Simon Banoub gave a presentation on social media lessons learned from Opta, a leading sports data company. Some of the key lessons included: being consistent in tone and content to develop trust; segmenting accounts and content for different audiences; having a human and approachable presence; timing posts appropriately; amplifying content through targeted sharing; playing the long game with social media by having patience; and ensuring content is interesting, helpful or offers insider perspectives for followers. Opta has been active on social media for 4 years, with over 670,000 total Twitter followers across 17 language-specific accounts.

1. Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch
My agenda:
• A bit about Opta
• Opta’s social media profile
• 10 social media learnings from OptaJoe

2. Who are ?
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

3. The world’s leading sports data company
Which means we:
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

4. Watch a lot of this
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

5. Use fancy software to turn the live action
into stuff like this:
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

6. Which often becomes stuff like this:
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

7. And we sell that, in various ways, to
people like this:

8. on social media
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

9. Active on social media for 4 years
17 accounts on Twitter, in 9 different languages
5 accounts on Facebook
A total of 670,000 Twitter followers
(led by OptaJoe on 418,000)
22,000 fans on Facebook

10. on Twitter
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

11. An average of 10k retweets per week
(sometimes as many as 50k)
On average 1,800 @ mentions per week
Tweet on average 65 times per day
Global reach on Twitter of 147m users per week

12. 10. Social media lessons from
Quickfire.
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

13. But first, a caveat or three:
This isn’t:
How to do Twitter
This is:
What worked for us
I might:
Repeat myself
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch

14. 1. Consistency is key. Develop trust by being
reliable in content, tone and approach.
Stable.

15. 2. Segment your audience, segment your
accounts, and tweet about appropriate stuff.
Relevance.

16. Simon Banoub @banouby
3. Be human, be approachable, let staff join
in conversations. Chill.

17. 4. Don’t let people forget they’re following
you. Stranger.

18. 5. Timing is important. Clockwork.

19. 6. There are people who can, and will ,
happily amplify your message if targeted
correctly. Loud.

20. 7. Don’t platform hop. If a corporate
Snapchat account doesn’t suit you, your
brand or your content, ignore it. Fad.

21. 8. Monitor what you’re doing and test
different approaches over time. Evolve.

22. 9. Play the long game. Don’t start getting
twitchy when you have 8 followers after 2
weeks. Patience.

23. 10. You are on people’s timelines for a
reason. Be interesting. Or helpful. Or offer an
insider’s perspective. Filter.
A whole world of totally
idiotic nonsense
People you trust You
All the information
everywhere
People who are cleverer than
you
You
Cool, funny, interesting
and secret stuff
People who have more access
than you
You

24. Things that didn’t make the list, but are also
relevant to us:
- Only retweet appropriate stuff from appropriate people
- Don’t use loads of hashtags for no real reason.
#hashtags #reason #loads
- No-one cares if you’re nearly at 5/10/100k followers
(especially those who are already following you)
- Accept that not everyone will be fan. Take criticism well.
Learn to ignore the ridiculous stuff.

25. Thank you.
Simon Banoub @banouby #LeedsSportLunch