20 Premier League social video drills every sports club should practice to boost fan engagement
For the first edition of Putting a Price on Social Video we analysed 1,000 top performing videos across all 20 clubs that competed in the 2015/16 Premier League season. The result was over 60 pages of analysis, trends, results, recommendations and lessons for all football clubs. Read on for a Burst Insights exclusive rundown of Premier League level tips in creating fan engagement through social video content.
Add tricks to your flicks: Arsenal showed off an easy way to execute engaging skill videos, which is a content format that consistently performs well. Spice up your player signing video footage with some fancy footwork or trick shot challenges.
Mark Your Calendar: Aston Villa delivered some unique interview content that gave their international fan base something to cheer and share on special dates throughout the calendar year, including the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Filming On Tour: Bournemouth showed other newly promoted clubs the excitement and value of having their content team on hand to capture the unforgettable away trips and unexpected results on the road.
Make Some Magic: Chelsea (via adidas) were the only club to post ‘magic videos’ last season starring players. When well choreographed and delivered with a simple execution, magic videos reveal themselves to be a fun and highly shareable content approach for winning set piece campaigns.
Shoot Sporting Challenges: Supporters love seeing players taking on other sports. Palace fans were treated to a #NFLKeepyUp training ground video that generated high engagement across multiple social video platforms they posted the video on.
Community Content Makes A Difference: While not every club has the resources to be as well connected to its community as “The People’s Club”, Everton consistently shows how to capture and share the goodwill football can generate between the players, club staff, disadvantaged fans and their families.
Champion League Coverage: The 2015/16 champions showed other clubs how to have a social video party. The total Twitter viewing time for Leicester’s top performing title celebration footage was 33 minutes and 55 seconds across 14 videos, all providing a different story thread for fans and neutrals alike to savour.
Show Your Digital Subscribers Who’s Boss: Liverpool have a proud history of iconic managers. Jürgen Klopp made the most appearances of any boss last season. The club expertly fed fan appetite for Klopp content by running a ‘get closer to Klopp’ campaign to drive LFCTV subscriptions.
History Making Highlights: #onthisday footage featured extensively in City’s top performing video lineup, providing timely engagement boosts as fans relive glory moments from recent seasons. Creating content calendars of historical club events is an effective video tactic all clubs should adopt.
Share Victory Signs: United fans revelled in their latest trophy win, with six FA Cup related videos landing top engagement honours. One of their winning tactics included posting real-time short graphics to Twitter straight after their semi-final and final wins, enabling fans to share news with more social value.
Recording A Fresh Start: Newcastle demonstrated how to turn the feel good factor of a new manager into a social media engagement boost. The signing (and re-signing) of Rafa Benitez reflected increased social video activity across its accounts. A sign of commitment on the pitch was repaid by fans online.
Find The Right Way To Thank The Fans: Despite the agony of relegation, Norwich showed how to strike the right tone through their end of season ‘thank you’ video for their fans. Choosing not to hide their disappointment, it instead revealed the clubs determination to win back promotion at the first attempt.
Be Ready To React: Saints fans worshiped the clubs’ real-time reaction GIFs last season. Source material included club assets as well as pop culture clips. This enabled Southampton to drive engagement around goals, results, club records, a return to Europe and winning some rival banter with Portsmouth.
Montages Are Memorable: The focal point of Stoke City’s social video attack was their well crafted player highlight reels. The themes of these peak performing videos included player of the season nominees; goals of the year candidates; and a testimonial tribute to a local player and retiring club legend.
Share Special Fan Footage: Sunderland’s content team ensured the ecstasy of escaping the drop was caught on multiple cameras at the end of key games, creating different perspectives of the same moments to share with jubilant fans.
Share Success Symbols: Swansea’s Welsh fans showed their fondness for playing at the home of English football. Among their 10 most popular ‘on this day’ videos, four featured memorable trips to Wembley, for their playoff win in 2011 and League Cup success in 2013.
Add Some App Experimentation: Tottenham tried out a few unusual video tricks that paid off. These included a looping Boomerang (Instagram app) video of a sunny training session; a Snapchat face morphing filter of Alli and Dier chanting #COYS and a foosball animation created by a digital artist and Spurs fan.
Interview Opportunities: A high percentage of Watford’s most popular videos were interviews. A clever tactic was short subscription TV programme teasers that confirmed the full list of interviewees in the post copy text. Squad commentary also added a new dynamic to their end of season awards.
Content That Shows You Care: WBA provided some of the season’s most touching video moments. Three festive fan and charity themed videos topped their video charts, along with a special tribute to the courage and tenacity of the Hillsborough families and JFT96 campaigners.
Perfect Your Training Ground Routines: The Hammers showed the benefits of keeping a camera rolling to capture the unexpected behind the scenes bits of brilliance. Having an always-on content team helped them rank first across the league for high performing training ground content.
We hope you enjoyed this open social video training session. The Burst Insights team will be back in pre-season soon, creating the 2016/17 edition of our Putting a Price on Social Video report guide. To pre-order your copy head to http://bit.ly/preorderpap1617.
