Guest Post:  Tom Hines is Digital Media Editor for the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and occasional contributor to UK Sports Network.

With the odd exception, less is more when it comes to social media initiatives. The simpler you can make them the more likely people are to engage, it’s why I’ve never been a fan of Facebook apps – permissions tend to get in the way of engagement.

This premise throws up a tricky little challenge though. How do you make an easy, casual engagement into something meaningful for your brand? Enter Liverpool FC’s new Tumblr image blog as a shining example.

The club has a huge archive of images dating back decades, useful for a brand whose history forms a big part of its identity. They are posting one or two of these images each day with a couple of paragraphs explaining the picture, and the result ticks a load of boxes for the social media marketeer.

• It is bang on brand, reinforcing the history of success at the club
• It educates fans around past icons and stories, giving them a deeper engagement with the club
• The content is great and utterly shareable. My experience on the RFU’s social channels has shown that images are consistently the most viral type of content
• Because its dealing in archive footage fan engagement is not so dependent on the vagaries of team performance
• It’s very Pinable
• Thanks to a link to the clubs online print store the content can be immediately and directly monetised.

All-in-all, not a bad return for posting a few pictures on Tumblr!

http://theredsgallery.tumblr.com