Can social networks work for hockey? All of a sudden the whole world seems to be Tweeting and Facebook is a verb, But is all this social networking useful for hockey fans, players and clubs? PUSH launched James Stock into cycberspace to find out.
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ocial media have arrived for many of us over the last twelve months. The rise of Twitter and Facebook has bought more people into contact with one another than ever before. The statistics are mind-blowing for all the major sites (see ‘Social media by numbers p.16’) so the big question has to be, how can hockey utilise these powerful tools? The boom in social media has to be seen as an opportunity to keep the fans, players, clubs, governing bodies and everyone else in touch with all aspects of the sport. “Social media is for anybody and everybody. It’s very simple and anyone can use it.” That is the opinion of Rachel Clarke, social media strategist at Momentum London. Appropriately enough, this interview could never have happened without the two of us meeting on Twitter. Indeed, many of the interviews conducted for this article were arranged through Twitter. This is exactly the reason social media are so powerful: like-minded people can interact with one another when otherwise they may never have met.
In recent years Twitter and Facebook have emerged as leaders in the social media field. Twitter lets a user send and receive 140 character messages to and from a group of ‘followers’, or, in fact, pretty much anyone on the system. Facebook allows users to share and disseminate pictures, videos, comments and recommendations to a circle of ‘friends’ and, again subject to some controls, to pretty much anyone on the system, or anywhere on the Internet. Player image: Grant Treeby/Hockey Australia
Facebook and Twitter are now probably the easiest place outside of an astroturf to find other people who love hockey! The short, sharp and instant world of Twitter fits the celebrity culture of the age almost perfectly. There are some big names from the sporting world using it every day. Rio Ferdinand (@ rioferdy5), Graeme Swann (@swannyg66) and Lee Westwood (@westwoodlee) are just a few of the regulars. It certainly >>
Social media use the Internet to make publication a two-way dialogue and pretty much open to anyone. Indeed in social media the users contribute all or almost all of the content. Twitter and Facebook are a specific type of social media site – the social networking site. The first reconisable networking site with profiles and ‘friends’ was SixDegrees.com which launched in 1997. Facebook started as a US college network in 2004 and Twitter in 2006.
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What are social media?
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Grant Treeby/Hockey Australia
doesn’t get any better for the fans than hearing directly from the stars of the sports world. International hockey players have started piling onto Twitter too, in the process making themselves accessible to the global community in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Someone with a bit more experience than others in this area is Hockeyroo Kate Hollywood (@ katehollywood10). The 23-year-old star has been a regular in the side since making her debut in 2005, but it is her eagerness to interact with the fans that makes her a popular social media contact (1870 followers on Twitter). Kate seems to understand social media’s potential and how to use it, which make her very popular online. She told PUSH: “I wanted to share what we do on tour and in training, and just give people a bit of an insight into what we do.” And her enthusiasm for Tweeting about her everyday life – which would be a dream for many – is there on the web for all to see. It is very clear that the likes of Kate and another Twitter-fiend England’s Darren Cheesman have embraced social media for what they are – a global conversation. Both recognise that they can make a difference through Twitter, as Kate puts it: “I’ve always been interactive with the fans… I wanted to be able to talk to anyone. When I was a kid, I always wanted to talk to the ones I admired and looked up to.” This global conversation is not
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When it all goes pear shaped RYAN BABEL: The Liverpool striker’s Twitter comments and a link to a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt cost him £10,000 and a warning from the FA. Babel posted the link and commented “And they call him one of the best referees. That’s a joke,” after an FA Cup tie in which Liverpool skipper Stephen Gerrard was sent off and the game’s only goal came from a Manchester United penalty. Babel admitted a charge of improper conduct, and had already removed the Tweet and apologised (via Twitter) but that didn’t stop him being fined something less than twodays’ salary.
without pitfalls. There have been cases of sports stars releasing information before it becomes ‘official’ and cases of social networks being more efficient at getting information to players than the official channels. And then there are those long-regretted heat-of-themoment comments that get can get flashed around the world in the blink of an eyelid. Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s now very easy for anyone to post something that will be seen by hundreds, sometimes millions, of people. It’s equally easy to blow these comments out of proportion, but blaming these sportspeople would only drive them away. Kate says she wants people to realise that she’s a normal person by using these social media outlets. One day, either she or someone else from the international hockey circuit will probably vent something they shouldn’t. We can only hope that when it happens that they are not so frightened by the backlash that they abandon these sites and deprive us of some real insight. And it’s not just individuals who are flocking to social media sites. England Hockey uses Twitter and Facebook to, as Lawrence West one of the national body’s PR team puts it, “add
Pictures: Top, Hockeyroo Kate Hollywood in action and, above and right, examples of the pictures she is posting via Twitter – above with Aussie rules star Harry O’Brien (@harry_o) and right with teammate Emily Hurtz
social media to their existing stable of marketing communications tools”. And to talk to “anyone from your average hockey player anywhere in the country to journalists and other stakeholders.” This is an opportunity which England Hockey has rightly jumped on. Certainly, there’s a potential to bring new people to the sport by publicising it through the most popular communication tools of the moment. However, as any good businessman will tell you, keeping existing customers is just as important
What social media tools do you use? I use Twitter, Facebook and WordPress for my blog. Why do you use these social media tools? I like hearing about other people’s lives, and people seem interested in my career as an England/GB player, so I’m happy to show people what it’s like.
GB and England’s Darren Cheesman (@ DarrenCheesman) is a big fan of social media
as getting new ones. “One of the great things about the likes of Facebook and Twitter is that people have to want to ‘like’ you or ‘follow’ you so you know these people are engaged,” says Lawrence. This is a rare display of understanding from a governing body about fan interaction. By way of a counterexample, last summer Formula One held it’s first ever ‘Fan Forum’. This was a discussion held with about a hundred fans in a lecture theatre in
Do you feel added responsibility as an international sportsman to be more interactive with fans? Yes, it’s nice for people to have an interest in my life. I love to talk about the sport to anyone who’s interested, and I’m one of the lucky few who get to be a part of the international setup. A lot of people don’t know what’s involved so it’s nice to be able to keep
London, with a few well known personalities from the Formula One paddock answering questions. James Allen, a long-standing F1 journalist, described this forum as a “unique opportunity for the fans and the sport to come together and exchange ideas”. Wait a minute though, due to the quantity of F1 fans, this sort of debate actually happens regularly on social media sites. However, the way the Fan Forum was portrayed as a unique experience certainly suggests there is an aloof nature about F1 which isn’t the case in hockey. Of course, there is a lot about F1 and hockey that makes any comparison difficult. But it is the fans that more often than not make a sport what it is, and it is Formula One’s loss if it has forgotten that. Hockey is not a big fan-based sport: it derives its popularity in the most part from those who love playing it week in, week out. To keep these people engaged is vital and social media is a great way of doing it. Clubs are also getting increasingly involved, not only with their members but also with their local community and rivals. Weymouth Hockey Club runs a flourishing social media outlet co-ordinated by Patrick May. As you’d expect, both Facebook and Twitter are used to
people informed. If Cesc Fabregas ever mentioned me in one of his tweets I’d be delighted as I follow football and am a fan of his. If I can have a fraction of that impact on someone else then it’s worth it. Do you have this more positive attitude towards social media than others because you’re new to the international scene and more enthusiastic about it? A lot of the other guys are quite new to Twitter, they’ve only just started to get involved. Initially Twitter can be daunting, it was not often [until now] that our comments could be broadcast to hundreds of people at the same time! I’ve been doing it longer, I’ve got used to how it works and I’m happy to talk to everyone.
When it all goes pear shaped Harry Jawanda: In April 2010 then Reading player Harry Jawanda was suspended for two games by the England Hockey disciplinary panel for what were said to be “inflammatory” comments about another team on Facebook. The team wasn’t named but Beeston are understood to have made the complaint. The Nottinghamshire club had the last laugh as Jawanda was not available when the teams clashed in the championship semifinal which Beeston won 2-1. keep members of the club informed. But Weymouth’s online presence (www. weymouthhockeyclub.co.uk ) goes beyond the standard club fare of results, fixtures, training times and socials. The range of what they offer through their social media tools is far more frequently updated and diverse than many clubs. For example, their annual festival in April has been advertised using the power of Facebook and Twitter to invite players, teams and clubs from across the country. The festival has its own dedicated website (www. weymouthhockeyfestival.co.uk) which runs alongside the equally well updated general site. While it is undoubtedly a time consuming task, the benefits the club can reap from such exposure on a >>
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Ady Kerry
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Darren Cheesman Q&A
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Social media by numbers
Hockey Twitterarti – some national players and staff on Twitter Ashley Jackson – @ashleyjackson7 Darren Cheesman – @DarrenCheesman Alistair Wilson – @alfwilfson Richard Mantell – @RichM6 (pictured) Richard Alexander – @RATMAN05 Ben Hawes – @benhawes14 Jonty Clarke – @JontyClarke Alastair Brogdon – @Abrogdon11 Richard Smith – @RS_smudge George Pinner – @GCP01 Hannah Macleod – @hannahmacleod6 James Fair – @jfair25 Adam Dixon – @AdamDixon16
Chloe Rogers – @ChlorR12 Niall Stott – @niallstott16 James Tindall – @jimmyt20 Jason Lee – JasonLee_Leeboy
$50 billion
is the value of Facebook based on a Goldman Sachs investment fund in the company offered in January 2011.
95 million made each day.
Tweets are
79,000
wall posts are made every minute on Facebook.
99,000 local and more national level are surely worth the time and effort involved. Weymouth’s use of social media highlights the opportunities the Internet offers to ‘plug’ clubs into not just the hockey community but also the businesses, other clubs and social life of their local communities and to keep the social buzz about hockey simmering along. England Hockey also suggest social media have a use for clubs aside from communicating with members. There are few clubs in the country which will consistently have enough people to cover everything they need to run the club smoothly, not at least without doubling up. “Twitter can be a good medium in raising these issues,” says Lawrence. And it’s not just with communities and businesses that clubs can have an impact, but also journalists. There are a growing number of journalists on Twitter who find it much easier to read a score or link to a match report in a Tweet. Facebook and Twitter have a certain sprit of the moment feel about them at the moment. But it is worth remembering that in the short history of social media other empires have risen
and, to some extent, fallen – remember Friends Reunited, Bebo, Myspace and a handful of others? Nevertheless it seems social media do have a major part to play in hockey’s development over the next few years. As players become more involved, they’ll build their personal portfolios as well as exposing the sport. Clubs can continue to make themselves known locally through business and on the social scene. The governing bodies can make themselves more interactive with the hockey world, both within their own country and also by improving ties with hockey communities around the world. Social media also have the potential to give hockey a much greater advertising platform. There must be hundreds of clubs out there who can identify with some of the points highlighted on these pages. As Weymouth and other good local clubs have shown, investing the time into a good array of social media tools can raise the clubs status beyond what might have been achieved otherwise. The possibilities are endless, and there may be many more ways that hockey can tap into this powerful tool. Just ask @jamesstock89 or @PUSHHOCKEYMAG! p
friend requests are accepted every minute on Facebook.
175 million
users are registered on Twitter (24% of users Tweet regularly).
88,800
people ‘like’ hockey on Facebook (41,180 male; 43,980 female)
109,000
photographs are uploaded to Facebook each minute.
250 million
of Facebook’s 500 million active users log in at least once a day.
28,000
post views are made each month on www.facebook.com/PushHockey
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When it all goes pear shaped lewis hamilton: The Formula One ace sullied his squeaky-clean image by Tweeting to his fans: “‘To those of you who care, thanks for your support, am on here for you. To all you haters… I just don’t give a f*** haha’. He later apologised and removed the Tweet.
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