Guest Post:  Tom Kelk is a tech/sport blogger and Account Exec at global social media agency We Are Social.  You can find him on Twitter (@TomKelk), LinkedIn and his blog.

Eye of the Fan is a neat campaign run by Turkish Airlines to attempt to promote the basketball Euroleague through social media. Whilst basketball doesn’t have the biggest UK following, it is massively popular in mainland Europe and therefore, Eye of the Fan has received the required interest to return for a second stint.

Simply put, Eye of the Fan is a series of cameras attached to a ‘fan’ who has been given behind the scenes access to basketball matches and reacts to live requests from contributors. The heart of the campaign is its integration with social media. Those following the action can tweet their requests to the ‘Fan Cam’, who will duly oblige to the requests chosen by the ‘Up Team’ in London, and a team in Istanbul which will deliver tweets right to the ‘Fan’ in the O2 Arena. Further to this, these teams will keeping an eye on activity within the stadium and direct the Fan towards events of interest. This responsive caveat brings the fans closer to the game, but also engrosses them in the app.

This a great use of the popular go-pro equipment and fantastic to see it revolving around social media engagement. How well it captures the atmosphere of the stadium and an event is yet to be seen but there is clearly potential. The access to athletes away from the traditional media will certainly attract interest from the majority of sports fans who rarely see players in an ordinary light. The most important aspect to the success of this is the completely free-rein of the Fan who “will be going everywhere cameras normally can’t or won’t go to offer fans and media an exclusive behind the scenes view.” Fans can ask him to joke around with a player, chat with a manger or find the best-looking person in the crowd (see video…).

In my latest blog I spoke about Vine and how it could be used to capture an atmosphere and how clubs were not making the most of their assets and behind the scenes footage; Eye of the Fan manages this with a real-time and responsive element added-on.

Here is the video of the 2012 ‘Final Four’ and this gives an indication of what can be expected this time around. There have been no significant changes since last year’s campaign but the ‘Up Team’ intends to interact with contributors to a higher level than previously:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/44245070.[/vimeo]

All the footage will be accessible on a constantly updated website and, once watermarked, can be fully integrated, embedded and shared across websites. Footage of the game itself will not be available due to licensing regulations.

In 2012 the Eye of the Fan Facebook app received 150000 visits; Eye of the Fan posts on the Turkish Airlines received 15000 likes in 3 days. Overall, the 2012 event received 3.7m impressions. It is hoped that the 2013 Eye of the Fan campaign will exceed these numbers by quite some distance.

Regardless of your interest in European basketball, this is a fascinating campaign and should be looked at. Eye of the Fan can be seen from 10-12^th May when the Turkish Airlines Final Four will be broadcasting from the London O2 Arena. The ‘Final Four’ is the culmination of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague – the ‘Champions League’ of European Basketball. The top sixteen teams are currently fighting out to be involved in the ‘Final Four’. Before the Final Four tips-off, you can follow @eyeofthefan on Twitter and see what it has to offer.

It will be interesting to see where Eye of the Fan goes from here. There is a great potential in the idea. At the moment, Turkish Airlines have indicated that they are keen to focus on further communications through basketball and would welcome any opportunity to increase engagement and buzz alongside improving the content output.

There must be opportunities to translate this forward thinking approach over to other sports and hopefully brands will take a close look at the ideas behind this campaign.