Why your social media should be like Burnley FC!

One of the things we are delighted to be involved with is taking up a business hub membership at Burnley football club. They have fantastic facilities for local businesses here and that, combined with the amazing buzz that’s being generated around automatic promotion to the English Premier League, got us thinking.

There are some tremendous similarities between Burnley’s approach to running their football club and successfully running your business’s social media accounts.

By Graham Campbell, managing director, Moose Media

1. Do you have a common goal?

Everyone is pulling in the same direction here, from the board to the bar staff from the players to the public. They aren’t afraid to aim big, but not at all costs. Burnley aren’t gambling their future or their identity, they are building momentum on a solid foundation.

What about your social media experience?

Is there a consistency of message or branding, a consistency of style or voice across your social media platforms? Is your social media pulling together toward a common goal? Do you know what that goal is and most importantly how to measure success?

The other message to take from this is the importance of building stable & solid foundations. It’s becoming increasingly easy & expedient to throw cash into social media advertising particularly as organic growth on Facebook in many cases has dropped off a cliff & Instagram looks to be following suit.

Whilst paid advertising is helpful in many cases, without a solid foundation of organic content in your social media, you may find you have very little base for retaining & engaging a following, once you withdraw the paid stuff.

2. Good management

This sort of follows on nicely. Burnley are one of a handful of football clubs one can point to as an example of being well run, financially stable, despite relatively humble income streams. Not only are they well run at a strategic level, on the pitch there is a vision too, a commitment to excellence, they are tactically astute with a focus & attention to detail. This has all aligned this season to make Burnley a force to be reckoned with.

What about your social media output?

Can we say the same? Is it a force to be reckoned with? If not, don’t be afraid to strip it all back & start at the beginning. Put a strategy in place that aligns with your business goals & understand the tactics you can deploy to actively manage that strategy. How will you achieve growth, how will you know you are getting a return on your investment? Make sure you do the small things right behind the scenes but don’t be afraid to think big & bold ‘out-front’.

3. Be yourself!

Trust me. As a business that works from the football club every week, Burnley are content in their own skin. They know who they are, they know who they aren’t, they know where they want to be. This is translated at every level. The people of Burnley are generally friendly & forthright & that is stamped through the club like an unofficial motto. I know for certain that if Burnley are in the top tier next season & struggling at Christmas they will not be panic buying or deviating from the plan that has brought them their success. There will be no wild spending of £30m on a journeymen Italian striker with dodgy knees onto which they will pile all their future hopes, aspirations & very futures.

What about your businesses social media output?

Does it accurately reflect your organisation? Does it showcase who you are or is something being lost in translation? All to often it’s easy to sink into a sea of mediocre banality on social when you feel the pressure to issue content all the time. How do you overcome this? Have you that strategy or plan to fall back on & refocus your efforts? How can you be yourself on social media when you are already spread so thinly as an organisation already

Social Media is not something that by itself is going to get your business into the premier league. I think most people would accept that. But how important a cog is it in helping you onto the next level?

Well that’s for you to decide as a business.

As I look around the stadium here I wonder what answer I would get if I asked how important Sean Dyche has been in helping Burnley FC get to the next level?

I hope it’s the same answer you can give for your business. I wonder what answer I would get if I asked how important Sean Dyche has been in helping Burnley FC get to the next level?

Social media, like Sean Dyche, is the public face of your team, it should be managed with common sense, tactical acumen and flair.