IN THE PICTURE

AN ANALYSIS OF YOUR TWITTER FOLLOWERS

BRITISH ORIENTEERING

ANALYSIS OF TWITTER FOLLOWERS

In this presentation we have analysed your Twitter followers to understand your performance in attracting followers over time and trends in the number of followers you share with other sports related bodies. We have also plotted the network of accounts that are important and influential to your followers.

This information will help your marketing and social media teams to build engagement and will be of interest to all in your organisation who are keen to grow the sport.

The data in this presentation is a light touch review. It provides solid business insights in summary form. We would be pleased to put together something more detailed and bespoke for you.

PARTICIPATION RATES

Before analysing your Twitter followers it is important to look at the trends in participation rates as this will place greater context onto the analysis that follows. Data are publicly available for England only.

Data from Sport England's Active Lives Survey shows that 32,700 adults did orienteering regularly (twice in the last 28 days) in the year to November 2022. This is an increase on the pre pandemic level of participation but significantly down from its 2017/18 high point.

The same data for young people and children suggests that just under 5,000 did orienteering in the week before the survey. This figure of 4,900 is the highest in recent years, however small sample sizes mean that we should be cautious in interpreting the data.

FOLLOWERS OVER TIME

The graphic shows the number of new followers on Twitter for each year since 2010.

The number of new followers each year increased rapidly until 2013 but this was followed by a year on year decline in the rate of increase in new followers. There was a brief bounce in 2020 during lockdown followed by a fall. The 2020 bounce is something that we have have seen for a number of sports. We think it reflects people keeping up their interest in sport by engaging more on social media.

The problem for orienteering is that it is not an Olympic event and therefore does not receive the boost in engagement that other sports do in the run up and aftermath of the games. It therefore has to be more proactive to engage more people.

ASSOCIATED ACCOUNTS

This chart shows the number of new followers who also follow other sports related organisations.

The graphic shows that the number of new followers with shared interests in other sports displays the same pattern of spike in 2013 followed by a fall off.

Athletics and cycling have traditionally been sports that your followers also follow with rugby also popular.

Cross pollination with other sports is important because research shows that people who are already engaged with one sport or more likely to become engaged with another, compared with those who follow no sports. Appealing to people who follow other sports is a good way to promote participation in your sport.

NETWORK ANALYSIS

We' ve mapped who your Twitter followers also follow to produce a network analysis. A network analysis is a graphical representation of the relationships between nodes (in this case Twitter accounts) and the lines that connect them (in this case shared followers) known as edges.

Network analysis is used to understand the relationships between organisations. By graphing the connections between them we can see which accounts are the most important to people in the network. The size of the node reflects how many connections the account has. The bigger the node the more connections. The width of the edge represents the number of that account's followers that are shared with the account it connects to. The thicker the line the greater the number of shared Twitter followers. The network also identifies clusters of accounts that have things in common.

From this we can assess which types of accounts are the most influential over the network. The analysis is important because information tends to flow through the most influential accounts.

To be included in the network, the number of shared followers must represent a reasonable proportion of both yours and their total followers. This means that accounts such as Barack Obama and Gary Lineker, who have millions of followers, are not included in the network because although a lot of your followers also follow them, the number of followers you share with them is a very small proportion of their total followers. The accounts that we include in the network are, therefore, defined as the most relevant to you.

ANALYISNG THE NETWORK

Hover over an individual account to view its connections. Zoom in to show specific parts of the network. Zoom out to show the overall network. Use the 🔄 button to reset the view.

On the Community tab you will see four communities denoted by different colours.

The 1st community, in purple, is the orienteering community comprising competitors, clubs, federations and related accounts.

The 2nd, in the blue, is predominantly relates to physical education and education related accounts.

The 3rd community, presented in light green, consists primary of running related accounts.

The 4th community, in the darker green, are accounts that promote sports participation particularly among women and young people.

British Orienteering is presented in red.

We also show a split in the network by gender. The orienteering and running communities skew to male, with the participation community skewing female. The PE community is more balanced.

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THE KEY TAKE AWAYS

Currently you have just under 5,000 Twitter followers and apart from a huge peak in 2013, the trajectory in the number of new followers is downwards. At the same time, however, participation, at least in England, is going up. There's an opportunity here to engage with people (including the parents of children) who might be interested in taking up orienteering. We recommend developing a social media strategy for increasing the number of new followers every year at a higher level than the existing trend.

The make up of your network shows differences in male and female interests which could be leveraged to generate marketing content that will appeal to both.
It would be useful to strengthen your alignment with other sports to build on a shared interest in sport with their followers, which in turn can help you grow. Cycling, athletics and rugby are particularly popular with your followers and represent a good starting point.

RESEARCHING PARTICIPATION IN THE SPORT

AWARENESS, INTEREST, PERCEPTION

The starting point is to survey potential participants on your sport. This can be used to highlight how top of mind your sport is, how it compares with others, what people think of it, what is good and what is not so good, what are the barriers to entry and whether they are interested in trying it or going back to if they previously played.

From this we identify priority groups for targeting and what promotional hooks will get people involved be it for fitness, to have fun, for social reasons or simply because they want to try something different.

We give you the evidence to develop a short, medium and long term strategy to grow your sport.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOLS

Many people are first introduced to sports at school and it is vital to include work with schools and children in the research.

We are able to assess the opinions of children and young people aged 6-16 towards the sport. The survey looks at awareness, what sports they play, perceptions and interest in playing.

We also undertake research with schools to see what PE and sports leads think of it, how it fits in with the need for a broad and diverse sports curriculum, what the barriers are to delivering the sport in school, the equipment and skills needed and how sports governing bodies can support schools.

A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD

It is vital for any sport to know the extent to which is it truly inclusive of a diverse range of people and their needs.

Interviews with stakeholders on how the sport can appeal to the widest possible range of people, particularly in relation to ethnicity, gender, disability, faith, body image, and cultural sensitivities, will identify actions needed to maximise inclusivity.

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