A great article by Observer football writer Paul Wilson on why British football clubs, managers and players are rightly wary of social media. Wilson talks about how Houston Dynamo of the MLS have created the first official fan social network site, hosting fan forums, player blogs, videos etc. Unfortunately, he is correct in arguing that the highly tribal and antagonistic culture of football would undermine any attempt to create something similar in this country. A few minutes listening to the radio phone-ins should be enough to convince anyone that football doesn’t lend itself to reasonable, civilised debate … what the bloggers at McDonald’s describe as ‘civil dialogue.’
Social media, to be effective, needs ground rules. Companies or institutions hosting social media sites should welcome vigorous debate and be prepared to deal with criticism, but this doesn’t mean that they have to accept the type of abuse and invective that has made going to a football match such an unpleasant experience.
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Interesting comment about the lack of social media networking sites within football.
This isn’t strictly true of course – using my own club Wealdstone FC in the Ryman Premier League as an example we are pretty well served by a range of social media tools including a healthy fans forum (http://www.wealdstonefc.co.uk/forum/) and various flickr pages.
In addition many supporters contribute to a pan Ryman League fans forum (http://forums.footballwebpages.co.uk/forum.jsp?id=18) which is in the main well respected by supporters of over 60 clubs no less partisan and passionate than supporters of any Premier League club.
Some clubs in the Ryman League enjoy regular podcasts or video sharing sites and supporters blogs are, not surprisingly increasing in number all the time.
As a professional communicator myself, I was keen to introduce some of the tools of my trade into my new role as Chairman of Wealdstone, and so at the start of season 2007/08, not long after becoming chairman, I introduced a ‘chairman’s’ blog (http://howiejk.wordpress.com/).
It is likely this was the first of its kind in so far as a chairman of a senior football club trying to share what is happening on and off the field from what is essentially a CEO perspective.
The blog stats, such as they are, show that readership has remained relatively constant with occasional spikes – and well over 50,000 hits in the 18 months or so the blog has been live.
One of the most interesting bits of feedback however, is the number of people you wouldn’t expect to necessarily read blogs, such as some of our elder supporters, who come and say how much they enjoy following what is happening through the blog. In many respects this is the best feedback of all.
So even if we don’t have a social networking site of our own at Wealdstone (though there are a series of facebook groups) we do seem well catered for by social media. As a communicator I can say that in this case football is simply replicating – and maybe even showing the way for how social media can start and keep conversations running effectively – and as chairman of a senior non league club social media affords me a variety of communication tools, both in terms of sharing information and listening to what is being said.
Thanks for the update Howard … maybe this simply proves the point that non league football is more civilised than the Premier League. I also think you should be congratulated for having the balls to produce a chairman’s blog. When I suggested something similar to the League Manager’s Association, they described it as a complete non starter … clearly your skin is thicker than that of Ferguson, Benitez et al
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