Just over a year ago, those were the methods used by Graeme Thewliss and Sean Elderbrant, the two members of the Scottish Professional Football League’s (SPFL) content team.
Thewliss and Elderbrant had a limited amount of time and resources, both human and technological, to create and share content for 42 clubs in four tiers of Scottish football and two Cup competitions. In total, the duo cover more than 650 matches a season. They shared videos, images, and copy destined for social media via the aforementioned WhatsApp. It was a lot of “ugly sharing of content,” as they put it.
They would spend countless hours collecting footage from clubs, broadcasters, and YouTube, before editing highlight clips and scheduling everything natively through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. They relied on the social platforms for analytics, which proved to be limiting and lacked a deeper understanding of how their content was performing and the impact it was having.
Midway through the 2020-21 season, SPFL turned to automation to try and solve the countless pain points they were battling. They began using Content X, an all-in-one automated social content creation, distribution, and analytics platform. Content X automatically generates and distributes campaigns and all forms of content - textual, video, and infographic - across social channels.
The Difference is “Night and Day”
“Working with Content X, the difference in how easy it is for us to not only post things but analyze what we’re doing as well, is night and day,” shares Thewliss.
Automation has saved Elderbrant and Thewliss at least a day of work a week. This is time they now use to produce more creative content, such as midseason reviews, and they are able to pay special attention to lower-tier clubs. They even have time to plan ahead for the following season, something they were unable to do in the past.
“Creating a video with all the goals from the weekend used to be Sean’s whole Monday morning,” Thewliss explains. “Now on a Monday morning, all the goals arrive on Content X, which Sean just publishes. Instead of it being 14:00 when Sean is finished doing the weekend action, it’s 11:00. He’s gaining 2-3 hours.”
Improved Workflows, A Clearer Picture
Their workflows have also improved. They no longer share content on their phones or log information on Google Sheets. Rather than scan YouTube and wait for footage from partner broadcasters, SPFL’s content is automatically produced by the platform and is waiting for them by the time they arrive in the office.
“The thing that shocked me most is just how flexible Content X is,” says Elderbrant. “In regards to centralization of content management, as well as the in-depth analytics it provides for our social platforms.”
This centralization of content management allows SPFL to be “more focused” when it comes to their posting strategy. But perhaps most importantly, using Content X has given SPFL’s content team a true understanding of the value of their content. Using the platform’s analytics section, Thewliss and Elderbrant finally gained additional insight into how their content is performing.
“I always felt we were doing well,” says Thewliss. “In terms of numbers we produced, it's jaw-dropping.” Content X has helped them understand which content pieces are performing and which aren’t, and how we can do better. We understood that we were massively over-posting on some platforms.
“It’s an opportunity to work smarter, not harder.”
The Outcome
Within five months, the SPFL saw KPIs improve across the board. Interactions nearly doubled, engagements doubled, they produced more than twice as many posts and their impressions grew by 40 percent.
“If you put more love and more care into something you’re creating then generally the response from fans is much better,” says Thewliss.
By using Content X and letting automation do the heavy lifting, SPFL finally has the time to put more love and care into their content, and by doing so to continue promoting Scottish football around the world.
Content X proved incredibly valuable to SPFL, and with a new season ahead this collaboration is only going to improve and grow the reach of SPFL’s content on a global scale.
New Revenue Opportunities
By creating content at scale and leveraging Content X’s automated advocacy for content sharing, sports organizations can increase their digital assets and therefore their revenue opportunities, without any additional effort. More content means more chances to distribute videos and images to key stakeholders and create more brand activations.
Likewise, sports organizations can capitalize on the additional content to generate new revenues by automating calls to action and converting fans into consumers, by offering ticket purchases or merchandise within automated posts.
Automation also makes it easier and quicker to personalize content per market and fan base, assuring fans get the content they want, in their preferred language, and on the right platform, while correctly measuring the true value of content shared.
The combination of in-depth analytics and increased content output yields additional monetization opportunities, which can result in additional sponsors and partners as well as provide more content to existing ones.
About Content X
An all-in-one automated social content creation, distribution, and analytics platform. Content X is used by sports entities to automatically generate and distribute campaigns and all forms of content - textual, video, and infographic - across social channels. The platform’s automated system solves a number of pain points for marketing teams and allows content creators to accomplish more with the limited time they have.
Content X is the only content creation platform that automatically creates social campaigns, generates posts based on custom templates, and produces automated videos, graphics and text, that is tailored to fan preferences while complying with media guidelines, media rights and sponsor agreements.
Want to learn more about Content X? Read more in "How SPFL Amplified its Social Strategy with Content X" and book a demo today.
