We identify ten of the most active and influential individuals operating in social media in the sporting and sponsorship area, and find out a little of what excites them in terms of what they do. Today we sit down with Barry Cunningham, the man behind the Irish Rugby Social Media accounts…
Who is Barry Cunningham and what do you do that has secured your place as a Social media Maven for 2016?
I definitely haven’t been nominated for my personal twitter account. I am the Digital Marketing and CRM for the Irish Rugby Football union so you’ll really only know me if you’re a rugby fan.
I manage our digital and social media content and strategy. When I started with the IRFU we had a website. We are now the biggest digital sport in Ireland.
We have done that on the back of the highs and lows on the pitch and we have a fairly simple approach to what we do. We make it authentic, we don’t buy cheap engagements and we interact when we have a story to tell or when our supporters want to talk to us.
We now have a small internal team of people that create and deliver our content across irishrugby.ie, youtube, facebook, twitter and instagram. We love the sport and that’s what drives our commitment to showing it in the best light on social media.
We work closely with Inpho and Videos On The Net – photos and video help us to tell the story and are key to authentic and organic engagement.
What is your personal favourite Social Media Channel?
I like where facebook is heading with live content and I really like the reach we can achieve but I still enjoy the immediacy that twitter offers – particularly for live sport.
What do you think is the best thing about being able to communicate directly to fans or customers?
Exactly that – the direct communication. We can speak to rugby people without the filters or opinions of the established media. That can be as simple as live streaming a match, though that in itself is quite an operation, or it can be about allowing players and coaches a voice in a more natural way that shows their commitment, work ethic and that they are also normal men and women.
We aim to make our content as authentic as possible. If it is player focused, we want the players to feel comfortable with it as that showcases their personality much better.
Read the views of our other Social Media Mavens for 2016
Everything we do is about selling the game of rugby. That can be a straightforward traditional jersey or ticket transaction, but it is also about coaching courses, nutrition advice and introducing young kids to the game in a fun and safe way.
We’ve adopted the ‘Field Of Dreams’ mantra ‘If you build it they will come’. We’ve built this huge online community and now we want them to come to rugby. We want to turn main eventers into fans, fans into supporters and supporters into stakeholders. Direct contact is vital to that end.
How much a part of your overall approach to marketing is geared towards social?
More and more each month. From a marketing and communication perspective our digital channels are simply the new way to reach our audience and find new fans and supporters.
We don’t have a huge budget to spend on marketing but social allows us to maximise the targeting of the spend – be that selling tickets to the Women’s Rugby World Cup or reaching young players with advice on nutrition.
Broadcasting or engagement, if you had to pick one which is the most important?
I think we are seeing, more and more, that they go hand in hand. Live matches are huge social events – in the true sense of the word. People want to share the emotion of those days – whether they are at the match or watching it a home.
We have been live streaming Ulster Bank League and Women’s international matches for several years now on youtube and our website. In November we also used facebook for the first time and the post reach was over 250,000 people.
That kind of mass awareness is invaluable and the engagement level was excellent. By combining the broadcast features of youtube – which work really well for residual views – and the more engagement friendly interface of facebook we get the best of both worlds.
What are three social media accounts that you enjoy following?
I like the Harpin On Rugby blog. It’s born out of passion for the game, it has created a great community of readers and contributors and what I like most about is that Jeff, who runs it, and the various contributors put their hands up and say ‘This is me, this is my rugby background and this is my opinion’.
I love to read what Brian Moore has to tweet; he’s as uncompromising on twitter as he was for England, and he’s a hooker so he talks about the most important part of the game – the front row – a lot!
The 42.ie is a go to for sport
Finally give us a social media post that you were pleased with the response to…
We’ve had some incredible responses recently – over 1 million engagements in November alone including Tunnel Cam from Soldier Field and our RWC 2023 video – and that is driven by the success of the players on the pitch.
I think one of my favourites though was an off pitch moment from the Rugby World Cup in 2015.
Paul O’Connell’s joke about the backs going shopping was great. It showed that this fearsome competitor, this great leader of men is a really funny bloke.
It also showed the value of social media.
We knew the minute he said it that we had a ‘hit’ on our hands. John Sherwin (VOTN) and I headed straight back to the team hotel and got it edited and out on facebook and youtube. Several hundred thousand views later that proved true. Without social media it was just a funny anecdote that a few people read about or heard.
