England

#RoyRang allows Saints fans to share Shaw's England joy

Scott Goodacre

Scott Goodacre

— 2 min read
#RoyRang allows Saints fans to share Shaw's England joy

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, but we’re once again casting envious eyes towards Southampton football club who have popped up with a brilliant example of how to use Vine at a professional football club. They’ve been social media pioneers for a while now, but this particular case shows brilliant evidence of what can be achieved when you get players on board.

18-year-old Luke Shaw, who plays at left back for the club, received a call from England manager Roy Hodgson telling him to pack his bags as he was going to join the international team ahead of their midweek match against Denmark. While that’s brilliant news for the player, more exciting for us was this Vine posted by the club with the hashtag #RoyRang.

Simple, yet a brilliant way to allow fans to share in the player’s excitement at being called up to represent his country. Obviously this isn’t the real phone call, as the club’s Communications Officer and Head of Social Media Jim Lucas alluded to on Twitter, but no matter how it was done it was an inspired piece of viral marketing. The original Tweet on @SouthamptonFC picked up nearly 1000 Retweets and hundreds of favourites, but then moved up a notch when the club’s media team spotted a chance to run a competition and allow fans around the world to have a bit of fun too.

Thus, the #RoyRang competition was born: all of the club’s followers were encouraged to record a Vine of them being called by Roy Hodgson and their reaction to the news. The prize? A signed pair of Luke Shaw’s boots.

It’s worth checking out the #RoyRang hashtag on Twitter to see some of the submissions, including some from the club’s photographer, Twitter’s head of Sport, @mjhowler from Southampton who sent the club this:

Southampton have celebrated Shaw’s first call-up to the England squad brilliantly, giving fans the chance to get involved and feel part of the club. No doubt there’ll be more innovations to come from the South coast club in the future.

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