Italian Serie A football team, AS Roma(Associazione Sportiva Roma), just launched an official Swahili Twitter account.
The Twitter account joins AS Roma’s twitter accounts that post tweets in English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese(Brasil) and Pidgin among other 14 different languages to cater to its worldwide fans.
https://twitter.com/ASRomaSwahili/status/1184490214804381696
This is another move in the teams embraces of all things digital in terms of social media. The Italian team has been experimenting on different platforms plus the content that works well on said platforms. It has been doing firsts such as being the first European team to use Facebook to broadcast a full match. They are even on Medium.
Yes. I am as surprised as you are.
The path to digital began when they were developing their official website that has won several accolades such as being the best sports website in 2017 and SportTechie even said they were the most tech-savvy sports team.
The team even have a Spotify playlist for each city they played in during their US tour(They’re now US-owned)
Coming back to Twitter, the Twitter account was created when the English Twitter account congratulated Eliud Kipchoge on breaking the 2-hour marathon barrier when he clocked in 1 hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds.
The club’s fans in Kenya started asking for a Swahili twitter account.
https://twitter.com/Starmas_/status/1183092361787777025
Admin amefurahi, asante wote, mnanifundisha swahili
Lala salama 👋 https://t.co/2KLzn8bFzU
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) October 12, 2019
The club’s president later tweeted that the club’s digital team was working on it.
Kama mnahitaji ukurasa wa As Roma wa Kiswahili kweli mnastahili kuwa nao.
Unawajia muda si mrefu.
Amani na upendo kwenu nyote.
— Jim Pallotta (@jimpallotta13) October 13, 2019
They finally did it.
https://twitter.com/ASRomaSwahili/status/1184490214804381696
Paul Rogers, Head of Strategy at AS Roma had this to say, “We’re delighted to launch AS Roma Swahili on Twitter today. After we launched a Pidgin account in March, we’ve been inundated with requests from fans in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and from other Eastern and South Eastern African countries asking for an official Swahili account. Considering the passion the fans have for European football, it’s actually surprising that no football club outside of Africa has attempted to communicate daily in Swahili and Pidgin before on social media.”
“The new Twitter account will allow us to directly engage with these fans in a way that suits them and is consistent with our strategy of breaking down the communication barriers between the club and our global fan base,” he continues in the club’s blog post.
This announcement has been welcomed well.
Best Twitter account in a minute…#NaIwake https://t.co/dqqHt0BnFp
— James Smart (@jamessmat) October 16, 2019
I STAN AT 💯💯💯🙌🙌🙌 https://t.co/KI88PTTqZc
— Shey Tu. (@SheilahBirgen) October 16, 2019
Have to follow them for the culture.. https://t.co/fp7oU13H8X
— Mwangi Munga (@MungaMMK) October 16, 2019
I am sold too
AS Roma will win all of us!! @Jlesirma @TherealRabuko @DunMuyodi https://t.co/jeqlNWJBNe
— Baba Maisy (@briananyangu) October 16, 2019
AS Roma have previously collaborated with Missing Child Kenya, a Kenyan organization to raise awareness and track about a lost 13-year old who was featured in an announcement video of Henrikh Mkhitaryan loan move to Serie A’s side AS Roma.
AS Roma later confirmed the boy has been reunited with his family.
What a great news @OfficialASRoma @ASRomaEN 👏🏼 https://t.co/59afKxzIvO
— Henrikh Mkhitaryan (@HenrikhMkh) September 16, 2019
