With the recent takeover of the club by businessman Tony Fernandes and his immediate impact on the club (new signings in the pipeline, reduction in ticket prices).  My thoughts turned to what may change within the club from a digital point of view as well.

One of the most exciting aspects is the possibilities for the club in opening up more to the fans, listening to them and bringing them closer to the club.  Many fans felt alienated when the previous owners (Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone) tried to make it into a London ‘boutique’ club. Upping costs of tickets and pandering to the prawn sandwich brigade.

This move has already started.  Tony Fernandes is a huge advocate of using social media to aid transparency in his companies (great interview we did with him last year).  This is something he has done with Air Asia and continued with great success with the Lotus F1 team.

Within the first couple of days after taking over the club he had talked his partner, Amit Bhatia, into getting onto Twitter.  The two of them have been asking questions to the fans and listening to their responses.  These have then been taken on as part of a review of everything the club does…. and resulted in the ticket prices being reduced and season ticket refunds (a great early win for the new owners).

The club already has a social media presence with two main accounts, @QPRplayer and @OfficialQPR.  On top of these main club accounts the PR guys are very active with Ian Taylor, Matthew Webb and Adam Hulme being kept very busy with the transfer window coming to a close.

You get the feeling that there is a new atmosphere at the club and this comes across strongly through their tweets.  A new air of optimism is certainly about at Loftus Road.

It’s interesting to see that the club and Lotus F1 have started to talk about how they can work together in the coming weeks and months.  Having spoken to and had the pleasure of hearing him present, Tom Webb at Lotus F1 will be a great resource for them.

One of the first things I am sure that will be planned will be a new website.  The current site is the standard Football League Interactive offering which is well past its sell by date.  Compare that to the Team Lotus site and you can see what will be in store for it in the longer term.  When it comes to technical expertise then QPR have a great resource going forward.

What will the future hold?

It’s interesting that they are listening to the fans first before going gung-ho into new ventures.  Over time I’m sure we’ll see a greater offering via Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as well as a new website.  We may see more interaction with the players and more of them on social media too (the Lotus F1 drivers are very active).

Could they up the game in the Premier League and what do you think they could do to connect even more with their fans?