By Tom Parsons
March 27 -West Ham held the Premier League’s first Social Media Match around their fixture against Hull City last night. The multi-activity initiative was aimed at engaging with as many of their 900,000 fans on Social Media platforms as possible with “interactive interviews, features and competitions”.
Pre-match
Players wore shirts in the warm up with messages that have been sent in by fans on Twitter printed on to the shirts. The programme also included a full interview conducted on Twitter with Mohamed Diame using the hash-tag #AskMo.
On Matchday
Goalkeeper Adrian had left one his gloves in a undisclosed location in east-London where one lucky fan (Craig Apps) won the gloves and tickets to the game. The location of the glove was announced at 12pm and a race was then on to find the glove! Fans also voted for the three songs played at half-time on the PA system on the official West Ham page (@whufc_official) using the hash tag #HammersPlaylist. Midfielder Matt Taylor tweeted in the lead up to the game on his Twitter account throughout Wednesday. Videos from throughout the day were shown on the clubs official YouTube channel.
During the match
Matt Jarvis commentated on the game on the club’s official Twitter feed. The club also asked fans to Tweet “selfies” of themselves from wherever they were watching the game with the hash tag #HammerTime. Images from the game were shared on all platforms. The man of the match was voted for on Twitter and signed prizes were given away to people who had taken part in the competitions throughout the day.
West Ham’s Media Officer (Digital), Leo Tyrie, speaking to UK Sports Network, said before the game:
“As a Club West Ham United are always looking for new and exciting ways to engage with our fanbase and the idea of theming a match around our social media output made perfect sense for us.
“Our numbers across Twitter and Facebook have steadily climbed over the past couple of years, while we have recently developed our output further across Instagram, Google+ and YouTube. We want our supporters to feel as involved in the matchday experience as possible and we’re looking forward to showcaseing their – and our – content around the match against Hull.”
West Ham won the game 2-1 after Hull had a player sent off. But fan engagement didn’t go entirely to plan with many booing the West Ham players for failing to dominate. “I’ve never been in a place where I’ve won and got booed,” said West Ham manager Sam Allardyce. “Fans affect players.”
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