Tom Kwah, Head of Content at Northampton Saints, discusses the digital team’s cross-platform approach to fostering online communities.
Pound-for-pound, we like to think Northampton Saints produces some of the most engaging content of any professional sports team in the UK. Through our small in-house team, we create campaigns that aim to be original, high-quality, honest, and which drive our club’s objectives. We are hugely focused on quality over quantity. Every post has a purpose, while our focus remains on developing unique and exclusive content focused around rugby and the characters in our squad, rather than re-purposing memes or piggy-backing on popular culture.
In staying true to this mantra, we have been able not only to bring our supporters closer to the club than ever before, but also drive the commercial aims of Northampton Saints.
Our main objective for social media is to connect with our supporters and bring them closer to the club they love. According to Premiership Rugby research, there are 9.1 million rugby fans in the UK, of which 1.9 million are ‘core’ engaged supporters, so we believe there is also a huge opportunity for audience growth in rugby union.
Our audience growth strategy has two objectives. Firstly, to deepen our relationship with our existing supporters. And secondly, to attract new audiences, engage with them and convert them into lifelong Saints fans.
To achieve our objectives, we employ a multi-platform content approach, which we believe is key to attracting new and younger audiences, as well as engaging with our existing, core supporters. This is backed up by a bespoke content plan for every platform, with posts tailored to the relevant demographic, whether it is the youngsters of TikTok or the more mature audience we have on Facebook. Innovation and a willingness to try new things is also key to our approach and Saints’ following has been boosted over the past two seasons after we became the first professional rugby club with a TikTok account, our second post on the platform receiving over two million views.
We are also partnered with a company called Arwen, a marketing technology platform which uses artificial intelligence to remove spam or comments containing hateful or abusive language from our social media channels.
While we have developed an overwhelmingly positive online community, we do occasionally have to deal with some unpleasant comments – especially on Twitter – which is why we use Arwen. It’s a clever platform which helps to foster a more positive and inclusive environment which in turn allows our supporters and followers to engage more freely with our content.
We’ve even plugged it into a few of our players who have a significant following on social media. It can be extremely helpful, particularly around big Premiership and European games when the trolls come out to play.
Meanwhile, the access we have been granted by the team on matchday and in the week is unparalleled in Premiership Rugby, with our behind-the-scenes documentaries receiving rave reviews from supporters and pundits of the game.
Our success on social media has had a direct influence on the club’s commercial objectives. For the 2021/22 season, Northampton Saints made a profit before tax of £0.3m, with a record turnover of £20.4m – a great result given the wider challenges experienced across the league. Throughout the season there was direct correlation between the release of our content and ticket sales (Saints were one of only three clubs to grow matchday attendances in 2021/22). For example, our behind-the-scenes mini documentaries saw season ticket sales and hospitality spike dramatically over the summer, a period where sales are typically flat.
