AS Roma’s decision to set up a Pidgin English Twitter account to cater to its Nigerian fans is finding great reception. In just 24 hours, they have hit more than 11,000 followers.
Take a look at AS Roma Pidgin: https://twitter.com/ASRomaPidgin?s=09
The club has become close to the heart of Nigerian Twitter since 2018 with fans requesting for a Pidgin account. In a statement on its website, it revealed how the love story started.
“Roma’s popularity amongst Nigerian football fans has been growing ever since the club featured Lagos radio personality Mark Otabor’s epic commentary of Roma’s comeback against Barcelona on the club’s English Twitter account and then ‘adopted’ Nigeria’s Super Eagles at the World Cup,” it said.
Meanwhile, Nigerian clubs are struggling to grow their social media equity due to the lack of proper engagement strategies with local fans. Enyimba, the NPFL’s most leading club, has 60,000 followers since 2013.
The most vociferously followed team in the league, Kano Pillars, has 48,700 since opening an account in 2012.
The success of the Roma Pidgin account can be tied to the impact of the main Roma English Twitter. The club has found a way to successfully engage with the football public in a manner that is fast creating a brand equity among fans from all over the world.
Brands like BBC have already tapped into the market when it set up Pidgin, Yoruba and Igbo language channels. Is there something they see that we’re failing to see?
Incredibly, clubs from the English Premier League that have the greatest following among Nigerian football fans have not looked to creating new means of engaging with a big market like ours.
Obviously, the popularity of these channels show that sports clubs, like news companies, need to find new ways to engage with the public.
Roma Twitter is showing how to engage by putting the fans at the heart of the conversation with this Pidgin Twitter foray. They have shown what is possible by thinking outside of the box.
They have laid down a challenge for local side Enyimba and Pillars as well as Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool FCs of the EPL.
Bring the conversation to Twitter @Jololade
Fantastic stuff by the Italian Club. Unfortunately our NPFL sides are not leveraging on the social media adequately.
Giving match day updates is definitely not enough which is what most of them are basically doing.
Great job boss.
You’re right, the engagement of Nigerian clubs can be better but it’s also tied to the low number of personnel they have managing their media department.