Simon Banoub @banouby

10 Twitter Tips from @OptaJoe

(btw I’m not OptaJoe)

Simon Banoub @banouby

My agenda:

• A bit about Opta• Opta’s social media profile• 10 social media lessons from OptaJoe• A few more lessons that I wanted to add but was too

OCD about promoting a list that wasn’t a neat number

Who are ?

The world’s leading sports data company

Which means we:

Watch a lot of this:

Collect the data like this:

And turn the live action into data feeds:

And widgets:

And a team of geniuses turn the data into editorialised statistics:

Over 400 companies buy Opta products, including this lot:

They use it different ways, like this:

And this

And this

So why am I stood up here talking about social media?

Preamble…

Active on social media for almost 5 years

17 accounts on Twitter, in 9 different languages

5 accounts on Facebook

Over 750,000 Twitter followers (led by OptaJoe on 534,000)

30,000 fans on Facebook

Social media has transformed Opta (I’ll explain how later)

And a caveat or three:

This isn’t:How to do Twitter

This is:What worked for us

I might:Repeat myself

10. Twitter Tips from

Quickfire.

1. Segment your audience, segment your accounts, and tweet about appropriate stuff.

Relevance.

Meet the family

Talks about: English footballLanguage: English

Meet the family

Talks about: CricketLanguage: English

Meet the family

Talks about: RugbyLanguage: English

Meet the family

Talks about: French FootballLanguage: French

Meet the family

Talks about: Spanish FootballLanguage: Spanish

Meet the family

Talks about: Dutch FootballLanguage: Dutch

Meet the family

Talks about: South American FootballLanguage: LatAM Spanish

Meet the family

Talks about: “Soccer”Language: English

Meet the family

Talks about: Australian SportLanguage: English

Meet the family

Talks about: Brazilian FootballLanguage: Portuguese

Meet the family

Talks about: Other Spanish SportsLanguage: Spanish

Meet the family

Talks about: Italian FootballLanguage: Italian

Meet the family

Talks about: German FootballLanguage: German

Meet the family

Talks about: Russian FootballLanguage: Russian

Meet the family

Talks about: Global FootballLanguage: Arabic

Meet the family

Talks about: The OptaPro sub-brandLanguage: English

Meet the family

Talks about: Corporate news from OptaLanguage: English

2. Consistency is key. Develop trust by being reliable in content, tone and approach.

Stable.

We do not deviate from our tweet style:

Number

Fact

Summary Word

From OptaJoe:

15

David Beckham has scored the most direct free kick goals in Premier League history.

Specialist

From OptaJoe:

15

Newcastle United were forced into more last man saving tackles than any other team in

the Premier League.

Desperate

From OptaJoe:

122

No team allowed fewer shots on target against them than Chelsea.

Bus

From OptaJoe:

352

Alex Pearce of Reading made more headed clearances than any other player in the

Championship.

Nurofen

From OptaPaolo:

781

Pirlo è stato il calciatore italiano con più minuti giocati nelle qualificazioni a Brasile

2014.

Pilastro

From OptaPaolo:

781

Pirlo is the Italian player with the most minutes played during WC2014 qualification

Pillar

Often imitated (over 400 copy accounts at last count), sometimes amusingly:

Sometimes informatively:

And sometimes fairly disturbingly:

2.1 But try to tailor this consistent approach across markets where appropriate. Global.

3. Be human, be approachable, let staff join in conversations. Chill.

3.1 Proud and engaged staff is a

powerful brand statement.

3.2 But make sure everyone knows the rules of engagement

4. Don’t let people forget they’re following you. Stranger.

5. Timing is important. Clockwork.

5.1 Utilise scheduling…If your audience mainly read their timelines

when they’re here:

Why do you keep posting content when they’re here?

6. There are people who can, and will , happily amplify your message if targeted

correctly. Loud.

7. Don’t platform hop. If a corporate Snapchat account doesn’t suit you, your

brand or your content, ignore it. Fad.

8. Monitor what you’re doing and test different approaches over time. Evolve.

Trending.

9. Play the long game. Don’t start getting twitchy when you have 8 followers after 2

weeks. Patience.

10. You are on people’s timelines for a reason. Be interesting. Or helpful. Or offer an

insider’s perspective. Filter.

This is what a Twitter timeline does:

Things that didn’t make the list, but are also relevant to us:

- Only retweet appropriate stuff from appropriate people

- Don’t use loads of hashtags for no real reason. #hashtags #reason #loads

- No-one cares if you’re nearly at 5/10/100k followers (especially those who are already following you)

- Accept that not everyone will be a fan. Take criticism well. Learn to ignore the ridiculous stuff. (see later)

An average of 20k retweets per week (sometimes as many as 50k)

On average 1,800 @ mentions per week

Tweet on average 65 times per day

Global reach on Twitter of 147m users per week

So, how has it worked? A few vanity metrics for you

(I know we all love these, right?):

Opta has quadrupled its turnover in the last 4 years

Monthly in-bound sales leads from May 2014 are 760% higher than the corresponding month in 2010.

We are now the official data provider for all of the best leagues and competitions in the World

OptaJoe and his pals are mentioned in almost every client meeting we go to, and the vast majority of our job interviews

OptaJoe has helped to transform our company. Bless him.

And a few ones that aren’t so vain:

But you can’t please everyone

But hang on a second, maybe you can please everyone – Joey is now our friend

Any questions?

Simon Banoub @banouby