Why Your Club Should Not Ignore Social Media

“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it!” – Eric Qualman.

Social media is taking over how we communicate, scrap that, Social media has already taken over how we communicate, consume information and indeed our lives.

When news breaks, it breaks first on Social media then on main stream media, watching your regular 9’O clock news has now become a recap of your day’s social media time line. When we want to find out about something, anything, our first stop is social media. We simply can not ignore the power of this juggernaut, in life and in our sport.

We all want to see Rugby turn professional in this country, a big part of this involves getting money into the sport. The shortest route to getting this moneys is through sponsorship and what is referred to as in the simplest terms ‘butts on seats’ during matches.

These two are as inseparable as the Kangethe twins, you get one, you have the other. There is one very cost effective yet powerful way to do this, Social media. If harnessed properly, there are no limits to what we can achieve through social media. As with anything else that needs to work in Kenya Rugby, we need to start at club level.

You already have a ready audience, according to a Repucom survey carried out sometime in 2015, over 60% of rugby fans are aged 30 years and below. These are the biggest consumers of data on the internet.

The latest data from the Communications Authority indicates that the country has 26.6 Million (More than half the population) active internet subscribers, 99% access the internet through mobile phones. Of the approximately 4 Million Kenyans that access social media daily, 80% access Facebook, 7 % Twitter with the rest scattered across platforms. We all see where we should concentrate our efforts.

A spot check across rugby clubs, shows that we have already taken the first step. Most, if not all have at the very least a Facebook page or group, with a handful also owning Twitter, Instagram handles and a website. This is a great start, at this point we are ahead of most rugby playing nations. So what next?

The second, is how we then utilize these platforms, an area we could all improve in. Apart from maybe Impala, Mwamba, Quins, the Egerton Wasps and of late Nondies from the top of my mind who are putting their platforms to good use, the rest could do with a step up.

The beauty with Social media, is that you largely control your narrative, you have a huge say towards what people say about you. You have a ready platform to engage your fans at anytime, anywhere. We have never had so much freedom and control at the same time, ever before!

It is not only a platform to share club/team news, but also a very powerful tool to engage your already existing and potential fans. For example if today you mention Bayern Munich or Borussia Dortmund to any soccer fan on Twitter, apart from their prowess on the pitch, they’ll most probably also mention their witty Twitter personalities.

The content you put up, how frequently you do this, how engaging this content is will be what will set you apart from the rest. I’d start with the obvious, making information about the club readily available, these will be your team news i.e team sheets, injury updates, pre, post and during game updates etc.

Make life easy for anyone who is looking for information about your club, from this point you have a base to work off. Banter, fan engagement, player profiles/challenges, the possibilities are endless.

We could all claim that we have a young vibrant following on one of the slides to a potential sponsor, these days all they do is head on to your social media page, and what will they find?

So this is a challenge to all of us, a month or so to the start of the season (depending on who you ask), let us prepare to fully harness the power of social media and the role it can play in turning our sport pro!

KWISHA…Nimeruka Nje!!!

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Poghie

A rugby fan having fun!

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