Focus on Your Superfans

Superfans in sport are not as rare a sight as you may think. There’s always that one guy leading the chants, going to every game or being the life of the party in the stands.

Superfans in sport are not as rare a sight as you may think. There’s always that one guy leading the chants, going to every game or being the life of the party in the stands. Do the teams benefit from their presence and activity?

The short answer is yes, although being a distinctive superfan can sometimes even bring trouble to those dedicated individuals. However, the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. If you want to learn why you should focus on your superfans and how to do it, we have some insight, as well as stories about the most famous superfans in the world.

Identifying Your Superfans

Not all teams have superfans like the New York Jets’ Fireman Ed or the Chicago Cubs’ superfan Ronnie Woo-Woo. While some superfans will be boisterous and impossible to miss, there are types of fans who buy their season tickets and don’t miss any matches, but might otherwise keep a lower profile. Even if no fans are sporting special accessories and leading the chants on your team’s games, that doesn’t mean you don’t have superfans.

For example, have a look at your social media — there are indeed fans who engage with your content, who always comment and facilitate discussion. People who regularly attend games are also easy to identify. They are your superfans, and rewarding them for their loyalty can be rewarding for your team, too.

Offering a Loyalty Program

Your fans aren’t supporting your team for the rewards it might bring, but it’s certainly a good incentive and a friendly approach to nurture loyalty. One way of doing that is through loyalty programs. If you can make it into a win-win situation — providing increased revenue for the team while making your superfans feel appreciated — then it can be one of the best things you can do for your team’s future.

Make sure that your loyalty program operates on a system that’s fair to all fans while giving the most significant rewards to those who are most loyal. Purchasing season tickets is always an excellent parameter to go by, but there are other things you might reward and even stimulate. For example, if you want better engagement on social media, all you have to do is figure out what a valuable reward for encouraging that may be.

Combining Loyalty Programs with Great Fan Experience

Ultimately, the most successful loyalty programs rely on more than offering incentives and rewards. When you manage to pair it up with providing the best fan experience out there, then you’ll know you’re on the right path.

Of course, there are different ways of accomplishing that. The most recent rising star and the future of fan experience is the team app. Most fans spend a lot of time on mobile devices, so provide them with an app that delivers the information they crave. Contextual prediction gaming that nurtures their competitiveness, along with trivia that’s entertaining, is one of the most valuable assets of any team.

With Fanisko Engage, you get a way to enhance your existing team app and provide your fans with the most engaging experience. It’s certainly something your superfans will appreciate, and it can help with your efforts to create a valuable loyalty program. For more information on our platform and its features, visit our website.

Fan Engagement at the Rink and Beyond

For the most passionate hockey fans, nothing beats the feeling of being there, at the rink, watching the games unfold. But once the game is over and fans go home, what’s there to do other than wait for the next game?

For the most passionate hockey fans, nothing beats the feeling of being there, at the rink, watching the games unfold. But once the game is over and fans go home, what’s there to do other than wait for the next game?

There could be quite a few things. Hockey teams focus on improving the fan experience immediately before and during games, which is commendable, but they could be doing more. When it comes to fan engagement at the rink and beyond, there are things you can do to ensure that fans stay engaged and in touch during the time while they wait for the next game. Let’s have a look at a few of ways to improve fan engagement:

Make Them Play

Fantasy sports have gotten popular for a reason — for the teams, it helps keep fans in touch with the latest news, and for the fans, it’s a way of showing how well they know the sport and being competitive in their way. So if you want to engage your fans, make them play team-related games!

It doesn’t have to be fantasy — you could have them take part in quizzes and offer cool prizes for the best players. Augmented Reality stations and Mixed Reality games are also a cool way to both use the latest technologies and keep fans engaged at the rink. Either way, fans will jump at the opportunity to test and prove their knowledge about their favorite team, especially if the prizes are attractive enough.

Offer Exclusive Content

Exclusivity is a way of making your team-related content more interesting, and it also helps it be perceived as more valuable. It’s a great way of engaging fans beyond the rink. For example, you can offer them a player interview that they won’t be able to find anywhere else, or follow a player for a day to get a glimpse into a hockey professional’s day-to-day life.

Fans appreciate when they can get a look behind the scenes, so you can have content that reflects that as well. How does a professional prepare for a game? What are their rituals, their routines, and way of thinking before a match? At least through video content, offer the fans a chance to go “backstage” and see how things work if you wish to increase engagement.

Use a Team App to Bring Engagement Levels Up

All this and more becomes possible with an SDK-integrated platform that can improve your existing team app or help you build a new one from scratch. Fanisko Engage offers a multitude of features, including AR and MR gaming, fantasy leagues and predictions, as well as content that connects fans and also keeps them in the loop regarding the latest team news. Once you provide them with exclusive content they’re craving, your fan engagement will shoot up, which opens the door to more effective marketing and better ROI.

Ultimately, how you choose to engage fans is up to you, but some solutions can make that job so much easier. For more information on how we can help, visit our website and take an in-depth look at the features of Fanisko Engage.

4 Tips to Boost Fan Engagement

Boosting fan engagement is a crucial first lesson you should learn to keep your team fan base growing. Here are our four tips to encourage fan engagement:

Once you realize how vital fan engagement is, you’re only starting your journey of elevating your team to stardom. You still need to learn the ins and outs of fan engagement and find the right platform that can help you achieve your goals.

Boosting fan engagement is a crucial first lesson you should learn to keep your team fan base growing. Here are our four tips to encourage fan engagement:

Be Present Throughout the Year

During the off-season, you likely won’t have as much involvement as you would while games are being played regularly. Still, that doesn’t mean you should stop trying to communicate with your fans. There are ways to keep engagement levels high even during the off-season, especially with the most passionate fans that enjoy next season speculation and rumors.

Make sure that you’re fighting short attention spans by reminding your fans that there’s life in the off-season, too! Engage them with highlights from the last season, polls about the best players, matches, and keep the discussion alive. Get them pumped and excited for the upcoming season.

Make the Most out of Team Announcements

Even if your team’s not playing a big match or you don’t have any significant news to announce, you can still keep fans engaged. A training session could be extremely interesting for your fans if you know how to create buzz around it. The players could perform a unique challenge in their off time, or pull off a neat skill trick or two that will get the fans talking about it.

Of course, new signings and announcements are equally essential to take advantage of, both during the season and during the break. Make sure to create buzz around upcoming big matches, ask for predictions, and show your fans that their opinion is valued. You’ll be surprised by the increase in the engagement.

Make Your Fans a Family

Most successful teams are the ones where fans feel like family. Striving to create a friendly, family atmosphere around the club is much easier when fans are engaged and passionate about the team. Even the smallest local groups can have their die-hard supporters who are there because they feel valued and essential.

By engaging with fans through team engagement platforms, you show that you want them to create a strong bond with the team. That’s something people find invaluable, and that kind of devotion isn’t only reserved for the biggest clubs in the game.

A Fan Engagement Platform that Does the Job

All this sounds great, but not all fan engagement platforms out there can deliver the results. With Fanisko Engage, our SDK integration platform, your team will get a multitude of ways to engage fans effectively and boost engagement. If you already have a team app, our platform will enhance it, using AI, Mixed and Augmented reality, polls, video content and much more. It also provides data analytics that helps you figure out what boosts your engagement most and how.

Visit our website for more information about how our fan engagement platform can become your perfect ally in making your fan base more significant and your team more relevant.