Football is changing and so has the way we consume content, at a rapid pace. In this increasingly digital world we live in, marketers are constantly kept on their toes when it comes to driving the right kind of engagement with their audiences in real time. And the same applies to those who run the Social Media efforts in a sports organizations. A similar challenge exists in the case of social media, where sports fans are more willing and progressively look towards engaging with their favorite clubs in real time. Twenty four times Spanish La Liga champions FC Barcelona with approximately 148 million followers (across all social channels) and consisting of two of the top four global social influencers in the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar, were recently ranked as one of the top sports team on social media with a media value worth $25.3 million, according to a recent study by Forbes. FC Barcelona, like many others, have realized the importance of engaging with its audience and its significance when it comes to commercial ventures that it takes on, initiating new channels to interact with their fans which can eventually be measured as a value proposition to existing and potential sponsors. At the same time, reaching their followers in real time with personalized messages will eventually lead to increased club affinity and a growing allegiance. The platform can have a positive effect on clubs on various fronts. Daniel Robertson, the Digital Content and Social Media Manager at FC Dallas, the Major League Soccer based Western Conference leaders currently, explains how social media helped the club stand out in a crowded marketplace. “In Dallas, we have all five major professional sports leagues plus huge college athletics and high school as well so this gives us a somewhat even playing field to brand ourselves and promote ourselves to our target demographic.” Aaron Gourley, editor of FCBusiness magazine, the business magazine for the football industry, describes how clubs have managed to interact with their fans, otherwise not possible in the past. “Social media has allowed clubs to reach up to new audiences nationally and internationally. But it has also helped bring them closer to their core local fan base in a manner that is less formal and more engaging. There was a period where football had been accused of losing touch with the ordinary fan but social media has opened up that line of communication, with dialogue being almost on a one-to-one basis and less ‘broadcast’ in its nature. ” Social media has and continuous to play an important role in how individuals interact with each other. The various accounts owned by a team provides them with an opportunity to expand on their personality. On twitter for example, fans tend to follow athletes in multitudes to discover more on the human attributes of the players that they watch on TV or at the stadium. From a team’s perspective, though the tweets are unlikely to embody the personalities of the upper management and owners, many clubs do provide followers with a fun-loving image of what that certain club stands for. Moreover, social media presence softens an otherwise faceless union of a sports organization. Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sports Enterprise at Salford Business School in University of Salford, elaborates on the importance of the platform within the wider football industry. “At one level, social media is simply a fast, often efficient way of communicating with key target markets. However, at another level, social media is a means of building fan engagement. That is, creating relationships with fans that are broader and deeper than ever before,” adding, “clubs like Arsenal and Barcelona take social media very seriously. Indeed, the London club actively encourages its players to use social media, which we see in the large numbers of posts they often make.” Given that the United States drives the innovation of communication technology which is later adopted all across the globe, it is not surprising to imagine MLS being at the forefront of any technological advancement made in social media. In fact, they aggressively pursue social media, by distributing great content focusing on active engagement. And a similar mentality has been embedded in the minds of those who run the respective social media accounts in the various clubs under the MLS umbrella. Their only restrictions if any is surrounding issues with media budgets and its impact on departmental staffing does hurt the ability of clubs to carry out and widen their tactics as explained by Daniel. “We have no restrictions and actually I would say the opposite working in MLS. We have many fewer rules about match broadcasting rights and what we can show. The only limitations for us are more budget-based having to work with smaller staffs sometimes limits what we can do, but in general I think we can pretty much do whatever we want to.” While having a presence in social media is as conventional as getting a passport, many advanced football clubs across the globe, are moving away from the routine of randomly publishing content for a set number of hours in a day to setting aside planning criteria with thought given to objectives, goals and metrics. The key is to carefully link the organization’s social media activity to their business plans. With the ability to be in market in real-time being fundamental in today’s social environment, the work hours of the team managing the efforts goes beyond the normal hours of a job and hence without the right balance could eventually turn adverse, not only for the team but for the organization as well. “I think you have to be realistic with your team and what you can accomplish while still maintaining a healthy life/work balance. Social media is all about creativity and enthusiasm so if you are burned out you will not create your best content so it’s important to work hard while you are on the clock but also get away from things when you are not....

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