Stories on Instagram, real time data sharing of live action on Twitter or the obligatory post of a matchwinner’s celebration on Facebook. There is simply no way football clubs can keep away from a holistic Social Media strategy. Those platforms drive engagement, keep fans in contact and provoke interactions, which – for the ultimate goal in terms of the economy behind all that – might as well transform into conversions if certain CTA are included. But Social Media are not only for the club itself, but its various partners ever so important. They turn to clubs to get the attention and visibility they crave for their brand. And what better way is there to get just that than appearing on social platforms that are increasingly based on visual content and consumers’ interests? Blinkfire Analytics uses AI to rate a brand’s sponsoring success related to Social Media posts. And for that aim Blinkfire now measures WeChat posts, too, whereas a new Media Tab in the reporting section will offer insights into exposure gained through posts from other organisations.
Blinkfire tracks exposure on WeChat
WeChat is such a big platform, it’s just that it’s not commonly used in the Western world. Still, close to a billion users account for some audience and football clubs know that. They tend to have accounts on WeChat or Sina Weibo to bring their brand right to the Chinese football fans’ attention. That’s why Blinkfire Analytics, a company that offers measurement and thereby options for optimisation of Social Media performance, starts to support Tencents WeChat when they analyse how different club sponsors or partners are exposed in a variety of social posts.
WeChat follower and engagement numbers are private data, so only the owned and operated entity of that account will be able to see those numbers and rankings throughout the platform, including the homepage, Media Kit, and Daily Engagement.
Blinkfire also supports Vkontakte, Russia’s leading social platform. That means the company does give its clients a broader look at their social impact, beyond the already established fan bases. And it’s those fans in China, Russia or maybe even the USA, that clubs and brands alike want to reach out to more in order to strengthen fan engagement and eventually income from those supporters.
Blinkfire allows clients like VfB Stuttgart, the Austrian Bundesliga, FC St.Pauli, LaLiga and Co. to get a detailed overview over Social Media analytics. There’s also the BrandSpotter, technology for brand detection that “finds brands and scenes in images and videos across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more.“
Furthermore it is possible to value social inventory in real time by comparing previous and current data and one check that value for different periods. Lastly Blinkfire also offers options to track OTT, VOD and Streaming services to make sure you keep an overview over brand exposure or engagement on those channels.
The new Media Tab informs about external posts
There’s actually more news from Blinkfire, that has set the sports industry alight by combining the importance of brands’ exposure with opportunities to track and measure just that in today’s parallel universe of Social Media, which is very much the bedrock for new branding campaigns.
As there are other posts than those that can be counted as owned content, the value of posts from the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga or rival teams can also drive value to sponsors who appear in them. Therefore Blinkfire Analytics has established a new Media Tab for their reporting. It does show the impact of posts from Sport Media Companies. But not just their posts are tracked, thanks to the rollout of “Other Entities“ rightholders can analyse the exposure generated by organisations, different clubs, federations or leagues as well.
If the Premier League or say Opta puts a post on Twitter that contains visuals of specific players in a shirt, exposure for the sponsors is surely generated there, too.
The social listening and measurement of social posts linking to brands is effectively augmented thanks to that new reporting feature. With Social Media being the most relevant cosmos for fans to follow their teams, live and throughout the week, clubs and brands will only reinforce their options to get in touch with them on those various platforms. And as those fans from China or India become more valuable for sports industries’ partnerships between a club brand and the brand of their sponsors, it is indeed increasingly important to appear on WeChat and stay active on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. So Blinkfire Analytics as well as other companies like Nielsen Sports offer ways to really estimate the performance of social posts in an evermore digital football universe, with a definite financial value to show for it. That might also help to recruit new sponsors. And that’s what football business is very much about these days, too.