Sofanatics

Super Sunday: Greetings from the Fan Captains

Tomorrow Manchester City hosts Tottenham and Manchester United travels to Emirates Stadium to play against Arsenal. It's Super Sunday! Here are the greetings for the fans from Sofanatics Fan Captains.

Manchester City-Tottenham

John Lansdell (Manchester City)

"Hello everyone, after the disappointment in the Cup games we managed to get into winning ways again at Wigan. Going to be a test for us against Spurs but I'm sure Joe will give us another clean sheet. I think we are missing YaYa a lot more than expected but wish him well representing his country in Africa.

My prediction? A nil-nil draw. Come on you Blues!"

Darren Usher (Tottenham)

"After the dissapointment of not taking all 3 points from Wolves, we are looking for a massive show from the team on Sunday so we can rip the title race back open again. 3 points from this game would be massive, avenge the result of our previous meeting and make a statement of our intentions of being serious title contenders. COYS."

Arsenal-Manchester United

Fiona Jayne Ross (Arsenal)

"Gooners,

This weekend see Manchester United coming to the Emirates. It's going to be big game and a time to silence those who seem hell bent on putting the Arsenal down. In August we had bad defeat at Old Trafford but since then we have grown, the team has come together and although last weekend saw us lose.

I believe we can show like we did against Chelsea that we are a force to be reckoned with. It going to be brilliant game. Im getting good vibes having listened to Wenger talk. I know the injury list is vast but that has never ever stopped the gunners from doing the best they can. So I ask that we as FANS on Sofanatics get behind the team and let our voice be heard

Keep the faith!!! ohhhhhhh to be a Gooner!!! No matter what happens we have to be strong and believe that we can do just that WIN this game. Postive thinking is what is called for!!! 

See you at the match....."

Liz Craig (Manchester United)

"SUPER SUNDAY, United family! This is huge, intense, totally wild - and it may well play a MASSIVE role in where we stand come May. So what we gotta do is stay behind the lads all the way here. Let's focus on the football - and it's going to be some GREAT football, isn't it?

GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED, THE REDS GO MARCHING ON!"

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

Manchester United has the most unrealistic fans

It's no news that the sports fans think their team will perform better than it actually does. But which team has the most unrealistic fans? The answer is: Manchester United.

Image by CuLeX

After going through tens of thousands of score predictions made in Sofanatics this season and comparing them to actual results, we were able to see which football teams have the most realistic supporters - and spot the dreamers.

In total, football fans overestimate their teams wins by 0,96 goals. No surprise there.

One could think that the almighty Barça would have too confident fans. That is not true. FC Barcelona's supporters are the most realistic. When Man Utd fans estimate their club's winning with 1,55 times bigger goal difference than the club actually does, the number for Barça is only 0,37.

Here are the results!

Difference between score predictions and results among the big football teams (goal difference)

Source: Sofanatics.com database

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

How to make a hit feature? Let your users play

Developing a pioneer service means usually not really knowing what works for your users. Almost every time we've released a feature on Sofanatics we've been surprised. Most times we haven't been very successful.

This is a fact of life for startups like us: developing fast, releasing often and most importantly finding out what does NOT work.

Two weeks ago we added a nice little toy called Billboard to our virtual Stadium. With Billboard our users can make simple pixel images and post them to the Stadium for other fans to see. The Billboard has 41 horizontal "leds" and 27 vertical "leds" in ten colors.

The silly Billboard thing proved to be a hit. In two weeks we've had about 1,000 Billboards made and fans have spent hours creating these amazing images. The level of creativity has been fantastic.

So what did we learn? Maybe it is the simplicity that makes the feature a hit. You also need to give your users tools for creativity and play.

We have many ideas how to take this Billboard thing further. Would you like to do some simple animations maybe? What about saving your best Billboards to be used multiple times?

Here is some cool Billboards, thanks for these, keep making more, friends!

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

More Fan Captains!

Here they are: two more Fan Captains, both ladies. Liverpool's Ana comes from Portugal and Newcastle United's Ellen is Norwegian.

Our last post took us first to small a Canadian town, then to a Saudi Arabian oil city and after that to the suburbs of London.

This time we visit a historic Portuguese town and a place where Vikings live.

Ana Rijo, Liverpool (Braga, Portugal)
Image by Brendan Plant

My name is Ana, and I'm a 22-year-old Liverpool fan from Braga, Portugal. I've graduated from university this year. I love to write, sing, dance and play and watch football of course. 

Even though Ana lives in Southern Europe, he is a devoted supporter of the Three Lions and Liverpool.

I love everything about Liverpool. I'm a 100% red girl no matter if the team wins or loses. As long as I can remember, I've been a Liverpool supporter. It's the best team in the world.

I try to watch every Liverpool game and during the games I wear my Liverpool shirt.

I went two days straight to the hotel where they stayed in when they played for Europa League last March in Braga, just to be able to see them and meet them.

When Ana found Sofanatics, she got hooked immediately.

I saw a Sofanatics ad on Facebook and decided to try it. From that moment on, I've logged in for every Liverpool game I watch. It's good to meet the fellow Reds and share thoughts and ideas with them. They're all very nice people.

For other Reds Liverpool's Fan Captain wants to point out that it is crucial to stay with your team all times.

Never give up believing in Liverpool. We're the Mighty Reds and we'll always be the Kings of Europe. Keep supporting Liverpool both on Sofanatics and on the field... YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE!
 

Ellen Marie Værvågen, Newcastle United (Larvik, Norway) 
Image by gunnsteinlye

The most active supporter for Newcastle United is a lady from a tiny Norwegian town ‑ what are the odds for that! Ellen's devotion has some royal background.

I became a fan about two years ago.

My friends keep asking me why Newcastle? And then I just tell them that our Queen Sonja and our King Harald have a good relationship with England and Newcastle. Our King is an honorary citizen of Newcastle.

Like many Norwegians, Ellen loves the outdoors.

I work with people who need some extra caring. I love to work out in the gym, to go for a long walk in the woods, listen to music, take a boat trip, read books and just spend time with my friends.

And of course, I love football. My favorite team here in Norway is Odd Grenland - you may think it's an odd name. I go to see them play quite often.

 Gooooo Newcastle!!!

Congrats to the Captains!

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

Meet the Fan Captains

Every great community has people who work hard to keep the spirits up. We call them Fan Captains. Meet Liz, Fifi and Aftab, the first leaders of the biggest clubs on Sofanatics.

A Google image search with “football fan” results in war painted males and half-naked women. In real life a devoted fan is something else. Football – or soccer as they call it in US – is connecting millions of people from every corner of the globe, and the variety of supporters is amazing.

Sofanatics has active users from 200 different countries. They can be female or male and their age varies from kids to grandmas and papas.

Now it's time to present you the first Fan Captains, the most active fans of our biggest clubs.

Liz Craig, Manchester United (Red Deer, Canada) Image by Markjms

Liz joined Sofanatics two years a year ago. Back then Sofanatics had only few users. This Manchester United super fan, who is a true legend in the community, lives in a small Canadian town called Red Deer. Liz is online in almost every time the Red Devils walk onto the pitch.

I had heard a lot about Manchester United from online supporters, but it was only a few years ago I actually discovered the club for myself. This country, much as I love it, is still a football wasteland.

I fell totally in love with the entire club about five minutes into the first match broadcast I saw! I'm proud to walk down the street wearing my team jersey!

Referring to Manchester United's success this season, Liz says:

To my fellow fans, I would say this. We are absolutely spoiled for success. But the lads need us far more when the wheels come off the wagon, so to speak. They need us whether they win, lose or draw.

Also, if we want respect from supporters of other clubs, we have to give it too. Banter is great, it's what makes Sofanatics happen. But that can be done without nastiness and disrespect. We support the greatest club on the planet and it's our privilege and honour to do so. So let's be worthy of our wonderful lads!

Liz – who is currently writing a book of poetry about Manchester United – lives with her dog Rain who helps her to live an independent life even though she is a deaf person.

The dog and his owner share the same passion:

Rain is such a United fan! He growls when Liverpool players show up on the screen.

Aftab Ahmed, FC Barcelona (Dammam, Saudi Arabia) Image by Mohd Azli Abdul Malek

As the youngest Fan Captain of Sofanatics, Aftab, at age 24, has the great honour of leading the largest fan community on Sofanatics. He does that from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich region in the world.

I'm Aftab Ahmed from Dammam, Saudi Arabia. I'm basically from India, but brought up here. I'm a computer science engineer, only just graduated. I love football and support FC Barcelona. I love to spend my free time either playing football with friends or on the PC.

My love for FC Barcelona started when I was at school, grade eight. I supported Netherlands in the 1998 FIFA World Cup. Interestingly there were a lot of Dutch players in the Barça team that time.

Star Sports China was the only channel that we had as a sports channel, so I was stuck watching the Spanish League. Slowly I started getting fond of Barcelona. And to cut a long story short, here I am: a Barça fan to the core

The current Barça team gets only praises from the new Fan Captain:

I love how they play – beautiful, slick passing and organized team play. It's by far the best Barça team I've ever seen!

It’s a great honour to be selected as a Fan Captain. I want to share my happiness with everyone in our Sofanatics page. If I'm allowed, I'd like to give a shout-out to @Mindy, @Lisel, @Milad, @Marshal, @Lynn, @Meir, @YunLing and @Ehab who've all been really active on the page! And I’m so proud that we have the highest number of fans on Sofanatics, another record for Barça.

Fifi Ross, Arsenal (St. Albans, United Kingdom)

I am Fiona Jayne Ross, but most either call me Fi or Fifi. I live in a town just outside London. I am a mother of four children so that in itself keeps me very busy. I am also full time carer to my younger son who has disability.

Fifi joined Sofanatics in January and she has already posted thousands of messages to cheer for Arsenal. The love for Gunners goes in the family.

My grandfather and father were both supporters so it runs in the blood. I have always been a massive supporter but on losing my father two years back it became even more of a necessary focus to become involved in. It was like having something to share with him even though he was no longer around.

Sofanatics is brilliant because it gives supporters the chance to come together and meet fellow supporters worldwide. I also love the idea of bantering with the other team – all adding to the excitement.

The Fan Captain of Gunners feels bad about the current mood among her club’s supporters. As she sees it, the fans need to unite now when the times are bad:

It saddens me to see the harsh critics of Arsène Wenger, he has done a lot of good things for the club.

Gunners uniting, marching forward under the belief that the Arsenal is on its way up! Gooner 'till the day I die!

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

Want to increase engagement? Pull your Facebook ads

One week has gone by since we stopped buying users with ads. What happened?

Last week we did something radical: we switched off all our Facebook advertising, which was bringing in more than half of our match time traffic.

We were sure Sofanatics would become less active after this move. To prevent the silence we needed to get active. So we started contacting our users and increased our posts to Twitter and Facebook.

We also started listing teams not only by the number of users, but more importantly, based on the activity of their fans. So when you do something on Sofanatics you are not only getting points for yourself; you are helping your team to rise in the ranks.

The result? We had the biggest engagement jump in the history of the service: more messages than in the previous weekend when the ads were on, and a 50 per cent increase in the average time on site. Users now spend over 20 minutes on Sofanatics per visit.

So what did we learn? It's good to force yourself out of the comfort zone every now and then. Many services use advertising to keep their numbers up but that does not mean they have a healthy community.

Next we will be giving the stage to our greatest fans. We'll be making blog articles of you, the amazing football fans from all over the globe. We've learned that our users are not numbers. You are real and we need to respect the fact that you choose to spend time on our site.

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

It's time to learn from fans - and stop buying them

Sofanatics has stopped using Facebook advertising to attract new users. What does this mean for our community? Fewer users for a while, but better quality ones in the long-term, we hope.

Yesterday we stopped advertising Sofanatics via Facebook. This was a radical decision but one that we feel was necessary.

Several factors led to this decision. One of the primary reasons was the increasing cost of advertising - more about this in Toni's earlier post.

From a product development point of view, we decided that it was finally time to start learning from our users and stop 'buying' visitors to Sofanatics; it was time to get rid of the illusion of activity. We realized that we've been feeling too comfortable, with the ads guaranteeing people online during matches.

At the moment we have about 80,000 registered users, but few of you come back regularly. Most visit just once or twice and never return. We are the only ones to blame for this. We've been so focused on getting our numbers up, we have become like a rude host at a party, forgetting to ensure the happiness and satisfaction of our guests.

From now on we are dedicated to ensuring you can find real friends on Sofanatics. We aim to build a community that's growing because it's great - not because we use money to honeytrap Facebook users into dropping by. We hope to see the quality of interaction improve as we focus on taking care of our own: the registered users and the people they invite.

There is also one more reason for this big move: we have started to monitor your actions on Sofanatics and will be listing the greatest fans and the greatest teams (with the most active fans) soon. We don't want to influence those rankings with dollars spent on Facebook ads.

So, we hope you understand the reasons behind our move away from Facebook advertising, but even more, we hope you keep coming back and telling us what to do. We really need and appreciate your help now, friends!

Thanks!

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

Sofanatics quits Facebook advertising. This is why.

We have been spending a couple of thousand euros per month in advertising on Facebook advertising, but it doesn't work anymore for us.

For the time being, we have decided to quit advertising on Facebook. It has become just too expensive. We know that this decision will have a huge impact on the growth of Sofanatics, but we cannot justify the investment anymore - especially when we do not have all the revenue models in place.

There has been lots of discussion around growing Facebook ad prices. There are even some statistics about it. For us the average click price has risen about 50% in a half a year. And I have to say we have been extremely effective in optimising the ad costs by timing, targeting, and using super clever bidding strategies.

Also, the conversion rates are now lower. The worse precision is, perhaps, due to harder competition amongs the bidders. Worse conversion and higher click prices have doubled our customer acquisition cost. 

Another (funny) thing is that that the converted users seem to be less active and their retention is lower than earlier. The poorer ad targeting affects not only the conversion rate but the quality of the converted users too. Again, I have to say we have been optimising the targeting a lot. 

Sofanatics had the first "non-advertising day" Yesterday. We had slightly less visitors, but the average time on site doubled. In stead of 13 minutes it was almost 25 minutes. Fan spending 25 minutes on our site is far better basis for the growth than an expensive visitors lost in Sofanatics.

I know we won't be the only one doing similar decisions.

See Sami's post how this change will benefit our users

Posted by Toni Laturi 

Badges! New on Sofanatics!

Here are the first badges of Sofanatics. We'll be adding more challenging badges later. Thanks! Note: we've started to give away badges based on actions since last Friday (9th of September).

	Activity Fan For following at least three matches on Sofanatics
	Action Fan For the first completed actions on Sofanatics (result guess, shout-along, comment)
	Loyal Fan For loyalty for the team and Sofanatics (15 visits to Sofanatics)
	Evangelist For great achievements in spreading the word about Sofanatics (10 posts to Facebook from Sofanatics)
	Comrade For great achievements in making the other fans feel great about themselves (10 shout alongs to other users' messages)
	Cheerleader For great achievements in making the crowd go crazy on Sofanatics (5 shout-alongs from others to 5 messages)
	Mass Hypnotizer For extraordinary achievements in making the crowd go crazy on Sofanatics (10 shout-alongs from others to 5 messages)

Posted by Sami Kuusela 

Sofanatics becomes a Social Game for Sports Fans

The Stadium, released in April, made Sofanatics something no one had ever seen before. Now we are adding game features to the service to make Sofanatics even more fun and addictive. We've just added badges, next we'll start ranking the greatest teams and users. Let the competition start!

Greatest Teams - will your team be on top?

From now on, all the actions you do on Sofanatics will help your club to become the greatest team on Sofanatics. Every time you check-in, send a message or jump on Sofanatics, we add points to your teams account. So you are not just helping yourself, you are gaining points for the club you love.

We are already now monitoring all the actions of fans and the Greatest Teams list will be released any day now. It's time to start working for your team!

Get fame, become a Fan Captain

Would you like to be no 1. fan among over 13,000 Barça fans on Sofanatics? Wanna lead the Manchester United fan army? You can! 

30th of September we will announce the first Fan Captains on Sofanatics. There will be a Fan Captain for every activated team. Fan Captain is the most active fan of a team on Sofanatics. And as you might guess, we will be listing the Greatest Fans on the team pages any day now.

Fan Captains are selected in the end of every month. The most active fan becomes a Fan Captain for his/her team for the next month.

Fan Captains receive lots of fame among the Sofanatics users. They get also more visibility on the Stadium and on the team pages.

Badges and user profiles

Since last Friday our users have been awarded with badges. Any day now you will be able to see the profile cards of other users on the Stadium page and see how big fans the others really are. So you'll get more info and it will be much easier to make new friends on Sofanatics.

There will be info about badges shortly. And we'll ad the notifications too. But now you can just go to your profile on Sofanatics (link on top right corner next to your name) and see if you received any rewards during the weekend.

Thanks! We hope you are as excited as we are about the new features! Please give us feedback and keep sending those ideas so we can make Sofanatics a unique place for sports lovers!

Posted by Sami Kuusela