Ever fancied being a commentator for an England football game?  Do you have the wit, voice and knowledge to be a Martin Tyler or John Motson….or are you more of a David Pleat or Trevor Francis? I hope for your sake its the former!

Well last night The Football Association launched their latest Facebook competition app called “Be The Commentator“!

This is the latest in the recent range of competitions that has included ‘Facebook Row’ as the FA push more and more into the digital space.  The winner of the competition wins 5 tickets to the England v Sweden match on Tuesday 15th November at Wembley plus a signed England shirt.

The competition is an interesting take on generating User Generated Content (UGC) using social media.  This time it is not pictures and video but audio content.  The idea is to place yourself in the commentators seat and give it your best go at providing the voice for a nation to a 30 second clip of England v Portugal which finishes with Alan Shearer smashing one in.

When on the tab you can listen to the original commentary and it is even kind enough to flag up who is on the ball when they receive it.  The list includes Adams, Batty, Scholes and Shearer (it is quite an old clip!).

Are you going to put your vocal skills to the test?  It’s another interesting competition from the digital guys at The FA.  Be interesting to see how many people enter over the next couple of weeks.

Last night saw my friend and fellow social media advocate Daan and myself invited to Wembley to watch the England v Wales Euro Championship qualifier.  What was the social media twist you may ask….

A few weeks ago I wrote about The FA’s Facebook Row competition which originally was run around the England v Holland friendly game.  Unfortunately due to the London Riots the game was called off and the prize winners then invited back to the next game at Wembley Stadium.

There were some great elements from the night which I am sure all in the stadium and also those of you who watched on TV caught a glimpse of.  Firstly we were all given oversized Facebook hands to wave around before and during the game (I kept mine and grabbed another so have two – one for home and one for work!).

Secondly, and the more unique twist, was the use of the digital advertising boards.  You can see from the pics that the Facebook Row was heavily shown and included the profile pics of the winners.  How cool was it for them to see their face on the boards behind both goals all night! 

All the fans there were really passionate and created a great atmosphere.  They loved being shown on the big screen prior to the game and had a great night. 

Overall it was a great use of online which rewarded fans in the real world.  This online/offline activity is becoming more prevalent in campaigns but still doesn’t happen very often in sport.  Great work by The FA and the social team lead by Andy Smith.

Were you there?  What did you think of it?

This week I had the pleasure of having drinks in London with some of the leading figures we have in social media covering sport and television.  One of those was Andy Smith who heads up the social media efforts at The FA.

One of the recent campaigns he has been integral to has been the Facebook competition you can currently see on the England Football Team page.  One thing I have been pleased to see with the page is that they avoided the common mistake made by NGB’s when it comes to social media.

Many times you will see an NGB (National Governing Body) create a page in their own name.  To me this brings with it the thought…why would I follow a governing body?!  To be honest if I wasn’t a hardcore fan or player of the sport then I wouldn’t.   The FA have the right approach in pushing the England Team, their most valuable and marketable asset and one that the everyday fan is going to have an allegiance with, as their following is so much bigger than the governing body would ever have.

If other bodies took this approach they would see a much bigger audience being opened up to them, more engagement and greater numbers joining.  When you search for a sport would you type in the name of the national team or the NGB?  My point proved I think.

Back to The FA….. the most recent campaign Andy has been part of is the ‘Win A Seat in Facebook Row’.  This in itself sounds exciting (and yes I have already entered the competition) so what does it entail?

For the upcoming England v Holland match they are offering 50 pairs of tickets to be won “to help our Facebook fans get closer to the action, winners will have their photos uploaded to the advertising boards at the match and will receive two tickets to ‘Facebook row’, pitchside at Wembley”.

It will be interesting to see how many entries the competition gets and how this affects the number of fans that ‘like’ the page.  One can assume the key metric on this is data collection with the next being growth of the page.  I’ll try to get an insight into this is the coming weeks.

Well done to the Fa and to Andy…keep up the good work and hopefully see you at Wembley!