Social Media in Football: A Changing of the Guard for Traditional Media Outlets

The decline of print media has been well documented in recent years.

Initial uncertainty as to the extent of the issue has since turned into a rueful acceptance on the behalf of newspapers and magazines - there is even now a Wikipedia page devoted to the subject.

Nick Miller, a freelance sports writer for the Guardian, Independent, ESPN and others, believes that the instantaneous nature of social media is one of its great advantages over the traditional forms of media.

“Material in print ages very quickly and that is very much emphasised by social media,” he said.

“If news breaks at 10am, if someone is only consuming their news by print they’re not going to find out for another 24 hours what has happened.”

As a result, print media outlets and broadcasters have been forced to adapt over the years as their audience gravitated towards online content, meaning social media has become crucial in the industry today.

“I joined Twitter in 2012 and the reason I joined was because I was going to the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine,” said Brendan Crossan, Sports Reporter at the Irish News.

“So my bosses thought it would be a good idea if I joined Twitter and the whole idea of doing that was if I was at a press conference, or maybe before the match catching a bit of the atmosphere and posting it.”

“The pace of modern life isn’t conducive to sitting down and reading a paper,” he admitted. “And a newspaper costs quite a lot of money to print the actual paper.

“The paper costs money, the ink costs money, the van drivers who have to distribute the paper.”

In football, the advent of social media means clubs and players are less reliant on the newspapers than they were even a decade ago.

"The downside of it is, say 10 years ago Cliftonville FC [a football team from north Belfast] wanted to announce a new signing, they would have contacted the newspapers. We were their goto,” says Crossan.

“But nowadays everyone’s got their own platforms, they don’t necessarily rely on us to get their news out there anymore. Years ago the newspaper - that was where you went to get your news.

“Now you can go on your phone and sports clubs and sports people, if they want to announce they’re retiring they don’t need to contact a newspaper, they can do it on their own Twitter page and then we would pick it obviously.”

"Social media is the only touchpoint across every aspect for the business and the brand."

The unavoidable and inconvenient truth for newspapers is that social media offers a variety of unique features that make it easier to report news. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow for a slicker, more hassle-free mode of communication while also giving print outlets the opportunity to reach bigger audiences.

Yet, social media can offer some advantages to the traditional forms of media explains Harriet Drudge, who when interviewed, was Social Media Strategist for football magazine FourFourTwo.

“Social media is the only touchpoint across every aspect for the business and the brand," she explained. 

"First and foremost, we use it to drive traffic to the website. That was the main aim originally when I was brought in, but as the role developed it became quite obvious that there were commercial and marketing opportunities, magazine promotion, single-issue sales, subscriptions sales, that sort of thing.

"So it developed to be a bit more of a multi-faceted role. We use it for everything really.

“The company also realised that if you send the social media [representative] to get the content at an interview you’ve got the behind the scenes material that everyone is gasping for. You can trickle that out on social media to tease the release for the new mag,” she added.

Having an online presence also means FourFourTwo can gain feedback on the popularity of their content.

“Social media allows us to be in constant communication with our fans and our readers,” said Drudge.

“You can’t just focus on the media part of social media, you have to be social, you have to do the social part of social media because otherwise it doesn’t work. You’re just shouting into a vacuum.

“You won’t get as much out of it if you just promote what you do and you don’t engage anyone and don’t share any content that’s relevant.”

It is not just media publications who have benefited from the interactive capabilities of social media, football and sports journalists now use it as a means to promote themselves and their work.

“With social media, even if you just immediately start up a Twitter account, people can follow you, they can see if you’re putting out new stuff,” said Ken Early, freelance journalist for the Irish Times and a director at Second Captains.

“It basically connects you to an audience that previously would just have been physically impossible to reach.

“The significance of social media to me and the guys I work with at the Second Captains was, it enabled us to have an independent presence and access to an audience that previously would not have been possible.

“The way we’ve gone about our careers would not have without social media,” he added.

“I’ve found it very useful for contacting people,” admitted Crossan.

"It’s an invaluable tool for a journalist to get in touch with someone. You’re following certain journalists yourself and getting to read what they’re talking about.

"For me, it deepens my knowledge of what I’m doing. I don’t think you can be a sports journalist, or any type of journalist, without being on social media.”

"If you make a statement, there’s an audience of thousands of people and some of them are going to take it the wrong way."

While the Belfast-based reporter acknowledges how having a Twitter account has benefited him personally, he also has misgivings about several aspects of social media.

“Say I write a story and I verify the story is correct and there is no libel,” he said. “You can have these maverick websites or social media platforms and they would just simply plagiarise your story, lift it and put it on their platform.

“There needs to be some sanction for these social media platforms. There have been legal challenges, but because it’s so widespread it’s very difficult.

“It’s wildfire and the journalist is standing with a water pistol,” he added.

Another issue for sports journalists can arise from simply doing their job, and sharing an article or opinion on football often leads to insulting responses from the online community.

“If you make a statement, there’s an audience of thousands of people and some of them are going to take it the wrong way, some of them are not going to get what you’re saying, some of them will be bitterly opposed to what you’re saying,” said Early, who has 58,000 followers on Twitter.

“You’ve got fertile ground for disagreement and anger.”

As traditional forms of media continue to adapt to the ever-changing climate of digital content, it has allowed for an influx of exclusively-online resources, not burdened with the financial implications faced by newspapers, magazines and broadcasters.

No longer do the established media have to deal solely with competition among themselves, but also from this new band of technologically-savvy platforms.

This is the second in a five-part series exploring social media’s use in football. Click here to start the series from the beginning.