Generate Buzz and Get Your Fan Base Excited About Your Team

Just like Apple or any other company, a sports team is a business, and they have to work hard to stay competitive.

Today, top athletes earn millions of dollars annually, and the most prominent sports teams have hundreds of millions of fans all over the globe. We live in the internet age, where everything is available to the user with a few clicks.

If you take a look at teams with enormous fan bases, you might think they don’t have to try hard to engage their fans. To an extent, that’s correct – sports fans are the most loyal customers in any industry. However, that doesn’t mean that those teams don’t have to create buzz around themselves to keep the fans excited. Just like Apple or any other company, a sports team is a business, and they have to work hard to stay competitive.

Fortunately, the digital world gives the opportunity to smaller local teams to stand out and quickly increase their fan base exponentially. Let’s have a look at ways to create buzz and get your fan base excited about your team:

Use Your Strengths and Team Events
Bring your ‘A’ game to the table and use everything you can to create buzz. For example, engaging fans through sharing important team news is a sure way to victory. Signed a new player? Make sure your fans know it! Contract extensions, big match announcements, all of those can be a chance to get fans involved. Don’t wait for them to gather news they’re hungry for – feed it to them, and they’ll be more engaged.

Take Advantage of Video Content
Recent studies suggest that we read less every year, especially online. We don’t have the time to sit down and get every bit of information. We catch up with recent events during idle times such as commuting. That’s why video content is on the rise – it requires little effort, and provides more information in the same amount of time. Studies also show that video is far more engaging and more natural to consume than any other type of content. It gives you a perfect opportunity to increase fan engagement and deliver content that’s easy for them to absorb.

Engage Fans via Polls
Polls can be a great way to engage your fan base if you implement them right. For example, you can engage the fans before an important match and ask how they think the game will end. You could even organize contests and reward those who guessed correctly. Poll them to find out what they think who the best player in the most recent game was, and give them the opportunity to see the results and discuss them.

A Helping Hand is Always Welcome
With Fanisko Engage, your team will get all these functionalities and more. Our SDK integration platform helps teams engage fans through video content, polls, fan contests, as well as AI, Mixed and Augmented reality. It’s intuitive, easy and exciting for fans to use. And its beneficial for the teams that experience higher engagement and increased session times.

Via Fanisko, you can easily keep your fans engaged and excited about your team. Don’t hesitate to visit our website for more information about our platform.

How Do You Engage Fans in the Age of Short Attention Spans?

We live in the age of short attention spans – the fact that scientific research has confirmed. Digitalization of all aspects of our lives has brought us some good things, but also plenty of distractions. According to Microsoft Corp. study, we now have an average attention span of about 8 seconds. Whether it stagnates or continues to deteriorate, one thing for sure: the current downward trend is being felt in all industries.

When it comes to sport, the decline in ratings and general TV viewership is undoubtedly becoming more worrisome for sports executives. Since fans are overwhelmed by options across a multitude of devices, they can’t keep up. So how do you engage fans in the age of short attention spans?

Millennials as Part of the Equation

While millennials are hardly to blame for the overall drop in ratings, it is interesting to take a look at how they approach sports. For example, Nielsen data for the NFL shows that even though it may seem that ratings have decreased among millennials, the number of millennials who watch NFL has in fact seen an increase. So what caused the drop? It was that millennials watched fewer games, and there was also a decline in the minutes observed per game. As it turns out, fans are starting to watch sports less often, and for shorter periods of time.

The Importance of Keeping Fans Engaged

A decrease in fan engagement is the last thing any sports executive or club desires. In more ways than one, sport thrives precisely off of fan engagement, being the only industry where you get fans and loyalty even if you lack results. For this reason, it’s critical for the sports industry to find ways to battle short attention spans. TV is losing relevance, but merely to alter the platform from TV video to PC and mobile might not be enough. But what if the digital sports experience could innovate in ways that drive more fan engagement?

Battling Short Attention Spans

The fear of missing out drives Today’s generation and that fear should be exploited in productive ways. There are plenty of suggestions for improving fan engagement by feeding them information and making sports even more accessible to follow. Designing products that can make the best out of the digital age is the way to go. Make content more interactive and relevant to the fans, to keep them engaged even on days when no matches are being played.

Digital Platforms for Fan Engagement

Fortunately, some platforms can help clubs and teams engage fans so that they don’t leave to do other things. Fanisko Engage is one such product, as it offers plenty of features that have helped our clients see increased session times and higher engagement. It’s an SDK integration platform that utilizes Mixed and Augmented Reality as well as AI to improve the fan experience, gamification, and personalization.

Conclusion

Industries need to move fast and evolve in the digital era, and sports is no exception. Our product Fanisko Engage provides teams with just the kind of solution they need to stay relevant and attractive to fans. Visit our website for more information on it.

NAHL announces partnership with Fanisko

The North American Hockey League (NAHL) is pleased to announce a new partnership with Fanisko to be the official fan engagement partner of the NAHL, NA3HL, and NAPHL.

This marks Fanisko’s first foray into the sport of hockey. Fanisko will have the opportunity to collaborate with 120+ teams in all three leagues.

“Our platform combines augmented reality (AR) for gamification with AI for personalization, thus, allowing sports teams to connect with their fans wherever they are. With Fanisko, the fans don’t just support the team, they ARE the team. Through this partnership, we look forward to increasing mobile fan retention and creating new revenue opportunities for team,” said Sathish Chittibabu, Cofounder & CEO for Fanisko.

Fanisko’s technology powers sports teams & leagues mobile apps and digital platforms so fans can live the unforgettable moments right through their phones with Mixed Reality Experiences — That’s one-of-a-kind Gamification & Content using Augmented Reality (AR) + Virtual Reality (VR) + Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“This is an exciting new partnership for our leagues because even if some of our teams have their mobile apps, many fans prefer to keep themselves up to date by making use of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, or Snapchat. Fanisko can help our teams further engage with their fanbase by funneling all of this content on the platform,” said Alex Kyrias, Director of Communications, Sales & Marketing for the NAHL.

Additionally, the new partnership might witness Augmented Reality (AR) / Mixed Reality fan experiences for NAHL fans in collaboration with existing sponsors of NAHL and open up new revenue channel for the teams.

For more information on Fanisko visit http://www.fanisko.com. For media requests and partnership inquiries, email info@fanisko.com.

How Data Is Changing the Nature of Fan Engagement

Today’s mobile and social technologies have completely transformed the way fans consume their sports content and how they interact with their favorite clubs on a daily basis. It’s safe to say that it’s no longer enough for organizations to think they know what their fans want, and instead, they have to know what they want.

Today’s mobile and social technologies have completely transformed the way fans consume their sports content and how they interact with their favorite clubs on a daily basis. It’s safe to say that it’s no longer enough for organizations to think they know what their fans want, and instead, they have to know what they want.

As a direct consequence of this trend, sports teams and their stakeholders are on a constant lookout for new methods on getting their supporters connected by adding more value to their fan experience. But to do that, however, they need to understand better what drives their fans and what makes them look for more.

As GlobalSportsJobs CEO Will Lloyd states: “The answer, as so often these days, is data.”

From any given club’s perspective, fan data is a precious asset to have. And it’s only those teams that have figured out ways on how to gather, analyze, and utilize this data to their advantage, who have a chance to increase the value of their fan engagement in a consistent manner. In other words, the information allows sports teams to get inside their fans’ heads, and in a sense, anticipate their actions, their desires, and their dislikes. It is to provide them with everything that they will ever want or need from their team.

“It is more important than ever to understand who our fans are and how they want to engage with us,” said Ian Treseder, Marketing and Commercial Manager at the European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR).

Fan Data Analytics Application

Analytics can be applied in a wide range of areas such as ticket pricing, customer relationship management; sales inventory, and, of course, fan engagement. But when it comes to the latter, in particular, it can be used to enhance the live game experience, as well as to increase both fan and sponsor participation.

With abundant data at their disposal, sports teams can find new and innovative ways to engage specific fan groups. Live engagement can, for instance, be used to enhance the in-game experience, like requesting a particular song or earning a reward for frequent concession purchases.

With past attendance data, teams can increase ticket purchases with targeted promotions and offer personalized discounts for similar games like those previously attended. Similarly, this sort of data can be used to target those who don’t attend games as much and could be motivated through some custom-tailored promotions. Sponsor ads can also be personalized based on the fans’ past behavior, both on and off the stadium, for increased effectiveness.

Fans Using Data

Sports fans are also keen on getting their hands on some data, and some teams are more than willing to provide it. The data offers a fan what they want to know. It can be about how fast a player is running, or the distance a player covered on the court, or other in-depth information about what’s going on. Many fans are also into fantasy sports, and by having this sort of data, it can influence their picks for their fantasy teams. In short, there is a multitude of ways that data can be used to enhance fan engagement.

Conclusion

As an SDK integration platform, Fanisko Engage can provide both you and your fans with the necessary data for a more engaging and pleasurable fan experience overall. From front-end interaction like Mixed Reality for fan experiences, Augmented Reality for gamification, and Artificial Intelligence for personalization, to back-end analytics, Fanisko brings teams into the modern era of data-driven fan engagement. For more information, please feel free to check out our website.

The Importance of an Integrated Fan Engagement Platform

Enhancing the fan experience at the stadium has always been on the mind of sports clubs, ever since sports became an industry. But as technology is progressing and we are finding ourselves in the midst of yet another technological revolution, the focus has been slowly shifting away from the ‘match day’ and more into the ‘every other day.’

Some, more forward-thinking sports teams have realized that fan engagement plays a crucial role in their growth strategy and that there is much more to it than what’s happening during match day. There are four other fan engagement strategies, all tied together by a fully integrated fan engagement platform.

Hosting Fans

Non-match days provide an excellent opportunity to entertain fans at your venue to make them feel more like part of the team. A tremendous and intimate experience is stadium tours. The Minnesota Vikings, on the other hand, use virtual reality to bring the club’s history to life for their fans. The club’s stadium has a 10,000 sq. foot interactive experience, known as the “Vikings Voyage.”

Connecting Fans

Sports fans are tribal, and they want to communicate with their fellow fans almost as much as they do with the team, itself. Facilitating those connections is a sound fan engagement strategy. Behind-the-scenes experiences with the help of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR,) as well as 360-degree video are a great example of fan-team connectivity. It is how the New England Patriots do it with their “Travel Inside the Game” initiative. Fantasy football and other such eSports are a great way to connect fans.

Bringing Fans Closer to the Live Action

As sports clubs grow, so does the fan base. But as it so happens, not everyone can attend the matches, mostly because of geographical distances. But as VR technologies continue to develop, it is possible to make these fans feel like they’re on the pitch, from the comfort of their own homes.

Enhancing the Live Experience

Empty stands can and will result in a flat atmosphere, even for those watching at home. Improving the live experience and drawing in the crowds, is and will continue to remain an essential factor. AR/VR technologies like MLB At Bat app is one example of bringing people back to the stadium. On-location free Wi-Fi is a given.

The Integrated Fan Engagement Platform

More sports teams recognize the importance of having a fully-integrated digital platform where they can stay connected with their fans and have fun and interactive activities happening 24/7, 365 days per year. The best such platforms, like Fanisko Engage, will integrate operations from all the four fan engagement strategies mentioned above.