Swiss soccer clubs rely on social media

FC Basel is the undisputed leader on Facebook with 1.29 million fans. FC Aarau manages the social media platforms Faceboook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube on a voluntary basis. Otherwise, the soccer clubs use 10 to 30 percent of their staff for this purpose; only at FC St. Gallen does this work time amount to around 100 percent, according to Daniel Last, Head of Media and Communications. At the same time, he is surprised that other clubs only have 30 percent of their staff.Everyone is now on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramThe Facebook pages are busy posting, goals in the games are usually announced immediately on Facebook. The interaction (commenting, liking or sharing) on Facebook works. The clubs have had good to very good experiences with Facebook and also reach a lot of people there. Daniel Frank, PR manager at FC Luzern, emphasizes, however, that Facebook is not only used as a news channel, contact with the fans is sought. At the moment, FC Luzern is holding a vote for a short film contest, while FC Thun is calling for a selfie contest. FC Basel clearly has the most fans on Facebook, with 1.29 million, and almost half of these fans are from Egypt. Dominik Weber from the web team of the league leader explains this with the "Salah effect". The Egyptian scored goals in the Champions League a year ago, which brought in hundreds of thousands of likes from Egypt. In addition, two Egyptians, Elneny and Hamoudi, are currently playing in the FC Basel team.The clubs are also satisfied with Twitter, although the empirical values here are relatively small, as five clubs only joined this short message service last year or this year. The number of followers ranges from just under 800 (FC Vaduz) to around 52,000 (FC Basel). All of the teams' communications managers are equally positive about Instagram.YouTube and the history with Google+Six clubs operate a YouTube channel. The number of subscribers on YouTube is significantly lower than the number of followers on Twitter. The clubs have different opinions about YouTube. FC Basel maintains the videos directly on the video portal of its website, as it does not really see the benefit of a dedicated channel on YouTube. When the club actively maintained the YouTube channel, the response was moderate.Since Google links its services together, those with a YouTube channel also have a Google+ page. Clubs are often not aware of this. Only FC St. Gallen actively manages its Google+ page. Daniel Last says: "We have used Google+ as a kind of mirror for the Facebook platform, simply to be present there first. We see it like many (supposed or real) experts, that Google+ can and will act as a serious counterpart to Facebook."Soundcloud, Xing, LinkedIn and SnapchatSome teams rely on audio files: FC St. Gallen runs an official Soundcloud channel, YB is there with the fan channel "Radio Gelb Schwarz", according to writer and football fan Pedro Lenz "probably the world's most competent football radio of the present day". And since longtime radio host Nik Thomi has been in charge of media and communications at FC Thun, podcasts have been produced almost daily in the Bernese Oberland.FC Zurich is on a different track. "For business contacts, XING and LinkedIn are interesting platforms. We have already been able to make one or two exciting contacts there, and our experience with both channels has been exclusively positive," says media officer Patrick Lienhart. We pick up the fans in those channels where they are really active. The very young FC Basel fans mainly use Instagram and Snapchat," informs Dominik Weber. So FC Basel is trying out Snapchat for the first time. Through the Snapchat account, Basel already reaches over 1,000 fans, which they can reach very efficiently and activate successfully (e.g. for autograph sessions).FC Basel is leading the way: Observe trends and adapt social media communication accordingly. For FC Luzern, it is important to divide different content among the various social media channels. So social media has definitely arrived at the Raiffeisen Super League soccer teams and will continue. All clubs, with the exception of FC Vaduz, state that they intend to expand the social media area in the near future. Author: Jürg Kobel, www.sozialemedien.ch