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Don’t Stop While the World’s Still Turning
Fan Engagement hasn’t stopped during corona virus pandemic, it’s just changing
As many in the world of sport, events and music, contemplate the challenges that arrived almost overnight with such harsh immediacy, that each and every one of us was forced to examine our very way of life, our way of working and ultimately how to navigate a path through the next weeks and months ahead.

In our world of fan engagement and the creation of fan experiences, we have two distinct choices: Watching the news checking developments as they happen,  pondering when things might change and adjusting our business objectives- A pragmatic ‘cloth-cutting’ approach may ensure that your organisation will be ready when the world creakingly get back to its feet.

Already we have seen brands begin to cleverly adapt to this situation. For example, look at how social media can quickly be embraced by publishers and brands to communicate fun, engaging content with fans.

Community outreach

Even with the English Premiership season coming to an abrupt halt, it has been refreshing to see how some clubs have reached out to their local communities to become more then just the local football team by supporting the most vulnerable people within their communities.

Everton’s manager, Carlo Ancelotti, really took fan engagement to another level by personally calling a fan with Motor Neuron Disease, who is in isolation. This heart-warming call meant so much to the fan and showed that Fan Engagement is crucial to Everton Football Club.

They have also launched a new ‘Blue Family Campaign’ managed through it’s Everton in the Community charity and will provide local people with food parcels, gas and electricity vouchers and mental health advice, among other services and support.

Flying the Flag for Age UK and the NHS

Snack Media Invited the world of sport to take part in their ‘Fly the Flag’ campaign in a bid to raise money for charity and bring together communities that are suffering due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The campaign used football’s traditional 3pm kick-off time (and beyond) on Saturday 28th March as a moment in which everyone who loves sport could reconnect with their local community and show support for key workers who are in the front line during this crisis.

Social engagement

Sticking with Everton, who are smartly using Twitter to engage with fans, Danny Donochie, the Director of Medical Services of the club is presenting a Yoga class on the Club’s social media channel and have created a #bluefamily hashtag for fans to send in clips of their yoga practice. This is a brilliant solution that hits all the touchpoints of staying safe in crisis, reaching people in their homes and encouraging them to be fit and healthy.
Clubs own social media teams have been working together and have created lots of innovate ways to remain competitive, but in a totally playful way, through quizzes and simple online games, showing solidarity between sporting franchises that are normally very singular in their interactions with rival clubs.

The Show Must Go on

The entire NBA season has been suspended, but that hasn’t stopped the Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks playing out their scheduled match via an e-sports stream on Twitch. The Mavs emerged victorious with scoring a whopping 150 points versus the Suns still healthy 136pts.

We expect to see more of these types of esports match ups in the coming weeks and months allowing fans to assemble into digital tribes and watch from the comfort of their own home. It’s very refreshing to see just how quickly clubs and organisations have mobilized to give their fans something to cheer about.

Manchester City and Real Madrid stars played a mini esports FIFA tournament

Manchester City and Real Madrid went head to head in a special FIFA 20 challenge game to help raise vital funds to aid the worldwide effort to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.  The initiative was led by City central defender Aymeric Laporte in tandem with former Etihad Stadium team-mate Brahim Diaz, who is now part of the Real Madrid’s first-team squad.

Aymeric linked up with defensive team-mate Oleksandr Zinchenko to represent City while Brahim lined up in opposition alongside Real goalkeeping colleague Thibaut Courtois.

Sports Starts with Big Hearts

You don’t have need to have the weight of a big franchise to get creative as Racing Driver Pippa Man has demonstrated. Pippa offered fans an online autograph via her twitter page. Fans were asked to simply tweet her, and she replied with a signed photo!

Working on a new idea or would like to use technology to engage your fans better?

We want to hear about your challenges and ideas, our creative team is hungrier than ever, help keep them sane in their pajamas, the bigger the challenge the better!

Get in Touch!