GUEST POST: Oscar Ugaz (@oscarugaz) is consultant on digital business (Real Madrid, SAB Miller, Toyota) Advisor at Tribal DDB with expertise in Digital Media and online businesses. Over the past 15 years he has worked for major brands in America and Europe.

In 2007 he was appointed as Digital Business Manager for Spanish Football Club Real Madrid C.F. He has been in charge of the E-commerce business, the commercial strategy of realmadrid.com portals, the online video business and the Social Media strategy of the Club. Oscar is a keynote speaker who often participates at events and conferences on Digital Business Strategy and the impact of Social Media. In the last few years he has spoken at events in Spain, Germany, UK, and Latin America

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Some weeks ago, a well known sports brand reach 5 million fans in Facebook, so they posted on their wall to celebrate the happy event:

“Today is a magical date that we will never forget. Today we are going to reach 5 million fans in our football page. We only can say something to you: 5 MILLION OF THANKS”

They only received nine comments. 8 of them were the usual mumbling. One of them was getting to happy to say what he thought:

“Today is also my birthday and that is more magical. The 5 million fans don’t say anything to me. You guys are getting a little boring”.

In October, Facebook Pages start displaying the new “Talking about this” metric alongside with the total number of fans. The metric measures the number of unique people who have created a story (comment, like, share) about a specific page in the last week. From this data derives another interesting one: the engagement ratio (ER) a percentage that measures how many fans really interacts with the page.  

Over the last three week the average ER for the major European football clubs on Facebook (Real Madrid, FC, Barcelona and Manchester United) was 3.5 % of an average fan base of more than 20 million each.

I remember many meetings talking about numbers of fans and some people saying: “but Club A has more fans than us. We must do something”. A second point of view was: “What is important is not the size but what we do with those fans” The later way of thinking is the one that produces great content and entertainment.

Unfortunately, the alpha male attitude seems too imposed in the market and everyone falls in the rat race to collect more fans and boast on it. Everyday a new ranking appears and everyday people run to look at it and be happy or frustrated.

But time has given reason to the second point of view: if football is one of the most passionate events, and we are talking about some of the most representative brands in the sector, a 3,5% of ER is something not to be so proud about.

The fact is that most of us are managing these new social media assets as we used to do with old media. We have a lot of fans and reach? Great! Let´s push messages like crazy. And let´s boast about our supposed reach. Elements like, ER (Edge Rank) and the structure of the new Facebook Wall has put us back in place. It doesn’t matter how many fans we have, we are not going to reach any of them if we are not relevant.

The point is that we are missing the opportunity to use the new technical possibilities of engagement as well as the data and insights behind it. Now we know who the fans are, their sex, age, language, country and city; we even know to what kind of messages they responded in the past and what do they do after that.  We can use all this data to profile remarkable content in the way of customized messages, engaging apps, demanding polls, video that shows the bowels of the club, etc.

However most of us limit to the average post with a link.

Sponsors and licensors must also take a more deep involvement. Close deals or enhance old ones based on a number of followers is not going to be relevant at all. A due diligence of the sponsee ´s social media assets must include a deep look at the insights of the fan base, to what kind of stimulus they react and a deep thinking about how products or services can engage with the right holder´s brand in a deep and meaningful way.

Nowadays most deals are based on number of posts, tweets or video displays without any deep analysis. A vicious circle occurs where poor results arrive because of irrelevant content and more messages are pushed to obtain results. This creates a negative attitude or worst than that: audience will start to ignore us (remember the low engagement rates?). In the process we also run the risk of killing our social media assets.

The responsibility is not small. Its not only that we can diminish the value of our own gained/owned media. If brands like football clubs, that are supposed to create some of the most deep and engaging relationships do not produce real value this can give support to those that suggest that social media is a fad and a waste of time. And this have the familiar sound of a bubble burst with all the negative effects towards digital media.

Strategic movements like new public ER as well as insights data and new monetization and advertising solutions are efforts for platforms like Facebook and Twitter to provide brands with tools to create more relevant content and increase not only their own value but the whole platform itself. Being part of an industry like sports, with such a big passion component requires managing the digital strategy of “love brands” taking full accountability towards more professional, technical and meaningful content.

If we work this way, maybe the next time we post something we will receive the feedback we expect instead of the usual blathering. Or, in the worst case, the echo of an empty space.

This weekend saw a customer complaint go from being an issue for the company and that individual to a full blown PR issue thanks to Facebook.

The incident started on Saturday after one of our armed forces personnel had to change his plans due to his dates for service being altered.  This meant he had to cancel his holiday, which he managed to do with the airline but not the holiday company.

Lastminute.com decided to take another stance as officially he was not entitled to a refund (was stated in the T&C’s).  This issue made it onto the company Facebook Page with people siding with the soldier and ‘liking’ the page so that they could make their point.  It did turn into a bit of witch hunt or as one person put it ‘like reading the Daily Mail’.

The issue and relevance to all of us who work in Social Media and especially Community Managers, is that this kicked off on weekend and no-one was available sort out until this morning (Monday).  By which time much of the damage had been done.

The issue has now happily been sorted out and some confidence has been restored but if there had been someone on hand to check Facebook over the weekend then would this have got so out of control?  I doubt it.

For any clubs or businesses this has to be a wakeup call when it comes to who and when these pages are monitored.  We can’t rely on one person working 9-5 from Monday to Friday as what happens when something like this falls outside of that? And it is unfair to ask that person to be there 24/7 365 days a year.

This is where proper planning and investment is required, it is all very well building up your community but it has to be looked after.  Maybe you have 2 or 3 people working in shifts or one main community manager but others who help check the page to flag up any issues.

Not only is this needed for weekends but what happens when your community manager goes on holiday, what then?  Social Media cannot be a one-man effort and is something I became acutely aware of during my time working with adidas.  This is both a community management and PR issue (how do you escalate and deal with issues) which need planning for and taking into consideration as you need to be pro-active rather than re-active.

What does your club or business do outside of normal working hours….. do you have a plan?

A Guest Post by Simon Hoskins from Earnest Agency (www.earnest-agency.com)

A sprinkling of skill…

Sports stars tend to exert all the tendencies of super humans when placed in front of a camera and told by those milling around the shoot that what they’re making is a viral! And remarkably the more demanding and difficult the skill, the more relaxed and confident these men and women become when performing it. Federer, Beckham, Kobe Bryant and the like perform skills and stunts that are wild extensions of what they are required to do on the sports field or court every day.

A pinch of curiosity…

Their skills are turned up to 11 to blow everyone’s expectations of what they thought they could achieve. They are each revered in their particular sport – this gives their performance a certain edge of legitimacy that makes people question what certainly would be labelled as fake if performed by a lesser athlete. Their celebrity endorses their flamboyance far more than if Joe Public attempted the stunt.

A slice of brand awareness…

Sports stars are recognised as brands in their own right. A viral concept can hang on this brand framework by creating an interest from the viewer that develops from their feeling of familiarity with that person. Although Federer represents Gillette, Braylon Edwards the NFL and Ronaldinho, Nike, viewers believe they are watching an advert for that athlete’s skills – not for a specific brand. The Hi-Tec ‘Liquid Mountaineering’ viral is an anomaly here because it doesn’t employ the use of famous stars as brand ambassadors to drive its interest. The theme of athletes fitting themselves with Hi-Tec trainers before running a few paces across water is the hook which creates the buzz about the stunt. It highlights that without a famous face most virals need a supremely extraordinary feat to give them the edge and to compete in popularity with the likes of the All Blacks and Cristiano Ronaldo.

All Blacks training

The viral was used to promote the Rugby Channel in New Zealand and created huge chatter about their extraordinary feats. All Blacks Piri Weepu and Cory Jane can get away with passing these skills off as easy and matter-of-fact. Being synonymous with the world’s best rugby team allows viewers to partially suspend their disbelief, especially as their nonchalant manner and easy-going training ground routine makes their skills seem second–nature. The same can be said for the Pepsi viral featuring David Beckham in which his famous long passes have allowed him to feature in a viral set on a Californian beach kicking footballs into plastic rubbish cans from 60 yards. These approaches make the All Blacks viral and the concept feel under-produced and raw and henceforth more natural and appealing to the viewer. Such was their success they produced a follow-up.

Hi-Tec: Liquid Mountaineering

The aim of ‘Liquid Mountaineering’ was to capture the spirit of the brand and to have fun – providing a way to get to know Hi-Tec through the telling of a story and the supposed arrival of a new sport. The viral shares a similar story arc and structure with that of surfing videos. Whereas surfers are chasing the perfect wave and getting involved through their surf gear, these guys are after the thrill of pushing a new adrenaline sport. Amid the false science claims and impossible physics of it all, the one truth is the hydrophobic nature of the Hi-Tec shoes and their ability to repel water. This is the one shred of accuracy that allows the falsities to hang from it.

Roger Federer: William Tell

Federer seems to take a couple of minutes out from shooting a Gillette ad to perform a modern day re-telling of the Swiss legend of William Tell. In what appears to be a break from a studio shoot the footage seems to present a natural extension of Roger’s affable persona. Getting one of the production team to balance an empty can of balls on this head, Federer appears to serve and smash the can off his head with pinpoint accuracy. Cue a stunned production team. He then does it again. It’s clever because the first shot is almost off camera and would provide immediate ammunition for scepticism, but the second is shown far more clearly and serves(…!) to cast a bit of head-scratching. Arguably he is the greatest tennis player of all time…could he do this? It doesn’t seem to be THAT much of a leap of faith to suggest he could…

NFL Pick Me Reebok Campaign

This campaign is all about big names, big feats and big ambitions. They want YOU to pick THEM for your fantasy team…they want to impress and the viral suits as a platform in which to perform some truly awesome stunts on and off the football field. Accuracy levels needed in most stunts are almost impossibly high and with most players the ball disappears off screen and becomes barely visible in the distance. However, for invention and sheer entertainment, this is the real stand-out. Unlike the All Blacks training viral it feels far more produced and far more commercial, although they really notch it up a gear!

Nike basketball: LeBron Rise

LeBron James, when he made this Nike viral, was a basketball player for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This viral wasn’t about what LeBron James had or hadn’t done – it was about the difference between the expectations others may have had of him versus the expectations he had of himself. What has made this a stand-out viral is the version that the Cleveland fans produced that reflected the questions LeBron James was asking himself in the original. Opening himself up for Nike about people’s expectations of him at Cleveland left him open to some wide criticism when he left the club for sunnier and more successful climbs.

This is the Cleveland fans’ reply:

GUEST POST: Multitude Media are a specialist PR company operating across sport and entertainment, with clients including Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson’s theatre company Shatterbox, Manchester City and England footballer Micah Richards and Harry Potter actor Matthew Lewis. Follow them on Twitter @MultitudeMedia.
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(Guest post from Mark Martin)

Formula One is massively popular, with a global audience of over 600 million people. The sport has made household names of the likes of Nigel Mansell, who is still managing to capitalise on his association to the sport fifteen years after his retirement in the latest advertisements for Moneysupermarket car insurance.

However, the popularity of the sport has also been one of its problems, as fans haven’t been unable to get the access to the sport that they desire. It simply isn’t possible to give every fan at the circuit a tour of the paddock before the start of the race. Critics have therefore called the sport too isolated, and questioned why it can’t be more open to the public like the popular American racing series NASCAR. However, this is all changing thanks to social media.

Followers

The majority of F1 teams now have a Twitter account, where fans can follow their day to day activities. There is a huge hunger for this in the information age, and F1 fans are enjoying the increased accessibility of the sport. Fans now actually feel more emotionally involved with the teams, which increases the chance of them watching all the races to see how their ‘friends’ are getting on.

            Of all the teams, Virgin Racing appears to have embraced this new phenomenon the most as they strive to affiliate themselves within the F1 community and gain the support of fans. Tweeting about the strategy of the team, the work of engineers and mechanics, and commenting on goings on in the F1 world has allowed the fans to actually feel involved with the team and allowed them to get to know its ‘personalities’. Virgin Racing presently has 21,914 Twitter followers, each of which the teams are trying to make feel like an additional team member.

Brand personality

This all links to changes in the world of marketing, with ‘integration’ being the new marketing buzz word. Marketing academic, Terence Shimp, believes that sports marketing is overcrowded which leaves many sponsors logos un-noticed. On top of this, Shimp believes that the sponsorship association will do more harm than good if the brand and the team stand for different things.

A perfect example of this was Virgin’s decision to enter F1 for the first time in 2009 with the Brawn team. Branson had previously appeared unwilling to make the jump into the sport, but Brawn GP was the perfect opportunity for him. The team had been owned by Honda, who sold the team just before Christmas in 2008 leaving them on the verge of collapse. At the last minute, the team Principal Ross Brawn persuaded Honda to sell him the team for $1, meaning that Honda didn’t have to pay to make all the employees redundant.

The team quickly redesigned their car and managed to bolt a Mercedes engine in the back of a car designed to accommodate a Honda. This redesign meant that the car didn’t run for the first time until two weeks before the start of the season, and no one rated their chances as surviving the season without going bankrupt would be an achievement. However, Brawn had given up developing the team’s poor 2008 car early in the previous season and decided to focus all the teams’ resources on 2009.

The result was a car which was in a different league from that of their competitors and Brawn went on to win six of the first seven races with Jenson Button, and eventually sealed the world championship. Brawn GP were the underdogs, fighting for survival while at the same time fighting against the sports establishing winners. Branson realised this on the eve of the opening race of the season in Australia and decided to sponsor the team. Brawn perfectly correlated with his Virgin brand’s own underdog persona, which stemmed from Branson’s own life story. This involved him setting up his own catalogue firm and eventually turning this into a multi-national company spanning multiple industries despite being dyslexic and being failed by the schooling system in his childhood as a result. In each of these industries, Branson had entered a domain dominated by certain key players and took them on with a smaller budget.

This underdog persona had won him many fans and endeared the Virgin brand to customers around the world. Brawn GP perfectly complemented this underdog image. However, Ross Brawn sold the team to Mercedes for 2010 and the team hired the seven times world champion, Michael Schumacher. As the reigning world champion team with the most successful driver in the sport in one of their cars, Brawn were no longer the underdog and being associated with them would simply pollute Virgin’s underdog persona.

Branson therefore took the decision to start his own team from scratch for 2010, which would run on the smallest budget in the sport and become the first team in history to design their car with only computers. Once again, Branson had found a way to complement the underdog persona of his brand, by fighting larger teams with more experience and bigger budgets.

            Virgin are not the only company to have realised the benefits of owning your own F1 team to ensure increased publicity and better correlation to image. Kingfisher (Force India), Air Asia (Lotus), Red Bull and Mercedes Benz have all gone down the same route in recent years.

What does Twitter have to do with it?

As was previously outlined, Twitter allows followers to get to know the ‘personality’ of teams. If the team is created in a brands image, this personality will therefore provide a marketing message to the follower by showing exactly what the company stands for. Never ones to miss an opportunity, Virgin have used this to great effect this year. Fans have become emotionally involved with the team as they have got to know them and therefore become emotionally involved with every Virgin company in the different industries in which they are involved.

Formula One sponsorship is no long sufficient if it is just a logo on the wing of a car, it has to mean something and be acted upon with additional activities such as this to show people what message you are trying to achieve from the sponsorship. Virgin is the perfect case study in how F1 sponsorship can still

By Chris Jessop

The other day, I, like most football fans, was toying with the idea of doing some football coaching. I mean, a player of my calibre will surely be able to offer a pool of knowledge, wisdom and motivation to children all over the country……..ok maybe not, but getting paid to attempt to teach people how to play football would be pretty cool. And then I realised I had no idea where to start, I mean, I know you have to do various levels of coaching badges, but how easy is it to do that? Or even find information about it? I thought the obvious place to start would be The Football Association, better known as The FA.

On the FA website (www.thefa.com) there is a section called ‘Get into football’ and in there you will find a coaching section. There are various sections, including a page full of update’s on how The FA’s coaching schemes are working wonders, but on the subject of becoming a coach, it gives you a list of local FA’s and says to contact them. The Football Association runs courses for aspiring coaches at all levels, the first two of which are offered by County FA’s. So I selected my county, Northampton (www.northamptonshirefa.com/default.htm) and searched their site and under the development page there is a coaching section that shows all available courses from The FA Youth Awards up to the Level 3 badge.

So what is a Level 1 badge? This is the UK’s most popular coaching course for all coaches with little experience or knowledge. The course provides an introduction to the organisation and trains you to be able to deliver safe and enjoyable coaching sessions. The course provides practical drills that aim to develop players’ technical skills such as shooting, turning with the ball and heading. This course is for all intents and purposes an introduction to basic coaching, and is ideally suited to those who want to work with young players and or/teams at a local or amateur level. The price for the course is stated as £110 and is a one day course.

So you have your Level 1 badge, what’s next? As this is only the beginning, the type of jobs you can hope for are limited to local teams, after school classes and basic community projects with local clubs. Gaining more work experience as a coach is essential if you want to progress to the next level and although the website at www.football-jobs.com is really handy and lists various football coaching jobs, the majority want a minimum of Level 2 coaching badges!

Once you have completed your Level 1 or you’re a coach with a few seasons experience, you may want to start your training for Level 2, as it is still an open entry course you can apply through The FA. Although it is recommended that those taking part without a Level 1 qualification do have relevant coaching experience. The course aims to develop an appreciation of the ethical coaching process and on completion you should be able to plan, conduct and evaluate a series of football coaching sessions. As a coach you will be able to ensure the health and safety of players and those involved and be able to develop greater responsibility for their own learning and development. All of this should be done whilst promoting the sport in a positive and constructive manner. There is no price stated on the website and it takes around 6 months to complete.

So what is available to you with a Level 2 coaching badge? This qualification should lead you into careers along the lines of amateur teams, community roles for football clubs etc and for soccer schools. 

On the county site, it said there were currently being changes made to the Level 3 and didn’t offer any information, so I had to search for information and found it via the 1^st4sport qualification site (www.1st4sportqualifications.com) to find out more about it.

Now those courses are pretty straight forward, so the next step is the Level 3, also known as the UEFA ‘B’ Licence. You will need your Level 2 badge and you should also have to complete an Accident and Emergency Course and a Child Protection Course before being able to start your Level 3. Firstly, you will need access to a team that you can coach, and you will be encouraged to discuss the suitability of the team with a coach educator prior to signing up for the course. You will be able to plan and develop your own football coaching programmes, as well as how to manage, implement and conduct those football programmes.

As a coach, you will also learn how to effectively evaluate your activities and develop a plan for your further development as a coach. This qualification will not only form part of a credible CV for employment in the game, but as a UEFA accredited qualification, it will allow you access to a variety of opportunities within the professional game. You can also become a member of FACA (Football Association, Coaches Association, http://facalive.thefa.com )     which provides advice and support for top coaches. The price will vary to where you do the qualification, and it takes around 9-12 to complete. Other Coaching Associations include;  The Association of Football Coaches www.associationoffootballcoaches.com, The Professional Football Coaches Association (PFCA) www.leaguemanagers.com/search-7.html

Now you’re a top qualified coach, what can you do? Experienced professionals can be fast tracked to Level 3, so you should be in good company. In the professional game, coaches are expected to have at least the UEFA ‘B’ Licence, so if you have gained this qualification you should be looking at coaching at a fairly high standard.

Finally, if you have been coaching for a number of years and want to progress into top level coaching and even management then you will need to apply for your UEFA ‘A’ Licence. The best comparison for the ‘A’ licence is that it is the equivalent to getting a degree. Having this qualification makes you very employable to almost any coaching role available. It takes two years to complete and can only be done if you are working with or for a national FA. The course is centred around two parts, which are split into two-week sessions that are based at Lilleshall Football Academy (National Centre) with various other sessions, including distance learning and support sessions. This licence operates a pass or fail basis and it is now mandatory that all league managers hold a ‘UEFA ‘A’ Licence.

The UEFA Pro Licence is the final and highest coaching qualification available, and follows the completion of the UEFA ‘B’ and ‘A’ Licences.

A UEFA Pro Licence is required by anyone who wishes to manage a football club in the top level of the nation’s league system on a permanent basis (i.e. more than 12 weeks – the amount of time an unqualified caretaker manager is allowed to take control). This applies to both the head coach or team manager, and such a licence is also required to manage in the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup.

Each current manager of a top-flight team in Europe was set a deadline of 2010 to acquire the licence, or else face losing his post

I think it is definitely worth going on as many training courses as you can to become as qualified as a coach as possible and seemingly, the FA Level 1,2,3 coaching badges are adequate for you to have a decent go at become a coach. Those that dedicate their career to coaching will be advised to go further and do the ‘A’ Licence. Because, the better you get, and the more experience you gain from these coaching courses, the more likely you are to be spotted as a coach with talent. Another key piece of advice would be to keep up-to-date with current goings on in the world of football (I’m sure I don’t need to tell many football coaches this!) because it is a common ground with a lot of young children who will watch matches, so you will always be informed and who knows, you might see something that can lead to you becoming the next Sir Alex Ferguson!

You can also keep up to date with any new jobs in football by signing up for the job alerts by email, a FREE service from website www.football-jobs.com. As new jobs are posted to the website you get sent an email letting you know there are new jobs for you to look at.

So overall, I found the process of trying to find what coaching badges are available and where to do them, what they consist of, price etc, all very confusing. When it came down to it, you can access most of the information from The FA website, via a number of other different channels, which can prove very arduous. The information is out there and going on any search engine will take you to thousands of coaching sites, it would just be a lot easier if all the information about coaching courses and all existing jobs were available on one site.

About the Author: Chris Jessup is a Sport, Media and Culture Graduate looking for a job in media or Pr in football or sport in general. Find out m ore about him at http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/chris-jessup/23/994/a2a

Guest Post by Chris Jessup

So here I am, 10 months after graduating from University. A day I will never forget, as me and my friends were awarded our degrees which we had worked so hard for. The pursuit of your ‘dream job’ is the motivation behind most students who chose to enter higher education; but three years and £18,000 later,  I, like thousands of other students, am struggling to find any job…..let alone a dream one!

As a massive sports fan, there was only one route for me when deciding what type of course to do at University. I saw myself as the next Ian Stafford or John Motson, or at least one of those people on Sky Sports News! This was the rationale I chose when deciding to study ‘sport, media and culture’.  Sport has always been my biggest passion; I am an avid football, golf, boxing and athletics fan but I also played football for what seemed the majority of my childhood and teen years, until a cruel injury meant my retirement from the game had come already at the tender age of 21. This fuelled my desire for a job in sport, preferably in either PR or media.

Since graduating it has been a frustrating time for everyone, well I assume I am not the only graduate struggling to find a job?! I have decided to take the route of taking part in work placements and internships, as I was tired of hearing ‘sorry you don’t have enough experience’. Whilst these jobs have been brilliant in expanding my skills and learning new ones, they have also enhanced my CV and given me an impressive list of contacts. They have been, however, only short-term, which has left me heavily frustrated and in desperate need of some motivation to keep searching for that ‘dream job’ (or the first job in sport that comes along!).

One site that has been very helpful in my search is www.football-jobs.com. This site has a vast variety of different types of football jobs and an impressive client base, which means there are new football jobs added every week.  So I have decided to try and give fellow football job searchers a list of the different types of work available in the world of the beautiful game, in the hope that it will help you identify the areas that you want to work in, so you can keep aiming for your goals and finally put that degree to use!

Executive and Board room roles:

Key boardroom and executive roles usually mean making the big decisions at football clubs, and they usually have a wealth of business experience. It is unrealistic that a graduate would have the required experience to become a board member or executive at any football club…..well not yet anyway!

Accounting, Admin and Finance:

Accounting, finance and admin roles are usually things like club accountant, club secretary, general admin jobs etc which will involve looking after the clubs’ money, sorting out finances and finding sources of funding etc. Would suit people with articulate degree’s or backgrounds.

Marketing and Sponsorship:

Marketing executives and managers are responsible for devising and outlining marketing plan appropriate to the club’s needs. Sponsorship sectors are used to publicise the club in any way possible, and to find funding and fund-raising opportunities.  Sports marketing students will be perfect for such roles.

Media, Communciations and PR:

Media, Communications and PR roles will involve producing content for club websites, blogs and official websites, as well as managing and distributing content or coverage for and from the media. People with a passion for media or journalism apply here.

Sales & Commercial:

Sales roles typically including duties such as identifying new business opportunities, establishing new target markets, proactively promoting the clubs products and or services;  as well as cold calling and hitting monthly targets. Roles would be ideal for a confident graduate with a business degree and sales experience.

Match Day Staff:

Jobs need doing on match days, and it can be anything from bar work, clubs shop work, stewarding to programme selling.  This is a good way of getting to see live football and earning money, but isn’t really thought of as a graduate career, unless done for the love of the game etc.

Facility Management:

A new area, mixed with some old areas. Jobs will include more traditional roles, such as stadium operation and maintenance and property management (a rather fancy term for groundskeeper etc!) and new roles such as support services, environmental management and telecommunication. Usually football clubs employ companies who will run these areas, so it may be easier to apply with external companies.

Coaching:

Needs no real explanation, although football clubs have loads of different levels of coaching. These can range from soccer schools (domestically and overseas), centres of excellence, community projects, academies, all the way up to under-18s etc. The minimum training you will need is your FA Level 1 badges and would suit those with coaching experience and relevant sports degree.

About the Author: Chris Jessup graduated from The University of Bedfordshire with a 2.1 in Bachelor of Arts with Honors in ‘Sport, Media and Culture’ in 2009.

South Africa 2010 is being billed as the ‘most social’ Football / Soccer World Cup of our generation.

However, if you have a dig around the official website for this year’s tournament, you don’t really get that impression – in fact, it almost seems like FIFA are ‘anti’ social media.

When assessing how ‘social’ an event is being pitched / marketed, the first stop is usually the website of the body in charge.

I spent about 10 minutes on http://www.fifa.com/worldcup home page (and subsequent pages) earlier today and couldn’t find any of the following:

- A link to an official FIFA Twitter account
- A link to an official FIFA Facebook page
- A RSS feed icon (although you will find one if you go to the media centre correction, there is a RSS feed icon on the home page, embedded under the news section, my apologies)
- A mention of the an official Twitter hashtag (#WC2010 seems to be the fan’s choice FYI – even   whatthehashtag.com doesn’t feature an explanation)

Note: There is no obvious YouTube link either but this is probably down to rights holders / contracts as opposed to a willingness to use that platform.

This is in stark contrast to most of the other major sporting events / bodies operating in 2010.

Just a couple months ago I looked at the NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness) via a blog post and discovered that they were doing a pretty decent job.

Most importantly, the very basics i.e. clearly signposted icons linking visitors to social media platforms, were clearly visible (see below).

Google

The next obvious stop is Google – perhaps the almighty search engine could direct me to the official social media properties of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

I conducted a simple test search: “2010 FIFA World Cup on Twitter”.

The top five results that came back were:

http://twitter.com/fifaworldcupsa - A ‘FIFA’ World Cup account (but not one that appears ‘official’)

http://twitter.com/2010oc - The SA 2010 Oranising Committee account

http://twitter.com/fifaworldcuptm - This appears to be the ‘real thing’ but it’s not verified and without a link on FIFA.com pointing me to it, I am somewhat dubious.

http://twitter.com/FIFA_news  - This took a little extra effort to find but appears officially ‘official’

http://twitter.com/2010FIFAcup - Another account using the tournament logo and FIFA name, but doesn’t appear to be official

With the recent events surrounding @BPGlobalPR and various similar instances, trusting Twitter accounts is becoming more and more difficult.

The most obvious way to get around that is to feature blatantly obvious links from official websites or to have accounts verified.

What’s the score?

If I was to put my ‘fan’ hat on, I’d be a little confused.

Not just because FIFA appear to be making it particularly challenging for me to follow the tournament via the platforms I am immersed in everyday, but the official tournament sponsors seems to be doing LOADS.

For a comprehensive summary of what FIFA’s sponsors are doing around this World Cup, click here.

After having worked with the Cricket Australia for many years, I know how much sponsors attempt to own as many properties as possible – or, at the very least, conduct activity that is very different to the other associated partners.

Even at my most cynical, I can’t imagine FIFA is taking a gentle approach to social media because of sponsor rights / deals.

It just seems odd…very odd.

Best in class?

If you take a look at some of the other leading sporting bodies around the world, you’ll see how much they have embraced social media.

The NBA is probably the best example.

More than 2.5 million people ‘like’ the NBA on Facebook.

Nearly 2 million people follow the NBA on Twitter.

NBA.com even has an official guide to Twitter featuring current and former players, commentators, teams and much more.

Why is this so perplexing?

Without knowing the ins and outs of FIFA, I don’t really think I or anyone else is in a position to throw stones.

There may be a perfectly logical explanation (or an even more compelling commercial reason).

But, with less than a week to go until the greatest sporting event in the world begins, I am curious as to why these basics haven’t been covered off.

My hope is the heatwave currently smothering Europe is the reason I can’t find what I was looking for at FIFA.com - maybe you’ll log on tomorrow and the Twitter and Facebook icons will smack you right in the face?

If you do have the answers to any of these questions please let me know (especially as I am more than five months into my ‘newspaper-less’ experiment and keeping up with the World Cup via social media is my only ticket to the dance this year).

It is still very (very) early days for social media, especially for global organisations often constricted by layers of approvals, so I don’t think we can be too hard on who’s in charge of social media at FIFA…but a couple of icons and some direction as to official accounts would be super!!

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By Paul Rogers, Head of Content at Liverpool Football Club

Congratulations on a great website and very interesting article -

The Facebook and Twitter Premier League
http://www.theuksportsnetwork.com/?p=52

As Head of Content for Liverpool Football Club I obviously take a very keen interest in this subject and we’re obviously very proud of our success so far in the world of social media.

We have put a lot of thought and invested a lot of time and effort into making the experience for our fans an enjoyable AND interactive one on both Facebook and Twitter and this is why we believe we are the most popular Premier League Club on both sites.

You are right to point to the opening line of text on our Facebook page as that sums up our approach to social media – it’s all about us finding new ways to reach out to supporters online and interact with them in a way that can be more instant and less formal than sometimes happens on the official website.

From day one, we’ve used Twitter how it should be used – as a fun way of staying in touch with the fans (and non fans) who’ve chosen to follow us. We talk about life at LFC, we share our opinions and insights from the players and staff behind the scenes but most importantly we listen to what our followers have to say and we respond when we can. We can’t reply to every tweet and message we’re sent but we reply to a hell of a lot of them.

The feedback we’ve seen points to the fact that fans do want to know what people working at the club feel when a last minute goal goes in, do want to hear what sort of mood Dirk Kuyt was in when he was interviewed earlier in the day, do want to know before anyone else if a big story is about to break and want their views not just heard but responded to as well.

The same cannot be said for most of the other Premier League clubs on Twitter who talk, talk, talk and never listen, never interact and never seem to have any fun. Setting up automated news feeds to be displayed as Tweets is not what fans want and the lack of followers for the other clubs proves that point.

In my opinion, lots of clubs are scared of social media sites. Manchester United, for example, has no official Facebook or Twitter site at all – preferring to push everything through their own website, ManUtd.com. They will obviously have their own, perfectly valid, reasons for taking this approach but it’s the opposite of what we are trying to do. I think some clubs may worry that social media sites may take traffic away from their official site (we’ve actually found both Facebook and Twitter have driven traffic to our site) or that, unlike official websites, they are too difficult to control– Facebook comments are not all nice and polite, fans aren’t always happy with decisions club’s make and rival fans can get a bit out of control – but for those clubs who take the risks, the rewards can be more than worthwhile.