How to make the most of players' audiences.

Players open doors to new audiences and markets.

From Gabi, Gabi and Gabby at Arsenal through to Wolves' association with Portugal, there are plenty of examples of strong links between clubs and territories. Here's a look at where clubs can and are making the most of the doors opened by their players...

Territory specific social channels

There are many pros and many cons to having territory specific social channels.?They give you an opportunity to speak in the local language, know exactly where your content is landing, share content in local times and speak to cultural events. On the other side of things, language and cultural nuance can be tricky to navigate, meaning agency input is likely needed and making a move like this a big undertaking.

I had a look through the verified territory specific accounts for the 20 Premier League clubs to see where efforts are being prioritised. Here are the headlines...

• 11 of the clubs have verified, territory specific Twitter accounts
• Spain featured most frequently - seven clubs have Spanish accounts, followed by Indonesia with six
• Man City have the most verified, territory specific Twitter accounts of any club with a total of nine
• There are four territories with only one targeted club account (Liverpool - Brazil, Man City - China, Man City - France, Spurs - India)

Using players as an extension of your brand

This is a really interesting and largely untapped space. When they're on the pitch and away from it, players represent the club and are an extension of the entire brand. Treating them as ambassadors and giving them bespoke content can help drive an affiliation with the club.

Feeding into this is how clubs track and measure the following and performance of content on player channels. Looking to West Ham, for example who have 2.3m Instagram followers, Nayef Aguerd has 1.9m and Declan Rice has 1.6m, combined, these two players have a reach that extends beyond the club.

Aston Villa Women are another example, with 142k followers on Instagram. Their new signing, Jordan Nobbs has passed that number with 196k and one of their strikers, Alisha Lehmann has 10.9m on Instagram alone.

Geo-locked content on Facebook

Without access to pages, it's impossible to see who is using geo-locked, targeted content on Facebook, but it's probably the easiest way to guarantee you're serving your content to the audience you have in mind via social media, without using paid.??

Simple and allows you to sidestep the need for multiple territory based accounts on the platform.

Cody Gakpo's move to Liverpool

Here's an example of a new club signing that inadvertently sees them strengthen ties and a link to the Netherlands.

Cody Gakpo's signing sees him join Virgil Van Dijk and Shanice Van Der Sanden at Liverpool as a Red who also?wears Orange.

We know that transfers are follower drivers and can raise a player's profile, but the benefits here are two-way:

1) Gakpo's audience grows: for example, on Instagram his following grew by circa 15% off the back of the signing

2) Liverpool benefit via their social content, but are also granted greater license to speak to a growing audience in the Netherlands.

It's not a huge surprise that a shiny new signing made for their top-performing post on Instagram from the last 30 days (exc. Reels) but it'll be interesting to see if they try and connect with that audience more and in new ways.

Spurs ?? South Korea

Spurs' tie with South Korea has gone from strength to strength and can be linked primarily to Son Heung-min in the men's team, but also team So-hyun Cho in the women's.

According to research commissioned by AIA, 12 million South Koreans (that's 1 in 4) say they support Spurs. Star power is the huge driver, but social media plays a key role too. This is how Spurs' have approached communicating with their fanbase in South Korea:

• They've set up a territory specific Twitter account for Spurs in South Korea, which provides club content in Korean.
• On their main club accounts they've combined innovative content with use of star players like Son, like this “like”-button feature, for example, which was their most liked tweet last year.
• Sharing strategic collaborator posts aimed at leveraging the Spurs' audience and Son's audience. This post is a great example and has been one of Spurs' most viewed Reels with 12.2m views
• Online challenges and give-aways aimed at audiences in South Korea, like their TikTok Challenge from last year.
• Where Son's a part of the conversation, Spurs will lean into that. For example, looking at the goal graphics shared during Spurs' 4-0 over Crystal Palace, two featured Kane (47.3k likes + 300 comments and 48k + 285 comments respectively) one featured Doherty (44.1k likes + 270 comments) and the final one featured Son (139k likes + 1295 comments) It makes sense to include Son on the full-time asset and it's not necessarily strategic genius, but the full-time had 247k likes and 1.8k comments, with lots of South Korean fans commenting beneath the post.

Looking at Spurs' and Son's growth rates on Instagram, it probably won't be too long before Son overtakes the club, again, showing the value gained from using your players as club ambassadors via social.

It's clear that speaking to their South Korean audience via social media drives engagements and holds real value for Spurs. The club have now:

• Got an official partnership with?Korea Tourism Organisation
• Held a pre-season tour in South Korea
• Agreed a deal with skySports to become the exclusive Korean broadcast partner for the club’s weekly highlights programme

I'm not sure there's a better example of player power driving value in a specific market in the Premier League at the moment.

A few final examples...

Neither of these two are brand new, but they are nice examples that highlight the Arsenal x Brazil connection:

Firstly, this piece of club content that sees three of the club's then Brazilian players (David Luiz, Willian and Gabriel) speak via video call following Gabriel signing for the club.

A welcome message from Brazilian men's player Gabi Martinelli to women's team newcomer Rafaelle Souza, showing crossover between the players, with no club involvement and linking the men's and women's teams.