A few years ago, you’d have to actually watch a football match (or listen on the radio) to get live updates from the pitch. Today, you can follow live coverage on Twitter, get your half-time analysis from a football community like footbo and bantr , discuss the result on Facebook and get the low down after the game… from the players themselves on Twitter. We did some digging into the relationship between our national obsession with football, and social media.

Footballers and their fans

Players like Cristiano Ronaldo have millions of fans following them on Twitter. This is a great way for players and fans to talk directly to each other, but it also carries a risk. The carefully crafted soundbites of a press conference can be replaced with ill-thought-out comments that often as not make it into the press.

Twitter has led to serious trouble for some players, who have been fined by their club or sporting bodies. Carlton Cole was fined £20,000 by the FA for posting racially aggravated tweets during a friendly match between England and Ghana. This has led to many football clubs banning players from using Twitter. Others use Twitter to change their image – Joey Barton posts philosophical musings to his more than 900,000 followers, attracting a certain amount of media attention.

Footballers are also taking to Facebook to engage with fans and promote their personal brand. (Ronaldo and Kaka have more than 49 million likes between them on Facebook.) Facebook offers a more commercialised, branded experience for fans and tends to lack the intimacy of Twitter.

Other than fan engagement, some players are trying to use social to advance their careers. Owen Hargreaves attempted to shake off his reputation for being injury prone by posting training videos on YouTube in an attempt to get signed for a new club. It worked – he was signed by Manchester City.

Clubs and social media

Most major football clubs are active on Facebook and Twitter, and cross promote these profiles on their official sites. Some are advertising  their social presences offline: Valencia advertises its official Twitter handle on player’s shirts, and Premiership club Fulham uses the post-match interview area to direct to Twitter and Facebook. Mexican team Jaguares de Chiapas also use players shirts – which display their own personal Twitter handle alongside that of sponsor.

Some clubs have gone beyond simply interacting with fans on these platforms, and have implemented powerful social campaigns. Marseille offered its fans a special surprise if they could hit one million Facebook likes on their official page. The fans met this goal and were given the task of creating the 2011/12 shirt. A total of 60,000 submissions were made from which one users creation was selected by the fans. This is a great example of not only driving fans towards the social presence, but providing a creative way to engage and reward them. English clubs are also getting socially creative, with clubs such as Stockport County and QPR going so far as to ask fans to suggest future signings via Twitter.

Clubs have started to bring social into the match day experience. Manchester City has trialled live streaming by displaying fans tweets on screens throughout the stadium. Football giants Barcelona and Real Madrid have already taken steps to ensure that their stadium is ‘social media friendly’, by providing Wi-Fi connectivity and improved mobile coverage throughout the arenas.

The Future

The relationship between football and social media is a strong one, with a significant number of industry professionals effectively integrating social into their overall marketing strategy. A number of major clubs are already setting the foundations for the future. Manchester United announced that it would be launching its own social network in the near future, meanwhile their rivals Manchester City recently signed a deal with YouTube.

We can expect to see the relationship between football and social become much stronger as Euro 2012 approaches, and sponsors and nations will start to implement their social strategies.