Twitter Lineup XIs show why lower leagues can’t compete with the Premier League

We know that football clubs like to play around on Twitter to see what works and what doesn’t.

Clubs are all about protecting that brand and raking in that engagement. It matters for their club’s image, they want to make sure they use their social media presence to stay close to their fans, and it matter for their sponsors, who might pay to use the club’s social channels to advertise to their fans. But there’s a limit to the creativity that a club can produce. Especially a lower league club.

Clubs down the divisions don’t really get follows from people who aren’t connected to their club in some way. You’ll follow them if you support them, you might give them a follow if they’re a local club, or nearby your new home. You might even give them a follow if a friend or family member supports them. But it’s a small pool.

The millions of people who follow the biggest clubs do so because they’re football fans, and as much as you may hate Manchester United, Barcelona or Real Madrid, you can’t deny that they are huge players in the footballing world.

The smaller clubs still have to find ways to engage their audience, though. So the balance has to be struck between what the club’s digital department can produce and their resources and the time available. They can’t go off and create a quirky video series involving their superstar manager like Manchester City’s ‘Pep’s Taxi’ series. No superstar manager and no 3m followers makes that a futile effort if you’re looking for RTs and shares.

You also can’t try to get massive engagement by getting in on Twitter’s trending topics, either – you won’t get the reaction to your National Poetry Day tweet that West Ham United got.

A few weeks ago, we reported on some data from Result Sports who compiled a breathtaking report into the digital reach of football clubs around Europe. We focused on the lower league clubs to try to give a flavour of they can do on social. And getting clever with their resources and ideas is clearly the best formula.

But since it’s hard for these clubs to think outside of the box, given the constraints, getting creative with what you can do inside the box is the next step.

Every time a club plays, the most eagerly-awaited tweet of the day is the club’s starting eleven. Clubs always tweet out the players who have been selected for action that particular day, and the package that up nicely into a shareable graphic.

But when you want engagement beyond the couple of thousand people who are interested in your club on Twitter, then things can start to get a little odd.

Take some of these midweek gems from lower league clubs:

Barnsley (with their 61k followers) came up with this lovely subbuteo-style lineup graphic.

But there seems to be no substitute – when it comes to engagement – for screwing up on purpose. Whilst the other lineup tweets gained respectable numbers of RTs, Burton Albion have fewer followers than the other two, yet managed thousands of RTs on this tweet about their substitutes:

For a club with a limited number of followers, you can see why they’d want to go viral by producing a tweet like that. It’s clearly not an accident – they haven’t removed it – and there’s a clear ‘no press is bad press’ approach to their social media presence.

In fact, the top comment underneath Burton’s tweet comes from an account that followers of French sport will be familiar with – though it may be surprising to see him interact with a lower league English football club! Even French gif king Philou Sports (with his 76.5k followers) was compelled to respond to the club:

It’s not easy being in the lower leagues and finding ways to engage with more than just your own fans on Twitter. But is going viral really more important than getting your message out properly and adequately?

And, whatever you do break the mould – will it ever beat this?

About author

Chris McMullan
Chris McMullan 831 posts

Chris is a sports journalist and editor of Digital Sport - follow him on Twitter @CJMcMullan_

You might also like

SPORTEL 2021: Day One Recap

This year’s prestigious SPORTEL convention kicked off in sunny Monaco today, welcoming a host of familiar faces as well as plenty of new ones. Doors opened at 8:30am with businesses

Six Founding Riders Set To Bring The Vision Of The UCI Track Champions League To Life

Olympic Champions, UCI World Champions and World Record holders join the new track cycling competition debuting in November 2021 The UCI Track Champions League is delighted to announce that six

Sports related spending to soar this summer as pre-pandemic life resumes

New insights from eBay Ads UK reveal the potential for brands to engage with an excited but nervous nation as sports events get back on track  As pubs and indoor