Social Media: The Premiership clubs

Social media is certainly an ever present in sport in the 21st century. The likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have continued to grow and now play a major part for sports teams of  all levels.

In terms of Rugby, all 12 Premiership sides are on social media and use it to promote their clubs in different ways. Talking Rugby Union looks at  the facts, figures and techniques of how the top teams in England use social media.

Current Premiership Table – Twitter Followers, Facebook Page Likes, Instagram Followers

Figures as of 20^th January 2015:

	Twitter	Facebook	Instagram	Attendance
Northampton	42,600	69.015	2,628	80,287
Bath	48,800	65,536	3,800	91,791
Saracens	45,100	70,802	6,618	109,356
Wasps	42,800	60,335	8,925	68,778
Exeter	32,100	45,764	2,400	59,069
Leicester	71,200	146,086	16,600	133,418
Harlequins	51,000	73,333	11,100	163,253
Sale	25,800	29,275	2,856	44,948
Gloucester	41,800	59.280	4,120	100,140
Newcastle	20,000	31,841	669	41,485
London Irish	26,200	65,217	2,771	106,596
London Welsh	14,000	1,492	543	19,101

How the teams use Social Media

For all the Premiership sides the most used social media site is Twitter.  It is arguably the most effective as you can easily update information quickly which will immediately appear on the timelines of the people that follow the account. Also it is now one the quickest ways for fans to get the latest news about their clubs.

The Premiership teams all use Twitter in a similar way. They publish news articles on their website which they tweet throughout the week which include player interviews (whether that be written or video format), transfer news, ticket news as well as local community work the clubs are involved in. In addition to this they use twitter to publish images pre and post a match to allow the fans to get an inside scoop on what their team goes through on a match day.

The fans do have a major part to play on Twitter. All the Premiership clubs interact with the fans on twitter by retweeting them or marking their tweet as a favorite. Some clubs also have a weekly Q and A on Twitter where they ask the fans to send their questions into a player and they will reply on Twitter to them. For example, Northampton had Phil Dowson replying to questions from the fans last week.

Premiership teams mainly use Twitter on a match day. Usually  they will tweet a picture of the ground, tweet a link to the team news or tweet the team news and then update their Twitter feed throughout the game with the latest score updates and significant events which take place. If the game is not televised and fans aren’t at watching in the stadium, this is a superb way of following the action.

In terms of Facebook, other than Newcastle and London Welsh (who don’t have an official Facebook page) , most of the Premiership sides use this social media site in the same way as Twitter but it is not as frequent.

They will post the latest news articles, ticket news, team news and score lines from their matches including images and vines. The majority of the posts do contain links back to their club website, but fans once again can interact on Facebook by ‘Liking’ posts and posting their comments on various posts on the page.

It can be argued that Instagram is the ‘new kid on the block’ in terms of social media. Twitter and Facebook seem to have been around forever, but Instagram is starting to become more and more popular. A number of professional rugby players are using Instagram as well as their clubs, who use it for its main purpose which is to post pictures. Mainly, they are of the team on a game day or being involved in community projects but it is also used to post pictures of team news and ticket news posters for the fans to see. Instagram posts can also be linked to Twitter and Facebook pages which some of the clubs do use effectively. 

So that’s how the top 12 clubs in this county use social media. You can also follow and like Talking Rugby Union on Twitter: @TalkRugbyUnion, Facebook: Talking Rugby Union and on Instagram: @talkingrugbyunion.