Highlighted: ‘Facebook row’ tickets with the England Football Team

This week I had the pleasure of having drinks in London with some of the leading figures we have in social media covering sport and television.  One of those was Andy Smith who heads up the social media efforts at The FA.

One of the recent campaigns he has been integral to has been the Facebook competition you can currently see on the England Football Team page.  One thing I have been pleased to see with the page is that they avoided the common mistake made by NGB’s when it comes to social media.

Many times you will see an NGB (National Governing Body) create a page in their own name.  To me this brings with it the thought…why would I follow a governing body?!  To be honest if I wasn’t a hardcore fan or player of the sport then I wouldn’t.   The FA have the right approach in pushing the England Team, their most valuable and marketable asset and one that the everyday fan is going to have an allegiance with, as their following is so much bigger than the governing body would ever have.

If other bodies took this approach they would see a much bigger audience being opened up to them, more engagement and greater numbers joining.  When you search for a sport would you type in the name of the national team or the NGB?  My point proved I think.

Back to The FA….. the most recent campaign Andy has been part of is the ‘Win A Seat in Facebook Row’.  This in itself sounds exciting (and yes I have already entered the competition) so what does it entail?

For the upcoming England v Holland match they are offering 50 pairs of tickets to be won “to help our Facebook fans get closer to the action, winners will have their photos uploaded to the advertising boards at the match and will receive two tickets to ‘Facebook row’, pitchside at Wembley”.

It will be interesting to see how many entries the competition gets and how this affects the number of fans that ‘like’ the page.  One can assume the key metric on this is data collection with the next being growth of the page.  I’ll try to get an insight into this is the coming weeks.

Well done to the Fa and to Andy…keep up the good work and hopefully see you at Wembley!

About author

Daniel McLaren
Daniel McLaren 820 posts

Dan is the Founder & CEO of Digital Sport. Can be found at sports industry events and heard every week on the Digital Sport Insider podcast. @DanielMcLaren

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