is due to arrive.

There were some fantastic examples here. Quick word of warning: there are some big and lengthy images coming up.

First, Bristol Rovers.

I like being called a Gashead, there's a sense of community and belonging there. And they've included some pretty good links for people visiting the stadium, which is especially useful if it's your first time.

Newport's is a perfect example of how to keep someone warm between weekly updates.

There's nothing groundbreaking, but it gives you a nice welcome message and lets you know this is just a bit of background before the proper emails start.

It's probably not a huge shock to see who features in Wrexham's welcome email.

In this case the club are showing that they know their audience well. They've no doubt recognised that the bulk of their new subscribers have arrived in recent years, and they're leaning into that star power.

Finally, two of my favourites.

Here's how Bournemouth welcomed me.

I love the "part of the team" language - pushing togetherness and community - but the added personalisation written in the style of a press release is a very good touch. I don't think I've ever been called "highly-rated" before. And rather than a dull "confirm what you want to receive" message, they've called it finalising "the terms of your signing".

Speaking of personalisation, take a look at this from Wolves.

Wonderfully on-brand language ("pack"), my first name, and my very own personalised Wolves shirt. Shut up and take my money.

How do you get started with email marketing?

There are a number of tools and platforms you can use to help you manage an email marketing list. A lot of EFL clubs use the newsletter feature built into the standard template I looked at in the introduction to this. But there are other solutions you can use as you plan for next season. These include:

• Active Campaign.

• Benchmark.

• Constant Contact.

• Dotdigital.

• Klaviyo.

• Mailchimp.

Some of these have free tiers to get you started, and they scale in price depending on how many subscribers you have and how many emails you want to send. That's one of the main considerations you need when making a decision.

The other things to think about are:

• Are there any automation options? Such as sending out a welcome email, or a series of emails.

• Does it offer email personalisation? Ideally you want to be including subscriber names as a minimum.

• How easy is it to create emails? Some platforms have drag and drop editors which make email creation easy. Some need you to know some elements of coding.

• Does it integrate easily with other platforms? In an ideal world you'll tie your emails into ticketing and other online accounts so that information carries over.

• Are there any additional features? You might want to add-on SMS messaging further down the line, for example.

• Reporting figures. You want to know open and click rates as a minimum, and the ability to do things such as UTM tracking is definitely useful.

• Customisable and embeddable forms. This allows you to choose the information subscribers have to submit, as well as adding the form easily to your existing website.

And all of this is before you get round to actually sending anything out.

In a future edition I'll look at the emails that I've received from clubs and analyse them for best practices. I touched on how the Bundesliga and MLS do this before Christmas, but I'll have a club-specific approach for you once I've started getting updates through.

The Online RuleScott Goodacre

Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read and comment on the results from last week's State of Football Social Media survey. It's very much a labour of love, and I hope that it helps you make decisions and see where teams are putting their focus over the next 12 months. As far as I know it's the biggest survey of its type in the world, and that's thanks to everyone who takes the time to submit responses.

Around a day after sending last week's email I added an interactive version of the report to the original article. You may have missed it, but you can use the link below to have a play around. It doesn't work brilliantly on mobile - that's a limitation of Looker Studio rather than anything I've done - but it allows you to filter responses by level, country, and the size of each marketing team.

Looker Studio

I'm still taking expressions of interest from anyone who wants to attend an in-person event in London this June. Gauging interest is a big part of putting an event like this on, and hopefully I can nail things down and start planning the event itself soon.

Anyway, on we go.

Welcome to Between The Lines, a regular round-up of what you might have missed in the world of sports marketing, as well as a deeper look into some of the topics from social media. Got a story or tip to submit? Send it to scott@theonlinerule.com or via DM on social media.

Helping fans make the most of match day

Last season saw 39 million fans attend games across England's top four divisions, as well as in competitions such as the FA Cup, Carabao Cup, and EFL Trophy.

Given the numbers, it's probably fair to assume that some of these people were setting foot in a stadium for the first time. Particularly for cup competitions.

Not everybody knows how a match day works. Some stadia aren't particularly close to city centres and require public transport, or have limited parking that needs pre-booking. That's before we start thinking about things such as ticketing and how we navigate a turnstile. Many may be bringing young children with them for their first experience too.

Not to mention the fact that you'll also be welcoming opposition fans who have a higher chance of not having been before.

So how do you communicate all of this with visitors? In this week's newsletter I've picked out a few good examples across the leagues that you can copy from.

Crawley Town

If you want an example of simple but effective, take a look at Crawley Town's first time fan guide.

All of the key bits of information are here:

• Parking arrangements.

• Fan zone information.

• How to pick up your ticket.

• Club shop opening times.

• Public transport information.

• Stadium map.

It's a simple, one-column, mobile optimised page, with the occasional picture. It just works, and it's got everything in one place without needing to navigate across several pages.

Salford City

For Salford City's recent home game against Barrow they gave timings of all the day's activities as well as information about this specific match.

It contains a lot of the same information as Crawley's, with the exception of the information being tailored just for this fixture.

As a result you get the kick off time, as well as information on what activities are happening at certain times. There was also a happy hour between 5pm and 6pm after the game.

This information was also published on social media on an image carousel.

There are two improvements I'd recommend with this approach:

1. Feature these timings and information on the web page too.

2. Work on getting the stadium visitor guide turned into a web page rather than a PDF, for accessibility purposes. PDFs can be a pain to access on a mobile.

Tranmere Rovers

Tranmere have a dedicated social media account for their supporter liaison team, which is a great idea.

Not only that, they have a dedicated WhatsApp number for any issues fans may experience on the day. And the match day assistants are named, with their locations mentioned too.

This gives fans a lot of comfort, especially if they're new. Having a point of contact in case of issues can be more reassuring than approaching stewards.

Tranmere have also published a video detailing all of the ways they have made the stadium experience accessible for fans with disabilities. The video shows which routes are flat and easier for wheelchairs, as well as how to spot safeguarding stewards, where the stoma-friendly toilets are, and how fans can get access to audio-descriptive commentary in the stadium.

Exeter City

Helping your fans access your own stadium isn't the main thing these guides can be used for. You can also help your fans when they're travelling to other grounds as away fans.

Exeter recently published a guide to help their fans with arrangements for their trip to Peterborough.

Again it's a straightforward single-column approach. It more than does the job. You'll find:

• Ticket prices and availability.

• Background information on the ground.

• An embedded Google Map with the route from Exeter marked out, as well as the stadium post code.

• An embedded journey planner for people travelling by train.

• A stadium map and timings for the fan zone.

• Catering facilities and prices.

• Away fan-friendly pubs.

Peterborough United

Speaking of Peterborough, the club have a "new fan guide" for people attending the stadium for the first time.

My favourite part of this is a page showing you what all the numbers and details on your ticket mean.

If you're a new fan attending a game for the first time the club also invite you to get in touch and have a pre-match photo taken pitchside about an hour before kick off. Another great way of ensuring that people leave with a great first impression.

Speaking of first impressions, Oxford United published a short video of someone receiving their first time fan pack at last weekend's game.

Doncaster Rovers

One different approach to a stadium guide is this video from Doncaster Rovers. It's hosted by the team's supporter liaison officer, who talks you through access arrangements and the activities available on a typical match day. A great idea to accompany written instructions.

Walsall

A final one, featuring a team that does a good job of covering all bases on their website.

Walsall published a specific match day guide for their game against Accrington Stanley, as well as a linked first time fan guide. And both are dedicated web pages, rather than downloadable pdf files.

Things like timings are all on the relevant pages, and everything you might need is available across both links.

Conclusion

Clubs across the divisions are doing fantastic work informing fans about what's going on during match days. And there's some great ideas for helping travelling fans, as well as people visiting for the first time.

Unfortunately I can't feature absolutely everything that goes on in one email, but the ones I've picked out are good starting points if you're looking to improve the information you provide to fans.

The first time fan experience, in particular, is so important for engaging them and encouraging them to return. First impressions are massive and will shape someone's views of your club for a life time.

Keep making match days memorable.

Thanks to everyone who submitted responses for this year's survey. This year 98 of you responded to share your thoughts on how your team is planning to use social media across 2024.

This year, respondents came from 14 different countries. The UK made up more than half of submissions, and 91% of people looked after the accounts for domestic teams. There were some submissions from people managing national team accounts and leagues, football associations, and governing bodies - the first time I've made that distinction.

The majority of teams featured in the survey (98%) are non-league and above, with people either working on men's teams or both men's and women's teams. Three submissions came from people who work solely on women's teams' accounts.

The bulk of marketing teams (57.1%) are made up of between two and five people, with 19.4% of teams featuring between six and ten people, and 15.3% being solo marketers. Teams with 11+ people are in the minority (8.2%) out of those who responded.

What follows is a break down of the different results. If you find any of the results useful and want to share them on social media, please tag @onlinerule in anything. I'd love to see your thoughts.

You can view results from 2023, 2022, and 2021, on the site.

To try and keep some form of consistency I've kept the format the same as last year.

Social networks

First up, which platforms are the most popular?

Interestingly, not a single platform has a 100% uptake among the clubs that responded. The closest is Twitter/X, which was used by 99% of the people who took part.

Next up is Facebook (98%), and Instagram (96.9%), closely followed by YouTube (93.9%). TikTok is continuing to grow though, its gone from 53% in 2022, to 78% in 2023, to 81.6% now.

The newest platform, Threads, sits seventh with 63.3% usage. That's not bad for something that only launched halfway through the year.

As with last year, I asked everyone to rank the sites in order of importance.

Click any of the images to zoom in

I've highlighted the top seven channels for this one.

Twitter/X keeps its crown as the channel with the most 'very important' responses, followed by Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. TikTok's percentage of 'very important' responses has jumped from 34.6% to 41.9% this year. Twitter/X's importance has dropped a bit year-on-year, however.

When it comes to launching on new channels, 68.4% said they had quite enough on their plates at the moment. Of those that do plan to launch new channels in 2024, TikTok (8.2%) and WhatsApp are out in front. YouTube and Threads (both 5.1%) are tied in third place.

Email and influencer marketing

I don't know why, but I expected more teams to be using email marketing. Last season 85.7% of respondents said they sent email newsletters, but that figure has dropped off.

Most of the teams who fit into the 'no' category here classed themselves as non-league level. It's perhaps not surprising to see it being used more at higher levels, given some of the costs involved in running and maintaining databases.

More clubs should look at it though. Gathering first-party data is becoming a bigger issue in marketing due to the slow decline and diminishing reliability of third-party cookies. Capturing email addresses and doing some basic segmentation could make a big difference in boosting attendances and selling merch.

For influencer marketing, the balance has stayed more or less the same as last year (42.9% in 2022 compared to 40.8% in 2023).

When looking at plans for the coming year a lot of teams do seem quite committed to it. We'll see how that plays out.

I'm noticing a bit of an uptick in influencer partnerships with clubs. I've previously written about the Expired Film Club's partnership with Oxford City, as well as Newcastle's work with a local photographer and Man City's content with comedian Troy Hawke. It's a good way to grow your audience and get in front of new eyeballs.

Paid social media

Organic social media gets a lot of the attention in marketing. But paid social has a big part to pay in a lot of teams' online successes.

61.9% of respondents last year said they'd used paid social in 2022. That number is down to 48% this year. Like with email marketing, a lot of the people who said no classed themselves working at non-league level, where the budgets likely don't allow for it.

Facebook and Instagram took up the lion's share of the budget here (91.5% and 72.3% respectively). Twitter/X was next (31.9%), followed by TikTok (14.9%).

38.3% of the people who responded said they spent more than £2,501 across those platforms last year. Next year I'll introduce higher cost groupings to get a better view of some budgets.

A few more respondents say they do plan to invest in paid social over the coming months. Again, Meta properties (Facebook and Instagram) are out in front, followed by Twitter/X and TikTok. And budgets remain at more than £2,501 for 30.2% of accounts.

Content creation

I always like seeing what priorities people have over the coming months. More out of my own curiosity than anything else.

What's been consistent is that people want to make more videos. Short form (40.8%) and long form (27.6%) remains the most popular formats. Podcasts have declined since last year (13.3%, down from 17.5%).

I classed short form video as anything up to 30 seconds in length.

Strategies for success

Engagement remains out in front when it comes to how teams decide on the success of their social channels. More teams are concerned with follower counts than last year (9.2% compared to 3.2%), as well as thinking more about online sentiment than before (7.1% compared to 1.6%).

Unsurprisingly, social media continues to be important to teams' marketing. 98% of respondents said it was somewhat or very important to their overall marketing.

Despite this importance, only 59.2% of respondents have a documented social media strategy.

Out of the number of teams who said they don't have a documented strategy, 58.9% classed themselves as at professional or elite level. Like last year, this is a surprise given the importance social media has to a team's marketing (based on the last question).

What's probably unsurprising is that out of teams with a documented social media strategy the overwhelming majority (92.5%) have marketing departments with more than one person in them.

If you want to have a look through the results, there's an interactive version of the report available in Looker Studio. It doesn't work as well on mobile (that's the platform, rather than anything I've done), but you can filter by country, level, and marketing team size to dive deeper into responses.

Free reign

To finish, I asked people what their priorities are for 2024. Some of the responses were:

• Raise community awareness of the club to increase attendances.

• Ticket sales.

• Increase relatability of players.

• Move into Arabic and Chinese markets.

• Bring the fans closer to the club.

• Launch a new website.

• Increase fan interaction.

• Get younger fans involved.

• More collaborations with influencers.

All good priorities, and food for thought for the newsletter across 2024. I did also ask people what they'd like to see more of through the newsletter and social channels, and I'll be taking that all on board too.

Normal service will be resumed in the newsletter next week. And keep an eye out for 2025's survey launching in December!

Ask anyone to name one of the downsides of social media and I'd imagine most would mention abuse.

If you've spent any time looking through the replies to social media posts by sports teams you'll no doubt have seen this first hand. For those of you working in this industry it's probably a part of it that fills you with dread.

Passion is often given as one of the best parts of sport. But unfortunately it's also that same passion that can bring out the worst in people. And that's before fans of other clubs decide to get involved.

Manchester United's Social Media Code

This week, Manchester United launched their Social Media Code initiative. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of the amount of negativity that goes through the club's social channels and outline how they plan to combat it.

According to the figures in their announcement, the number of posts that have been identified as being unacceptable on the club's platforms has quadrupled since 2022.

While Manchester United are one of the biggest clubs in the world, which brings with it added attention both on and off the field, they're far from the only team that has to deal with these issues.

The code isn't particularly long, but does say that they "regularly monitor each of our social media channels" and proactively deal with discriminatory or hateful comments. They say that this action could involve removing posts and blocking users.

Clubs blocking fans on social media isn't a new thing - there's a post on this very site covering the topic from 2014 - but it's certainly not something you hear about regularly.

So that's Manchester United's potential approach. What are other clubs doing? And what can you do, if anything?

Policies across the leagues

Out of the top 92 teams in England, only one club has a - fairly - easily accessible social media policy.

My own definition of "easily accessible" here means that it I should be able to find it within two or three clicks from social media. If it's buried on a website with no links from a social channel, you can't rightly expect people to find it.

I'm also assuming Manchester United mean to have their new code accessible, but the link from Twitter goes to a 404 at the time of writing.

For the club in question, which is Barnsley, there's a link from their Linktree to a page featuring the club's policies. It's at the bottom of the section titled "Club Websites".

Heading to that page leads to an image carousel. One of the options is the club's social media policy. That gives you a five page PDF file last updated in January 2023, judging by the file name.

The club outline very similar requirements to Manchester United when it comes to online conduct, and the punishments are more or less the same.

McLaren Racing have a similar approach to community management. Their social media community code has been online for a few years now and is one of the earliest and most prominent examples I can remember (they told people about it in 2022).

How do you manage negativity online?

Sadly it's impossible to completely stop online abuse. But clubs should definitely be making more use of the tools that social networks provide.

Blocking abusive users is the first step, particularly the persistent ones. And it goes without saying that comments that are discriminatory should be an instant ban.

Publishing guidelines

In order to be able to do this, however, you need a public and defined set of guidelines. These really should be able to be accessed quickly and easily from social media, and ideally referenced in your profile where possible. And remind people of them regularly.

Mentioning your guidelines often means that people have no come back when you point to them as a reason for action being taken.

Ideally these rules should be on a webpage, like the McLaren Racing example. Pages are quicker and easier to update for you, and they're more accessible too. And keep them updated as often as you can.

They should say which channels you use, with links to them, as well as listing the potential repercussions of anyone who posts comments that don't adhere to the guidelines.

It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

Sport England's is a good start if you're looking for inspiration, and Brand Bastion has some more tips for how to create and enforce your guidelines.

Reward and recognise positivity

One of the ways you can change behaviour is to reward anyone that posts in a responsible way online. On social media this is straight forward - either reply to them, or quote their post for others to see.

If you're using something like Discord, you can give out badges and special statuses for positive role models. Amplify the positives, and ignore the negatives.

"Don't feel the trolls" is a pretty common approach, but not many go to the other way and reward those that contribute to discussions and engagement in a meaningful way.

What about if you're running an account?

If you're the one posting, reading, and responding to comments online, it's important to remember that you're not the one people are being abusive towards.

If at any time you feel overwhelmed by the nature of the comments, or see something that disturbs you, it's important to speak to senior staff to let them know. Burying something, or trying to ignore it, doesn't often make the problem go away.

And the more managers know what's going on the more likely you are to get buy-in to implementing a set of guidelines for fans to follow.

Here's what the Threads algorithm likes to see

Still trying to get your head around Threads? You're not alone. From what I can see, most clubs are using it more sparingly than other platforms (particularly X).

In case you are sticking with it, Meta recently shared an overview of how the site's algorithm works. This is what decides the posts a person sees when they log in.

It'll be no surprise to learn that replies, follows, and likes are king when it comes to judging how popular posts are.

The site also takes into account how active you are. The longer you spend on there, the more you'll see. And more active users will likely see deeper cuts from profiles.

The full page on the algorithm is available in Meta's transparency centre.