Premiership Football Clubs On Twitter

A new feature here on the SZ blog is bringing in experts and bloggers from all walks of life to cover social media in their area of interest and put a different spin on it. We start this week with Kevin Coleman, from football website BackPageFootball.com who looks at how each English Premier League club’s official websites have taken to online social craze Twitter. (Or not, in some cases!)

Arsenal (11, 409 followers)

– With just over 300 updates, Arsenal.com have so far failed in providing an active and exciting Twitter feed for their fans. Other than tweeting news items, and more recently rather sparse match updates, they’re 11,000 strong gathering has yet to be offered a decent quality Twitter stream compared to unofficial accounts elsewhere.

Aston Villa (1,442 followers)

Aston Villa’s official Twitter feed currently holds 281 tweets, most of which news items linking back to the site and a match update here and there. No unique tweets on their fantastic win away to Liverpool, or anything on their crashing out of Europe. Like Arsenal, Villa has a number of thriving unofficial feeds that offer a far better alternative than the Official one.

Birmingham City (No account)

– Birmingham have yet to open up an Official account on Twitter, showing a lack of social media interaction with their fans.

Blackburn Rovers (778 followers)

– Despite a rather low following, those at Blackburn’s Official site are starting to catch on to this Twitter thing. As well as the mandatory news items, there seems to be decent interaction with their fans as well as requesting DMs on design placement for students. The use of Twitpic adds interaction is apparent here, too.

Bolton Wanderers (No account)

– Tut-tut, no account for Bolton either. It seems subscribed mobile text alerts are still prominent at a couple of clubs, obviously as a source of income, and Bolton is one of them.

Burnley (No account)

– Newly promoted Burnley are without an account, too.

Chelsea (12,602 followers)

– With over 1100 updates, the guys at Chelsea Official have certainly taken on Twitter well in their day-to-day interaction with fans through social media. Biased, unique updates are what fans like to see: “Ballack makes it 2, and Ash makes it 3! Yeeeeees!” Replying to fans (One @ reply within three clicks of the “more” option) and further interaction through Twitpic could be improved, but good work Chelsea.

Everton (1,730 followers)

– Everton are showing good interaction with their fans, asking questions and letting fans’ tweets be published on the site. However, they don’t seem to reply to their fans on the feed at all. It’s quite news generated, and no up-to-the-minute match updates, so room for improvement here at Everton’s Official.

Fulham (1,592 followers)

– Fantastic up-to-the-minute match updates, but they seem to be a recent feature as they’ve only 250 updates. Hardly any news plugs, so their feed isn’t clogged up with links, however they should interact a lot more with their fans (they follow two accounts, Twitter’s official and Lily Allen – a celebrity fan). Their current setup is good, perhaps modify the account a bit and add some interaction with fans to get the most out of Twitter.

Hull City (324 followers)

– All 247 of their updates seem to be automated from Twitterfeed, so zero interaction and unique tweeting here shows Hull are miles behind other clubs. They’re not using the account at all, so you’d wonder how long it is since they’ve last logged in. Following general news Tweeters like ESPN and Sky News instead of their own fans is also a blot on their use of the site.

Liverpool (47,752 followers)

– Liverpool’s Official have always provided a fantastic social media online activity, and do so on Twitter too. With plenty of unique updates and match tweets, as well as welcoming followers to tweet in their views to their live phone-in show, the staff there has setup a lively and exciting feed for their fans. Reply interaction should be improved; maybe start using Twitpic a little more thrn they’ll certainly be top of the Official accounts.

Manchester City (6,101 followers)

– As well as their on-field revolution at Manchester City, they’ve become one of the top clubs in terms on interaction and use of social media. Unique tweets, up-to-the-minute match updates as well as the best use of Twitpic for a Premier League club, City are certainly impressing online. Aside from Twitter, they’re very active on Flickr and Facebook where they welcome fans’ views and pictures. Up there with Liverpool for the best online interaction for an Official site.

Manchester United (No account)

– Believe it or not, Premier League champions Manchester United have no Official representation on Twitter. You’d think one of the biggest clubs in the world would offer decent online interaction, but obviously not in this case. At least on Twitter.

Portsmouth (No account)

– Portsmouth seem to have no Official activity on Twitter whatsoever.

Stoke City (963 followers)

The guys at Stoke’s Official site have little interaction on their Twitter, following nobody and tweeting only news items. At least they update the account themselves, but really need to improve relations with their fans.

Sunderland (1,029 followers)

– Nothing but automated updates. Zero interaction with fans. They’re showing terrible use of Twitter, despite a 1,000 strong following. The guys at Sunderland seriously need to improve social media activity.

Tottenham Hotspur (No account)

– No representation for Spurs on Twitter, either.

West Ham United (No account)

– Like the rest West Ham are opting for the mobile updates.

Wigan Athletic (443 followers)

– Wigan show a uniqueness in their tweets, but all they post all day are links to their news items. No interaction with fans, and follow none of them back. Again, poor use of online activity that must improve.

Wolverhampton Wanderers (836 followers)

– Wolves’ Official is very unique with their tweets, updating their fans with useful information in 140 chunks with no links. Match updates are starting to come in too, but perhaps they could increase update volume in between match days. Good stuff from Wolves’ site, far better than others we’ve looked at.

As Manchester City and Liverpool set the standard for their use of Twitter, a lot of clubs lag behind – not realising the power of the site and its interaction capabilities amongst fans. Football fans on Twitter would love top quality, official representation from their clubs on the site. It’s a valuable resource, one that can improve supporter attraction towards the club and it’s online services.

You can read more football-related content from Kevin and others on his rather new football website Back Page Football.