Twitter has been trying to be the social network of choice for following sporting events. They have been doing this by introducing hashflags, which are specialized hashtags with thumbnails of popular logos so that people could follow the sporting events even better. Now today, they have specialized hashflags for the English Premier League as demonstrated by the official Premier league Twitter account:
Can't wait for the football to start? Need something new to play with to pass the time?
Here you are…
#BPLkickoff pic.twitter.com/PqmUR0E0cr
— Premier League (@premierleague) August 7, 2015
Hashflags to use during the Premier season include #BPL
#FPL
and for the specific football clubs like #mufc
#CFC
#LFC
and in an interesting move the #Arsenal
one is not abbreviated. In addition, there are hashflags for the specific matches which are demonstrated using the gif the Premier league Twitter account posted:
Can’t wait for the football to start? Need something new to play with to pass the time? Here you are… #BPLkickoff pic.twitter.com/PqmUR0E0cr — Premier League (@premierleague) August 7, 2015
Twitter knows that one of the key things that pulls in users to its platform are constant real time updates of events that are happening in the world and to keep these people engaged, the tactic of using these custom hashflags enables users to identify quickly with the event and make comments about it. It also helps in tracking of the conversation where Twitter and other third party companies can be able to come up with a report about the impressions & engagement statistics the hashtags created, which is good for advertisers who would want to market their products when this happens.
I think this is a good move by Twitter since the English Premier League attracts an audience of around 4.7 billion people, which in any measure is staggering. The league will commence this weekend and you bet it would be awesome to use these hashflags.
