Founded in 1902, with 31 Spanish Liga titles and 9 UEFA Champion League victories, Real Madrid are the most successful football club of all time. The club is currently managed by the enigmatic Jose Mourinho and the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium is home to some of the worlds best players.

After speaking to Oscar Ugaz, Online Marketing & Digital Business Manager, and Pedro Duarte, Mobile Business Manager back it March, it was easy to understand how the Real’s on pitch success had translated into the online world.

Over the past few years Real Madrid has built up a substantial social media following which currently stands at around 4.7 million users and their official Facebook page gets 30,000 new fans every day. The Spanish giants have also managed to build up a large mobile audience, with over 160,000 downloads of their MyMadrid mobile app in its first year. And what’s equally, if not even more impressive, is the fact they have built up an audience that is willing to pay for content – the club’s mobile subscription offering has 35,000+ registered users.

The club has now taken their digital offerings to the next level by becoming first football club in the world to launch an authentic social game for all its fans and followers. The game, Real Madrid Fantasy Manager 2011, is already available on Facebook and IPhone, and gives all football fans the opportunity to step into Jose Mourinho’s shoes and become manager of Real Madrid.

The essence of social gaming mechanics is the feeling that you’ve accomplished something, and Real have captured perfectly. Game users are able to interact with other players, compare their results with those of their friends’ and prove that they are the ideal candidate to manage Real Madrid. In order to prove they are the best, they will need to create a virtual team of players, train them and prepare them both physically and mentally for each week’s match. They will also be able to experiment with the club’s management including signing up players, dealing with the facilities, ticket sales and much more. Participants will move ahead in the game by purchasing and using a variety of virtual assets and products that will enable them to improve the team’s performance. There’s also some great prizes for the winners including the chance to meet the Real Madrid players in person.

By using the Facebook and iPhone platforms, the game will benefit from the advantages of social distribution, immediacy and convenience. The game is designed to enable users to play on both platforms from a single account. Therefore, are able to start playing on their mobiles and continue on their desktop computers when they arrive home.

Social gaming is a booming industry at the moment, and with games like Mafia Wars and Farmville boasting tens of millions of users it’s hard to see the momentum slowing down. The vast majority (95%) of social gamers play multiple times per week; nearly two-thirds (64%) play at least once a day. Slightly more than half (53%) of social gamers say they’ve earned and/or spent virtual currency in a social game and 28% have purchased virtual currency with real-world money highlighting the monetization potential these games hold.

“Facebook is one of the biggest and fastest growing social platforms around, and also reaches an international audience. We have been working with them for over three years now in what has proved to be a very fruitful association. The club has been experimenting with several communication, marketing and business strategies and we feel that the time has come to fully immerse ourselves into the social gaming field. On the other hand, our experience with MyMadrid and the distribution and sale of mobile content worldwide have enabled us to create a sustainable and proven business model that will be available also for this new project” commented Pedro Duarte, Mobile Business Manager and Oscar Ugaz, Online Marketing & Digital Business Manager from Real Madrid.

What do you think the future holds for sports and social gaming?

The Great Britain basketball team were formed on December 1st, 2005 when the home nation’s respective governing bodies England Basketball, Basketball Scotland and Basketball Wales joined forces to field a competitive team for international competition after London secured the 2012 Olympics.

However, basketball is one of the few sports in the Olympics where the home nation doesn’t get an automatic qualification. FIBA President Bob Elphinston in April 2010 announced that in order for Team GB to secure a place in the Olympics they would need to qualify for Eurobasket 2011, a campaign that begins with their scheduled games this coming August.

Whilst basketball is the third largest participation sport in the UK Team GB have struggled to build a fan base and attract fans to games and I’d like to have a look at why, and how we can change this.

Are basketball players actually basketball fans?

I recently read this great post “Are Soccer Players True Fans?” By Ryan Knapp, in which he discusses soccer in the US and the fact that not all US soccer players are soccer fans and I think we have a similar situation over here with Basketball.

Let me explain.

Just because someone plays basketball doesn’t necessarily make them a fan of the game. They may go down to local court for a game and go to practice every week, but that’s where their involvement in basketball finishes – there’s a huge disconnect between being a basketball fan and a basketball player, and as Ryan states in his article, one does not imply the other.

Note: I’d highly recommend reading Ryan’s article as a lot of what he says can be directly applied to basketball in the UK.

Now, whilst people playing basketball is great, not having fans of the game is not so great especially for Team GB, without the fans it’s hard for the game to develop over here. I feel that one of the key problems when it comes to basketball and attracting fans to games is exposure, if people aren’t aware of games they won’t go. It’s as simple as that.

Exposure

Football was my first sport, I grew up playing and watching it – being a football fan here in the UK is easy, football is everywhere; on TV, in newspapers, online, in fact it’s hard to avoid! You’re constantly connected to it, and you don’t have to make an effort to find out the latest results or news.

In basketball we don’t have that; the sport gets very little coverage other than Hoopsfix.com, Basketaball24/7 and FadeAway Magazine, and most mainstream coverage of basketball focuses on the NBA. This makes being a British Basketball fan hard, and by hard I mean you have to make an effort to follow the sport and with so many distractions both online and offline nowadays many people just don’t keep up with it.

How can we change this?

The developments of technology and social media have made massive changes to the way we consume information and content, it has also opened up the doors for content creators to reach out to new people and share their content easily. Team GB no longer need to worry about mainstream media not showing highlights or games, the opportunity to reach an audience is there, they just need to take advantage of it.

If GB Basketball wants to turn players into fans and start selling out games they need to reach out to us, give us the content we want and build up a relationships with us. After all one of the keys to success for any sports team is the relationship between the organisation, players and fans.

In mainstream sports we know the players personalities and to some extent we feel connected to them because we read about them and see them all the time, the same cannot be said about basketball players. By utilising social media, Team GB could take us inside the team and let us get to know the players and start to build a relationship with them.

This would also give Team GB the opportunity to give the younger generation of player’s role models to look up to at a young age. Just as I looked up to David Beckham as a kid, the next generation of British basketball players and fans could look up to Ben Gordon or Luol Deng.

Back British Basketball

Since I started writing this article Sam Neter, basketball fanatic and Editor of Hoopsfix.com, has launched his own campaign to bring GB Basketball to the forefront of our minds.

‘Back British Basketball’ is a campaign to promote Team GB and get people in the UK supporting the team and attending this summer’s crucial Eurobasket 2011 qualifiers. The campaigns tagline, “Our Team, Our Olympics, by any means necessary” sums up the campaign, the 2012 Olympics is our party and our basketball team needs to be there.

Sam explains; ‘The fact that Team GB has met and exceeded every goal FIBA has set out for them so far; yet they still don’t have a guaranteed place in 2012 is outrageous particularly given the fact that the UK is the host nation. As a committed fan I intend to drive this campaign and do everything in my power to get the nation on board and increase Team GB’s following ensuring their every chance of success in August’

It’s great to see someone as passionate as Sam trying to get the UK behind our team and I’ll definitely be backing British Basketball this summer. If you’d like to show your support visit www.BackBritishBasketball.com, or connect on Facebook and Twitter.

What do you think the future holds for British Basketball?

Tuesday, ( 1^st June), was a massive day for the England national team, and for us the fans, as this was the day England’s final 23 man squad for the upcoming World Cup was announced.

A day which started out with great promise for the FA ended up being a very mixed one, and one that they probably learnt a lot about the social media world from, so without further ado – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

The Good.

The day started very well for the FA, with the launch of their new “Believe in England” Facebook app which allows fans to get their very own England squad number and display it on their Facebook profile.

The app seems to have exploded onto the scene, I discovered the app early on in the day and got the squad number 323, and in just over a day there are now 29,214England fans (as of 10am Wednesday) who have claimed their squad number.

The numbers 1-23 are taken up by the England players, with a number of shirts also given away to famous England fans such as Tim Lovejoy and Ray Winstone. Other special numbers include 66 representing  the Bobby Moore foundation, 2012 representing The London Olympics and representing the England 2018 World Cup bid.

This app is a great way for the FA to spread their “Believe in England” message and also drive greater connection and engagement with fans.

The Bad.

There was mass speculation around who will be the unlucky 7 dropped from the squad since England’s game against Japan, and this speculation naturally came to a boiling point on Tuesday with thousands upon thousands of England fans predicting who would be dropped and who would make it.

The FA had said that the official squad will be announced on TheFA.com at some point Tuesday, and of course there was always going to be speculation amongst fans and I’m sure the FA expected this – it’s when this speculation started to come from various journalists and respected news sources that it all started to gain a head of steam.

From what I understand Fabio Cappello wanted to speak to the 7 dropped players personally and let them know about his decision, and I think that is the best way he could have handled the situation – if you’re dropped from a World Cup squad the least you deserve is a personal message, and I think Cappello was spot on with this approach.

Where this approach fell down however was via social media – had the FA underestimated the power of Twitter? And the speed at which news can travel nowadays?

With the 7 players seemingly being told that they’d been dropped at different times throughout the afternoon, it was always going to be difficult to keep it under wraps. News of Darren Bent’s exclusion was first to break and was confirmed on Twitter by one of his friends, and the biggest story of the day – Theo Walcott’s absence from the squad – broke soon after, and I believe one national paper had even run a story about this on their website well before the official squad announcement.

By the time The FA Tweeted this message “Plenty of speculation about #EnglandSquad, but rest assured this and TheFA.com will be the first place you hear confirmation of final 23” at around 2 O’clock most of the fans already knew the major stories and could name at least 5 of the dropped players.

As I said earlier maybe the FA had underestimated the power of social media and what started out as a big win for the FA with the launch of their “Believe in England” app, turned into a bit of a shambles with the squad announcement, and as Chris Hughes said in his recent article: Did they really expect the rejected players to keep quiet in the many hours between the dreaded phone call and the FA announcement?

The Ugly.

From early on Tuesday morning the FA said that the official squad announcement would be put up on TheFA.com, which initially I thought made sense as it would be easily accessible (I thought).

However, from around lunch time if you wanted to check the FA’s official website you were going to struggle, the site was taking an age to load – I’m guessing due to the high volume of traffic seeking out the final England 23 – and eventually I just gave up with checking the site and found all the information I needed via social media. I wasn’t alone in doing this either, I noticed many other Tweets from people complaining about troubles with TheFA.com.

In the end I didn’t look at the official site to see the final squad, I already knew most of it from Tweets and speculation flying around, once the squad was confirmed (and even before) the news was up on hundreds of other sources (which all loaded).

In hindsight, maybe TheFA.com wasn’t the best place to announce the final squad?

Conclusion.

I’ve not written this article to get on the back of The FA, and I hope it doesn’t come across this way. It’s great that they are getting involved in social media and as I stated at the top of this article their new Facebook page and App is brilliant and a great way to further engage fans prior to the World Cup, I just feel that their approach to social media with regards to the squad announcement and also their website could have done with a bit more planning.

How do you feel the FA could have handled this situation better?

Everyone gets their inspiration from different places and often it comes at a time when you least expect it – if you haven’t already guessed the inspiration for this post came from my DVD shelf.

In this post I’m going to relate one of my favourite series’ of films to social media – whilst this may have started out as a bit of fun, I genuinely believe there are some things the Rocky films can teach sports teams, athletes, brands and all of us about social media.

So without further ado here’s what I feel we can learn from Rocky:

Storytelling is everything:

First and foremost we all love Rocky because it’s a great story – a story of an underdog who would become champion (I’m sure I didn’t need to remind you of that). But, would we all love the films so much if we didn’t see what went on behind the scenes? If we only saw Rocky’s interviews with the press, and not what he’s like away from boxing?

Probably not.

Storytelling is the backbone of social media, films, marketing and music (the list could go on). Check any advert – printed or on TV – and it will be telling some kind of story, music is the same, listen to your favourite song and there’s a story in there somewhere.

With the advances of social media it has never been easier for athletes or teams to tell their stories. Whether you’re a bench warming college basketball player or a superstar in the NBA there’s an opportunity and a place out there for you.

Whilst some teams and athletes will have loyal fan bases without the use of social media, it can play a huge part in bringing fans closer to their brand. Many teams and athletes will release news stories and press releases almost every day, however, it’s what goes on between those press releases that many fans care about.

Social media is about telling your story not just when something big happens, but all the time – rather than painting one big picture through the press and traditional media, social media allows clubs and athletes to create thousands of smaller pictures which makes the fans feel more involved.

Connecting with your fans and sharing your story constantly has a far greater effect than sharing it once or twice a week through traditional one way media, such as newspapers and magazines.

Patience is a virtue:

In the films Rocky wasn’t an overnight success, to become champion it took him years of hard work and hustle.

Success doesn’t come overnight online either, just because you’re a pro athlete or a well known sports team, this doesn’t give you a divine right to get a huge social media following without putting in the work (unless your name is LeBron James).

It will take time to build up your social media following, but, once you’ve built up your community and fan base you’ll reap the benefits (with the right strategies of course).

Let your true personality shine through:

Throughout the films we get to know Rocky personally, we know what he’s like away from boxing and his personality is part of the reason he’s such a popular character.

Social media gives athletes and individuals the opportunity to show their true personalities to fans. A few years ago if an athlete wanted to reach out to fans and show their personality they could do it through a television appearance, or a magazine interview. Now, it can be done at the click of a button, the opportunities to engage with fans and let them get to know the real you are endless.

Play to your strengths:

No Rocky film is ever complete without a montage, and if I’m being honest I wanted an excuse to fit one into this post, but I wanted it to be relevant – in the clip below Rocky’s trainer explains the fighter’s long list of weaknesses and then states that they will play to his strengths in the upcoming fight.

Social media is the same, when choosing a platform and medium athletes should make sure they play to their strengths and utilise what they’re best at. Some people are good at writing others may be better at video blogging, it’s all about finding the medium you’re comfortable with and making the most of your strengths.

Enjoy!

As always, let me know your thoughts. What other lessons do you think we could learn from Rocky?

Since my social media interview with Real Madrid the club have made further moves into social media, and I recently had another chance to catch up with Oscar Ugaz, Online Marketing & Digital Business Manager at Real Madrid, to chat about Google Buzz.

For those of you who may not know, Google Buzz is a social networking and messaging tool from Google, designed to integrate into the company’s web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in “conversations.” Buzz also enables users to choose to share publicly with the world or privately to a group of friends each time they post.

Real Madrid has recently started to utilise Google Buzz as a new way to stay in touch with fans, the club constantly updates Buzz with the latest club news, player interviews, press conference updates and live commentary during matches.

Like any other Google Buzz channel, any user who wants to can join Real Madrid as a follower and receive all updates sent by the club and even comment on it live.

“Real Madrid have decided to create a channel on Buzz because it seems a good tool to maintain contact with our fans in a fast and simple way that adequately complements the actions already carried out on other social networks,” explains Oscar. “We have been on Buzz for just over a week and already have over 1000 followers who post their comments during the game and leave their opinion on the content published.”

This is another great example of how Real Madrid is looking to connect with fans online, and it’s great to see a team getting involved in an emerging social platform.

What do you think of Google Buzz?

Follow Real Madrid on Buzz.

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As I said in my last article, Real Madrid is one of the most recognisable brands in sport, and no club better embodies our times, when sports, business and technology are in constant flux. This is in no small part due to their social media and mobile strategies.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Pedro Duarte, Mobile Marketing Manager at Real Madrid CF, about the clubs use of mobile technology.

Real have been working with mobile technologies for around two years and aim to implement mobile as a key tool in the clubs marketing strategy. For that purpose they have created the brand “Real Madrid Mobile” which involves all of their mobile activities.

Real’s mobile strategy can be broken down into two key aims:

1. Generating extra revenue for Real Madrid through the distribution of their mobile content portfolio and creation of new mobile services and products
2. Building a mobile community for Real Madrid fans, and the integration of mobile into the clubs communications with the fans.

 
Pedro summed up the clubs strategies well when he said, “our mobile strategy aims to utilise mobile as a way not only to extend the reach of our traditional services and products, but, also to implement mobile as a useful communication tool between Real Madrid and our fans.”

Real Madrid is one of the leaders in terms of mobile technology and sports here in Europe, explains Pedro, “one of the main things that separates us from other sports organisations in terms of mobile success is that we have a department dedicated to our mobile platforms and mobile marketing – that is the main difference between Real Madrid and many other companies, some of them have digital teams, but we specialise in mobile marketing and building a mobile community for Real Madrid.”

Building a mobile community of fans is something that Real are very keen to do, as they have found that fans are very responsive to mobile communication, “mobile generates in some cases a much better response that other forms of communication, such as email and traditional letters, “We get a great response to the content we put our via our mobile channels, for example; when we win a trophy we can send out video calls to all of our mobile subscribers and once the fans respond to the call they will see a video of one of our players saying “Madridista we have won La Liga thanks very much for your support!”

“We believe this type of communication is much more personal as well, for a Real Madrid fan if you receive a call from a star playing saying thank you for your support then this is great engagement and a great way to reach out to fans.”

In September 2009 Real launched their The MyMadrid platform – a multi platform and multi language community for fans – which has already reached an impressive 150,000 downloads. “We want MyMadrid to be the single point of contact of all of our madridistas that want to enjoy the “madridista” experience through their mobile device. So far the response we have had from the fans has been great and we are very proud of the amount of downloads which the app has had.”

MyMadrid offers fans real time news, access to the clubs official Youtube channel, minute by minute game updates, real time 3D goals from matches, access to ticketing, chat and MSN services and additional mini games services.

Real also have big plans for the future of this platform.  “We are now working on integrating merchandise sales into MyMadrid and implementing the Real Madrid membership content into the mobile platform as well as Real Madrid Mobile Television into it. We are also working on more premium services for fans.”

“One of these premium services is Follow Me, a real time service which allows fans to see what our players are doing. For example if you subscribe to Kaka’s follow me you will receive real time updates of what he is doing including images.”

“We are also developing some more interactive features and games which will allow fans within MyMadrid to interact with other fans, one example of this is a Penalty Kick game which we are developing – this allows MyMadrid users to connect with one another and play as either a keeper or striker during a penalty shoot out.  We want MyMadrid to not only be a mobile community but we also want it to create and spark interaction amongst the users and fans.”

“We also use our mobile platform to communicate exclusive special offers and ticket availability to MyMadrid users, so if for one game we have some tickets left we can let all of our mobile fans know and offer them the opportunity to buy tickets to a game.”

 “Real Madrid has also created the first Subscription Content Club Service, which allows the fans to download the latest content from the club (mobile games, photographs of the matches…) paying a weekly rate card. More than 100,000 users have subscribed to this service, showing that our supporters are keen to pay if the Club offer exclusive and premium content in real time”.

Real Madrids mobile marketing activities have also opened up new opportunities for club partners and sponsors. ”Our mobile services have built up a permission marketing database which is being used by some of the main sponsors of the Club to promote their activities. In this way, Real Madrid has created a new marketing vehicle that allows the sponsors to get in contact with their customers in a more direct way.”

“In addition to this, over these past two years the club has reached agreements with the main media partners in Spain, in which Real Madrid launches monthly  SMS contests in TV and  newspapers giving the fans the opportunity to win special and exclusive prizes. As an example, in 2009 Real Madrid launched a super contest that gave the fans the opportunity to win the official AUDI cars of the players, those that had been used by the stars of the squad. Entries were via SMS, and 180,000 madridistas participated in the campaign, which made it a huge success in Spain. This is one of the drivers Real Madrid uses to show the “madridista experience” to the fans, whilst also giving the Club the opportunity to generate a permission marketing data base.”

Outside of Spain the Real Madrid mobile platform is ran on a licensing /franchise model which sees Real control all content centrally with local based partners acquiring a license to distribute the clubs content. This business model has allowed the clubs mobile business to spread worldwide in a short space of time.

“In terms of mobile content we are now selling worldwide, we close exclusive agreements with local partners and they acquire our mobile license for their territory, this way of working is the best to achieve our goals and maintain contact with all our fans. Due to this business model we are now distributing content to the US, Japan, Middle East, Latin America, UK, Portugal, Israel we have just signed an agreement for South Africa.”

“So we are now reaching a worldwide fan base and giving them the latest Real Madrid content direct to their mobile. Our mobile platform also offers further exposure to our sponsors and partners, and has opened up new advertising and marketing opportunities for brands looking to reach Real Madrid fans.”

I’d like to thanks Pedro Duarte for this interview and for sharing some great insight into Real Madrid’s mobile marketing strategies. 

Pedro is also speaking at the following events throughout 2010:

http://www.sportisfantastic.com/page/speakers.aspx

http://www.sports-media-summit.com/en/speaker/

http://www.mem-2010.com/conference/speakers2

David Haye has the world at his feet. For those of you who may not know Haye is the WBA Heavyweight Champion of the World, and last month he made his first defence of his title, beating John Ruiz in style with a 9^th round stoppage.

David Haye doesn’t struggle to get coverage and let’s be honest, he’s doing just fine without social media, but, I feel if Haye was to utilise the tools at his disposal he could become one of the world’s biggest sports stars.

Online presence.

If you take a look at Haye’s official website you’ll notice that under the Hayemaker videos section only one of the six videos shows highlights of Haye’s boxing, the others are interviews on chat shows and TV appearances – to me this highlights that Haye and his team want to show his personality to the fans.

Another thing you’ll notice on the site is social media links to Haye’s Twitter, Facebook and MySpace pages, this shows he’s interested and keen to utilise social media. I follow Haye on both Twitter and Facebook, and his updates tend to come mainly when he has an upcoming fight and for me aren’t frequent enough.

Haye has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter and around 72,000 fans on Facebook – a combined reach of nearly 100,000, without posting much content and little interaction.

How can Haye better utilise social media?

Here are my suggestions for Haye on how to utilise social media to grow his fan base and the Hayemaker brand.

Blog: Include a blog section on hayemaker.com, this would allow Haye to keep fans up to date with what he’s doing and what’s going on behind the scenes. A blog doesn’t have to be written either; Haye is comfortable and confident in front of a camera so my suggestion would be to video blog for fans once or twice a week

The video blog would provide great content and give fans a reason to visit Hayemaker.com, it would also increase website traffic and fan engagement, which in return could increase merchandise sales, ticket sales and pay per view subscriptions in future fights. He could even open up an “Ask the Hayemaker” section where fans could use email, Twitter and Facebook to send questions to Haye and he will answer selected ones in his blog.

Live streaming: When training for his next fight I’d like to see Haye utilise live streaming to give fans a piece of the action during training, live streaming nowadays couldn’t be easier with tools like Ustream and Livestream.

Obviously there will be sections of training that Haye won’t want to broadcast to the world, but showing fans a bit of pad work would be provide them with an awesome insight.

Twitter: Haye mainly uses Twitter in the build up to his fights, I’d like to see him update on a more regular basis, and posting updates a few times a day to keep fans engaged even when he doesn’t have a fight coming up. It would also be great to see Haye posting behind the scenes images and video to Twitter, fans love multimedia content and this type of content usually sparks the most conversation.

Facebook: Again I’d like to see Haye posting updates more regularly on Facebook. The official David Haye Facebook page is an extension of his brand and a great opportunity to build up a vibrant community. However, to build up a real community he needs post relevant and compelling content on a more regular basis.

I’d also add a custom lading tab to his Facebook page, something to really make it clear that this is his official page – something the New York Jets and New Jersey Nets do well. A custom landing tab would provide Haye with a great opportunity to present visitors with engaging content and grab their attention as soon as they arrive on his page.

Conclusion.

The heavyweight boxing world has been crying out for an exciting, charismatic fighter for years and Haye is just that, he has a massive opportunity to become one of the world’s most well known fighters, and social media can help him along the way.

The tools and ideas mentioned above are just scraping the surface of what can be done with social media and I truly feel that with the right strategies and content Haye could become one of the world’s most popular sporting figures.

Utilising social media won’t only help Haye to grow his personal brand, it would also help to grow the Hayemaker Boxing/Hayemaker Promotions brands too, and give him the platform to promote any up and coming Hayemaker fighters, such as George Groves.

What do you think about David Haye? Would you like to see him utilizing social media? And how do you think other boxers could utilise social media?

Real Madrid is one of the most recognisable brands in sport, and no club better embodies our times, when sports, business and technology are in constant flux. With some of the worlds great players on the field Real need to make shrewd businesses moves off it and are very keen to embrace new technologies and communication to increase their profitability.

To find out more about how the Spanish Club is approaching social media I recently spoke with Oscar Ugaz, Real Madrid Online Marketing & Digital Business Manager about social media and Real´s digital strategies.

While many UK clubs are just starting to ride the social media wave Real Madrid have been utilising it for a while now explained Oscar, “two years ago we changed all of our digital strategies, starting by re-designing RealMadrid.com with the aims of providing fans with more features and services. When discussing the new website one thing that that arose was the importance of interactions and the importance to have the capacity to interact with our fans online.”

“At first we talked about RealMadrid.com offering comments on articles but we we’re a little worried as we didn’t know how people would react with these comments inside our official website – so we thought about how we could test this and as a result we started our Facebook page in which we could find out how our fans behaved, if they were confrontational towards the Real Madrid brand and also how they like to express themselves.”

Since its launch the clubs Facebook page has been a massive success and built up a huge following with over 1.2 million fans and an average of around 3000 new fans joining every day. The page may have been started as a way for Real to test fan interaction, but, it has also developed into a powerful tool to direct traffic to RealMadrid.com.

“The important thing about the traffic from Facebook is that it is traffic that we can control, we decide where we want our users to be and where they go on RealMadrid.com. If we have news that we want people to see that maybe isn’t on the homepage of our website we use Facebook to drive traffic to those specific pages, and, we want to be very honest, in these sections we drive traffic to there may be advertising or other services that we can sell. We use Facebook as a way to drive people to news and pages on the website that they may otherwise not see.”

Madrid’s strategy focuses on more than just Facebook. “The strategy of the club is to go where the traffic is; we know not all the fans come directly to RealMadrid.com and although we get a huge amount of traffic we know there is a lot more out there. We distribute Real Madrid content and build the Real Madrid brand through the media that the people are using.”

“We want to be where the traffic is and in that sense we follow the trends – if people are using Facebook, we use Facebook, the people start using twitter, and we create a twitter page. We are always looking for the next trends, whilst at the moment Twitter and Facebook are at the top when they start losing traffic we want to be riding the next wave and making the most of new opportunities – for example what Google is doing with Buzz. However, we don’t just jump in, before we start doing anything we make an analysis and see how each platform can help us.”

Social media has also opened up many new opportunities for Madrid to test content, gain feedback and also understand things from their fans perspective. “When we post content or news articles people immediately comment saying this is cool or this is not cool, we like this video or this video is boring. This feedback is very interesting because we can relay it back to our communications department and show them what the people like, what they don’t like and also what content our fans are most pro-active to.”

A great example of how this feedback can benefit the club is when Madrid started to include links to the club’s online shop on their Facebook page, “it took fans a while to realise that this was our official online store. This made us think maybe the things which we think are obvious are maybe not so obvious to all the fans – maybe we need to include on posts that this is the official Real Madrid online store. We can also relay this information back to the people in other departments and say maybe we are missing are sales in other places because the fans are misunderstanding our messages.”

From speaking to Oscar one thing that really stood out to me was that Real clearly understand the importance of engagement and providing fans with great content, they also understand how this can be turned into revenue for the club. For one of the player´s birthdays the club produced special video content dedicated to the player itself and alongside this they ran a 24 hour jersey sale.

“We know you can’t make a direct sale on Facebook, you have to engage the fans in conversation and once you have the people interested you can then direct them onto a product or service. The key to the success of this promotion was great content which created conversation amongst our fans, we didn’t just say here is the players shirt you can buy it here – we created engagement and interest, via the content, which then sent traffic back to the online store and created conversions and shirt sales.”

They also use social media to encourage fans to join club membership programmes, by putting out content via social media they can encourage fans to join their eMadristas membership to access even more great content. “What we are doing is pushing people from Facebook to this membership, we are saying – you are a Facebook fan and that’s great you can get good content here, but you can do more with our eMadristas membership. So, we are moving people from Facebook to club affiliated membership programmes which in turn generates revenue via permission marketing and we also offer paid membership programmes so we are able to build a large database of fans affiliated to the club.”

Social media also opens up additional ways for sponsors and club partners to activate their partnerships with Real Madrid because now they have the opportunity not only to be in the stadium, on the shirts and on RealMadrid.com they can also get their message across via social media and provide engaging content for the fans – for example every week Bwin hosts an interview with the team talking about the next game.

Some partners even value mentions and space on the clubs Facebook and Twitter pages above advertising and banners on RealMadrid.com. “A lot of people are coming to us and making products with us who are saying no more that they want the coverage on Realmadrid.com they want to be on our Facebook and Twitter pages because they understand the reach of these platformss. An example of this is a company who came to us and wanted to make a toolbar for Real Madrid and another company who made a digital calendar. We were expecting for them to want a banner on RealMadrid.com but this is changing and they now ask us to send out a message to all of our fans on Facebook so we have created a whole new media not just for Real Madrid but for our club partners too.”

Real’s views on players utilising social media are very relaxed, and a sharp contrast to some Premier League clubs. “We don´t have a specific policy regarding players using social media to communicate with fans,” said Oscar, the players are free to use social media however they want. It comes down to common sense – obviously we don’t want players to be discussing business such as transfers and contracts as this not good for the club, but, it’s also no good for the players.”

“We understand that some clubs may have a stricter policy of saying that players can’t get involved with social media and that is a respectful decision. But there are a lot of opportunities in social media not only for clubs, but for players too. Instead of blocking social media which is an easy thing to do, maybe it’s better to use common sense and tell players not to say online what they won’t say in public.”

Social media plays a very important part in keeping Real’s global fanbase up to date with the club and allows them to make fans feel more connected. “We post in English and Spanish – but we are still missing a lot of people, whilst English and Spanish are very universal languages we have many fans who speak Arabic or Turkish for example, and we are working on sharing content in more languages – these fans may understand English but they will be more comfortable and feel closer to the club if we communicate to them in their language.”

“In terms of growing their fanbase through social media there are two markets which Real hope to focus on over the coming months. “The Arab and Asian markets are two growing markets that are very important to us as we have a lot of fans there and we want to become more approachable to these fans. Social media may give us ways to enter these markets and whilst Facebook is very popular in the US and Europe maybe in Asia it’s not as strong and doesn’t have as much reach, therefore we are looking into more local social networks that will have very good penetration in these markets.”

In conclusion Oscar says, “if you compare social media with our traditional business of television rights, sponsorship etc. social media still generates a very small part of the clubs turnover but it is also a good amount of money. The other revenues are tried and tested ways but we in the new media department we are always exploring what will be the future.”

I’d like to thank Oscar Ugaz and Real Madrid for this interview and for sharing some great information. Be sure to look out for my next article in which I will be speaking to Pedro Duarte, Real Madrid’s Mobile Marketing Manager.

I recently put out a question on Twitter, blogs and fansites: Sports fans, where do you go for information about your favourite teams/athletes, official sites or other sources?

The resounding answers were that sports fans get information from other sources, such as, fansites, local media and RSS feeds. I’m the same, as an Ipswich Town fan if I want to know something about the club about 99 times out of 100 I don’t go to the official website.

Is this a problem?

In some ways, no, many brands would do anything for the coverage that sports clubs receive. Sports clubs and brands have some of the most dedicated and loyal fans in the world, the fact that they blog about and discuss the club across the internet and various social media platforms is a huge bonus.

However, as a sports club you want YOUR fans on YOUR site, that’s where you sell your tickets, merchandise and where your sponsors get exposure. Just posting news stories on your site isn’t enough now, the fans can get these stories from other sources. In order to keep fans coming back you need to have engaging content and give them something different, something they can’t get anywhere else, and I think social media can play a huge part in bringing fans back to the clubs official site.

Clubs should take advantage of what they have at their disposal, whilst they have to report with a favourable spin and can’t report from different angles like the press they have a huge advantage with behind the scenes access to the team and the club. Fans want to feel close to the club and the players, via utilising social media and using what they have at their disposal clubs can easily offer some great content that will bring fans to their sites.

So, how can social media help?

Official club Twitter and Facebook pages make sharing club news much easier and would send larger amounts of people to official sites. If news about Ipswich Town FC comes up in my Twitter and Facebook feeds I’ll view it, whether it’s from the official club site or not, by not having a presence on these sites many clubs are missing out.

One thing that clubs need to remember is: The most important aspect of social media is interaction. Tools such as Facebook and Twitter should be used as a way to communicate with fans, let the fans know what’s going on, and also listen to what they have to say. This is one thing many clubs forget!

A club blog, similar to the Washington Wizards Blog is a great way to engage fans and bring them back to the official site. A blog is essentially a communication tool between your club and the outside world. Blogs are a place to share thoughts and also share what’s going on at the club. Traditionally readers are free to comment on blog posts, making a blog a two way conversation between the club and the readers. This helps build relationships with fans and will also give fans some great insights into the goings on behind the scenes.

It would be great to see more clubs, especially UK clubs, utilising social media and of course posting interesting and engaging content. Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear your thoughts and carry on the conversation.

Do you think it matters to clubs if fans aren’t visiting their official site? What would you like to see clubs doing to attract fans back to their sites? What clubs have to best sites for fan engagement and interaction?

Ash Read recently had the chance to speak about social media with Chris Nield, Social Media Executive at Manchester City Football Club….

In my Facebook and Twitter Premier League blog post I stated that in my opinion Manchester City have really set the bar for the other Premier League clubs in terms of social media and online presence, so it was great to get the opportunity to speak to Chris about the clubs use of social media.

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