In my ‘free’ time I follow trends and try to find clubs that are doing something special on social media. While doing some research, I stumbled upon a club from Australia, Carlton FC, and I fell in love with them!
What a great story around the club and their social media presence, it’s so brilliant that I must share it with you. Carlton Football Club is one of the AFL’s oldest and most successful clubs.
Carlton increased its Twitter followers by 800% and Facebook fans by 400%, with over 84,000 active Facebook users per month during the 2011 AFL season. Carlton has since surveyed its members and found that social media is now their preferred means of keeping up-to-date with club news and events. (source: Deloittedigital)
I tried to analyze the things that I like here, to assist you to come up with ideas of what you can do at your club to achieve the same results. I highlighted three things:
1. POWERFUL GRAPHICS
First of all, they made great and attractive graphics. They used Facebook as a channel to deliver these to their fans. Graphics are important because they show how serious a club is. This is vey important to me when I research different clubs.
They designed a look and feel for certain moments: information, big milestones, post-game quotes, fan content… Not every photo needs graphic, but if you have several areas where strong visuals make sense, it helps the content to stand out from all the noise.
Sharp and consistent content in examples below helped their content to stand out:
2. ‘BEHIND THE SCENE’ CONTENT
As I always write, you can’t make a mistake with ‘behind the scene’ content. The main channel for this is Instagram, where fans have access to photos and videos that they can’t get anywhere else. Sports are emotional, but they’re even more emotional when you tell a story beyond the game itself.
Some photos with this content you can also find on other social media channels that they use, but the most of content ‘behind scene’ is on Instagram.
They put this content also in the form of videos on Instagram and Youtube. In the next example, you can find a scene where players workout in a gym.
3. INTERACTION WITH FANS
I really like the way they communicate with fans. They had an interesting activity when players made phone calls to re-sign Carlton members. In my opinion, this is great! They shared a photo of this activity on social media as ‘behind the scene’ content.
There are other examples where Carlton FC used great graphics to show fans things that could be of interest to them… For example, what the team is doing before the game, and what they can do before a game. Also, they made graphics for free parking and tickets giveaways.
Another cool thing was a graphic with a list of products.
To show how important the fans are for them, they published fan photos on Carlton FC official Instagram profile and Facebook page. With this move they showed fans two things: you are part of the club and your content is our content!
There is a clear connection between the club and the fans, and it is mostly because fans recognize all the hard work Carlton FC digital and marketing teams are doing. Fans know when they are acknowledged, and when their support is appreciated. They love their club, and when club uses their photos for official social media content, that makes them feel special. This is a great way to get more fans, and attract worldwide attention. Keep up the good work.
These are only three reasons, but you can find more interesting and cool things Carlton FC are doing on the official club website, and their social media channels.
What do you think about this? Do you like what they’re doing? Would you highlight any other things?
