Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 10:34 am  

JonB95 wrote:

the YouTube highlights channel recently went a month without any uploads. whoever does the digital media stuff is very inconsistent

These are just symptoms on how well the sport is being run.
If they cant be bothered to keep their website up to date, how the hell can we have faith that they are on top of the other media stuff.
It just makes the sport look amateur and then we cry about lack of interest.

Can you imagine anyone who is new to the game trying to look something up, they would quickly think, why bother.
We should be right on top of the on line stuff, facebook, twitter and t'internet.
No excuses, this is basic stuff.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:17 am  

We are in the age of social media. Websites are so 1999. Both the RFL and SL are very much active on social media

Regards

King James

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:36 am  

Lebron James wrote:

We are in the age of social media. Websites are so 1999. Both the RFL and SL are very much active on social media

Regards

King James

Although you may be right, perhaps you should have a look at the NRL, RFU or FA websites and see what they are all about.
Certainly they appear slightly more up to date than our effort

Aside from this RL has a pretty wide demographic in terms of the age of its supporter base and it's no good just reaching out to the under 40's, we need to cover all the bases.

If they aren't capable of keeping stuff up to date, it's better to get rid, rather than be out of date.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 11:52 am  

wrencat1873 wrote:

Aside from this RL has a pretty wide demographic in terms of the age of its supporter base and it's no good just reaching out to the under 40's, we need to cover all the bases.

Do we? Honestly, I can't help but feel that this sport's audience is getting smaller and narrower by the day. I certainly don't think that, if you went around Red Hall and the clubs asking "who is this sport's audience", you would get anything resembling a meaningful or coherent response.

As an aside, it's been noticable how many media and marketing related job roles seemed to be popping up on LinkedIn a few months back - and I can't imagine that it's due to the growth of the department.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:13 pm  

I rely on the website so much living out in Spain, it's very difficult to catch highlights.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 12:32 pm  

The website has been a disgrace for years, I remember last year I was trying to reference some starting line ups and they had Tony Clubb starting Full Back for Wigan. Meaningless polls and jovial banter on social media are no substitute for what should be the definitive source of information and news about the league.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:14 pm  

bramleyrhino wrote:

Do we? Honestly, I can't help but feel that this sport's audience is getting smaller and narrower by the day. I certainly don't think that, if you went around Red Hall and the clubs asking "who is this sport's audience", you would get anything resembling a meaningful or coherent response.

As an aside, it's been noticable how many media and marketing related job roles seemed to be popping up on LinkedIn a few months back - and I can't imagine that it's due to the growth of the department.

If the sports' audience is getting smaller then, it's more important than ever that we keep in touch with as many fans and possible new fans as possible and having the sports official website in such poor order is just mickey poor.

Can you imagine is all businesses did the same.
It's like Tescos not offering cornflakes or milk on their on line shop.
Not the end of the world but, their customers may just go elsewhere.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 1:54 pm  

The website is very poor. As mention the RFL/SL are quite good on social media but if you’re trying to find info or, for instance, buy tickets then a good website is important.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 2:35 pm  

They don't even post highlights from every game of each round on there anymore.

Re: Super League Website : Thu Jul 12, 2018 3:20 pm  

wrencat1873 wrote:

If the sports' audience is getting smaller then, it's more important than ever that we keep in touch with as many fans and possible new fans as possible and having the sports official website in such poor order is just mickey poor.

Can you imagine is all businesses did the same.
It's like Tescos not offering cornflakes or milk on their on line shop.
Not the end of the world but, their customers may just go elsewhere.

I agree. Digital properties should be a major asset but they aren't being properly utilised. Whether that is due to lack of resource, lack of skill, apathy or whether it's a conscious decision to focus on certain areas and audience segments, I don't know.

One of the difficulties the RFL / SE has is that the website does try to do a lot of things, and I'm not sure they know the priorities of those "things". Is the website a sales and marketing channel for SL? Is it just somewhere to put press releases? Is it somewhere that is there to develop the community game? Is is somewhere for people to read about match official appointments and disciplinary judgements? Is it supposed to be a video and multi-media platform? Or is it supposed to be the go-to place for original content? It's trying to do an awful lot, and not doing a lot of it very well.

By comparison, the websites of the NFL or NRL are much more focused on their approach. NFL.com is about fan engagement, about exclusive content and about video streaming that generates ad revenue. The NRL is similar. Either today or yesterday, there were 104 pieces of content posted to the news section of NRL.com - whilst that's probably skewed by Origin, it's still a huge amount. However, the level of resources that go into those websites (particuarly NFL.com) are enourmous - much more than the RFL/SLE could ever undertake with its current income streams - and the commercial value of that content would be much lower. The RFL/SLE are also somewhat hamstrung by a TV deal that doesn't really work for digital (they're not the only sport in this regard).

Again, I think a lot of that comes down to this lack of idea or clarity about 'audience'. It's the most important word in any sales and marketing approach but I don't think the RFL, nor most of the Super League clubs for that matter, could provide a meaningful description as to who their audiences actually are. Without that, it's very easy to make the wrong decisions.