10 Tips For Football Clubs Looking To Engage Better With Their Fanbase
At EatSleep Media we create a lot of sports content. We mean… a lot! The company started out with three Welsh football fans who felt there was a gap in the market for content made by and for people like us… Welsh football fans. Authentic content that gave people like us a voice and recognised that despite there not being a Wales match for 3-6 months… we were still Welsh football fans. 24/7 365. Not just when there's a press conference or a match.
As we started filming and capturing stories we realised that there were plenty of great people with great stories all around us. Stories that the likes of the BBC and Sky Sports probably wouldn't be interested in, but stories that would resonate with other similar people across Wales.
Our Operations director Alex Feeney (left) with Robert Earnshaw for EatSleepFootyRepeat
As our company grew and we went from indie content creators working for free to producing the FC Cymru online magazine show for the FA Wales, regular content for Sport Wales, Youth Sport Trust, Football v Homophobia, our first ever feature film, Tosh, and then the amazing Red Wall+ platform for the FAW we learnt plenty.
We tried various new things, made some mistakes, learnt, grew, evolved, and the ethos behind our content grew and evolved also.
We’ve recently come to the end of an extremely busy period that has seen us deliver some huge new projects, and so we are in a time of reflection.
It’s felt like a good time to take a step back, learn from what we’ve done, and we thought we’d share some things with you all.
Here’s our 10 tips for football clubs looking to engage better with their fanbase, all of which can be applied to grassroots teams as well as professional clubs and international governing bodies.
1) Embrace the fans.
We’ve found it incredibly engaging to create content by fans for fans. Fans love seeing people like them, that share their passions, and reflect their own dedication to the club.
By creating content with fans you’re giving them a platform and a voice. If you think you’ve got the best fans in the world - show us. Those dedicated and passionate fans will want to show off their love of their club.
And, amongst your fans, there are likely unsung heroes, volunteers who go over and above with heartwarming stories, and plenty of fun moments too.
But also remember - your fanbase is probably made up of a variety of different types of people who want different types of content in different formats and styles - so make sure you are catering to more than just one type of fan.
In the FC Cymru - Starting 11 live stream we brought the fans and their passion into the pre-match show as we built up to one of the biggest games in Welsh football history.
2) Culture is key.
Any organisation or brand wanting to shout about who they are and what they do should be looking to display their company culture and to make it central to their public narrative.
If the club is built on hard-working people pitching in, environmentally friendly driven initiatives, or buying the latest and greatest technology for that competitive edge - that shows the culture and values of the club.
You can use that as your brand and you can showcase that culture through social media content every day. Content doesn't need to be on the nose - this is our culture!
It can be subtly showcasing that culture - if the club is built on hard-working people pitching in - show us photos of the manager painting seats in pre-season or the CFO mowing the pitch.
If the club is all about the latest tech - show us that kit, tell us why it's great, and track the impact that kit has on the team. Make your culture part of your content and build that brand.
The Red Wall+ platform is built not just on football, but culture. There are plenty of grassroots stories from clubs across the country in the My Club section and FAW Originals docs about Welsh football fan culture that showcase what football in Wales is all about.
3) Nostalgia is a powerful tool.
Every club has something in its history that brings a tear to the eye or raises a passionate response from the fanbase.
There may be more than one. But, those key moments in a club’s history are usually great events to relive and evoke that powerful emotional response from the fans.
Whether it’s a big win, beating a rival, lifting a trophy, or avoiding relegation… it’ll invoke that sense of pride in the club and serves as a great reminder of what the club is about and what has gone before.
And… the anniversaries of those things come around every year. Make those days an annual event for the fans.
Take our first feature film, Tosh, for instance - the story of Swansea City’s meteoric rise under John Toshack. The film is packed full of classic kits, haircuts, trousers, match day programmes, and more.
That sense of nostalgia has been perfect for connecting with our core audience - older football fans who remember days gone by fondly and want to relive stories from their younger days.
4) It’s not about the football.
Most football fans don’t support their club because of their style of play. Unless you follow one of the big PL clubs without living in that city!
Most football fans support their club because they’ve been brought up in that area and they’ve no choice - that is their club because it’s their home!
Or, it’s passed down from parents to children and that club is inherited. So, the football side of things should be a small part of what you show.
Fans can watch the highlights on TV and online, they can read match reports in the newspaper and online… what they want from their football club is rich and authentic stories about things that are special to their club only.
It could be the tea lady or the kit man who’s folded 1 million pairs of socks in his time, or it could be about supporting the local community as much as they support you. Find those unsung heroes, show what you mean to your community, and shine a light on those things that make your club unique.
The My Club section of Red Wall+ is filled with stories of volunteers across Wales who give their time up to support their local football club and to provide opportunities for others. Their stories are just as powerful and engaging as those of the elite side of football.
5) Use the players' personalities.
The NBA has been magnificent in allowing their players to build their own personalities and brands online, and then the league piggybacks off that.
Your audience doesn’t have to be on your page and watching your video - as long as your club culture and brand is being promoted.
Players can come and go from clubs - but they can also bring in an audience whilst they are with you, they can promote what you do to an audience outside of yours and be great ambassadors for your club if they get your culture and brand and they live it.
Finding players that personify your club culture is great and that's perfect for collaborating on content, but your team will be made of a range of different personalities.
Finding things to do with them that play to their personality traits can be key - rather than a one size fits all approach.
If one likes community work and giving back go with them and follow their story, if one likes pool parties and music videos… that is just as useful for engaging with audiences.
Our talkSPORT radio documentary Sporting Asylum is about asylum seekers who have gone on to sporting achievements in their new homes.
This radio doc uses the personalities of those sports people and their stories to drive a positive narrative around asylum seekers and through them, we find out more about their sports and their clubs.
6) Everyone loves a classic kit.
Every single fan will have a classic kit that holds a special place in their hearts! Retro fashion and football kits are huge at the moment too.
Ask your audience what their favourite kit of all time is and I'm certain it’ll be one of your top-reaching posts. Make a video series about the best kits across your club’s history with players telling stories about the games they played in those shirts… and you’ve struck gold.
Classic kits not only play on the current trend of retro fashion but also use nostalgia to engage. Some people can see a kit and they are transported back to a time, place and they smell it, hear it, almost touch it because it holds a special place in their heart.
In 2019 ESM worked with the FAW to create a special FC Cymru episode that looked at classic Wales kits, whilst launching the new kit. This helped the Euro 202 kit become the fastest-selling Wales kit ever.
7) Tap into international audiences.
Again, this is about your players. The chances of 13 of your club’s 15-man squad being born within 10 miles of the stadium, like Celtic’s 1967 European Cup winners, are slim to none.
Football is a global business at all levels of the game and players travel, so be sure to engage with the fans from your players’ hometowns; if you can’t convert them into supporters of your club, you can still be their second club!
Not enough clubs do this - but if you create content around your Scottish/Nigerian/Australian center midfielder and give that content away to a media outlet covering that neck of the woods, you can tap into that hometown/country pride and bring those fans over to your club.
When South Korea’s Ki Sung-Yeung was at Swansea City there was specific content created around him for South Korean media outlets.
If a club can tap into a foreign market and sell a few thousand more shirts - that's a winner.
8) Show us something new.
Give the fans content that shows them something different. Maybe it’s behind the scenes on a training camp, or perhaps it’s a look in the kit man’s room of treasures - it doesn’t have to be complicated as long as it's something new.
Fans always wonder what goes on behind the closed doors at their local club, who does what, and how. You can give them an insight into the world behind closed doors and allow them a little peek into the inner workings of the club.
The Dragon On My Shirt is a documentary series for Red Wall+ that tells the stories of BAME Welsh footballers over the last 100 years.
These stories had never really been told and the achievements of these players had never been celebrated. Around the launch of the project for the FA Wales it was featured on BBC Radio Wales twice and on BBC Wales News.
9) People buy personalities.
Videos that lack a person to engage with don’t build long-term engagement with audiences. If there’s a person or a few people who have big personalities and are good on camera they can be your connection with the fan base.
Through those personalities, the club can showcase a window into the inner workings and can do it in a way that brings it to life.
Showing someone the kit room in a video is one thing, following a personality who is a huge fan of the club getting involved with the work in the kit room takes that video to another level.
51% of people are more likely to share videos with friends and family over any other content type, with short-form video offering marketers the highest ROI of any social media marketing strategy refer back to tip 1 and UGC. Sources: Wyzowl and Sprout Social.
There’s a reason why influencers have huge sway in trends, YouTubers have followings bigger than some TV channels, and TV series are built around a presenter - people engage with people.
If they like the person on camera they’ll watch them drying their socks or staring into space. Having a presenter, or several presenters, who are passionate about the club can make a huge difference.
Again, The Dragon On My Shirt uses the likable personalities of Darren Chetty, George Berry, and Robert Earnshaw, amongst others, to engage with the audience and build that connection that will bring them back to watch more.
10) Story. Story. Story.
Some clubs love to create slow-motion montage videos. Slow motion training. Slow-motion walking off the team bus. Slow-motion standing still. Or sticking a drone up in the air - this is from 1,000 feet! But they’re all gimmicks.
Nothing… absolutely nothing… beats the story. You can shoot something on a 1990s handycam and still engage your audience if you have a story.
Every time you make content you need to think… what is the story here? What do I want the audience to take away from this?
And your story can have layers. On the surface its the story of your new manager feeding the homeless at a shelter, you are also getting them to tell you about their childhood and their first memories of football so that your fans understand the man behind the manager, but also you’re telling your audience about the sort of club you are - we give back, we have down to earth hard-working people, we are a key part of our community, we are humble.
If every time you make content you tell a story - you build a connection with your audience. If they like those stories they’ll keep coming back for more and soon enough you have an engaged fan base who feel a deep connection with your club.
Conclusion
You may agree with all of the above, you may even already be making use of them… But, these are some of the things that we’ve learnt in our time making sports-related content for fans and we try to instill these things into what we do at every opportunity.
If you’ve found something that works for you - do let us know. Please give this post a share and open up the discussion to your audience, along with anything you think we may have missed. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
To see all of EatSleep Media’s work click here and take a look around at our range of projects.
TL;DR: We wanted to give back and share our insights from all we’ve learnt from creating sports content for fans, by fans.
Our 10 tips for football clubs to improve fan engagement are: embracing fans by showcasing their stories and diversity, highlighting club culture, tapping into nostalgia, celebrating the fact it’s not about all the football, using player personalities, classic kits, tapping into global audiences, offering behind-the-scenes insights, utilizing engaging personalities, and emphasizing storytelling to build strong connections. These lessons can apply to clubs at all levels and help create meaningful connections with fans.
P.S. Wish there was a well-edited, super snazzy video that broke all of this down so you could revisit any point at any time? We’ve got you covered!