- Solent Ladies Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/solentladies
- Solent Ladies Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/solentladies
- Solent Ladies YouTube – https://bit.ly/2Jkchue
Below is an active work log from my time as part of the Solent Ladies media team. I started the job in September 2017 during my second year at University. The log below is structured as newest work at the top, followed by the latest tweets at the very bottom…
October 2018 -
During this time frame there was of course Halloween and Remembrance Sunday, meaning holiday specific graphics/images had to be made:
These are important to do every year as a mark of respect for the remembrance events. Whilst we may not have the biggest outreach it is important to mark these events with respect. With Halloween, its simply an opportunity to be creative and have fun with the images as we have done here.
September 2018 - October 2018
In the build-up to the new season I tried out several new graphics, which would help the girls see their name out their on Twitter on a more frequent basis:
The 2018/19 BUCS season was where I used JW Designer’s images in relation to the game day pictures on a weekly basis. As previously mentioned in this thread it did go some way at getting an overriding theme across all the social medias on a match day.
The new BUCS season also saw me try out the graphics we had prepared following Varsity last year for the line-up, half-time and full-time. At the start of the season we used the graphics in the following way:
Overall they looked ok however I felt there were a few changes needed when it came to fonts and colours. For example on the line-up I feel the marker font is too far from the title (‘Team Solent Ladies’) font, whilst on the scoreboards the black font looks too out of place. For the next game against Exeter I changed the layout so we went from the collage format to the side-by-side one.
This worked better I felt, but made the images a little long and there was a weird white line at the side of the half-time image. In terms of the font I felt the new one on the line-up image worked much better with the theming, however the numbers still felt out of place on the scoreboard graphics.
The next game against Bournemouth I felt was when we got the graphics spot on. The new scoreboard font with the black outline looked much neater and modern, and the images were not as long for the Twitter. It felt good to have a correlating theme across all the graphics.
July 2018 - September 2018
Going into the new season I became head of media at Solent ladies meaning I had a great deal of freedom when it came to content. Although the summer is a quieter time for a university team I began to use the account as more of a recruitment tool ahead of the new academic year. Firstly I put out this tweet following A Level results day in July:
I used an older video to give new Solent University students a glimpse of what it is like to play for the team. This got a good response from those running the bigger solent accounts such as Solent University’s Twitter and Solent Sport’s.
Secondly I used Instagram stories to help promote and gain players for the Sunday league side, something Rafa Citron asked us to do on his behalf:
These images continued to use the theme introduced at Varsity in May however with another slight change in order for even greater continuity. The white border on each corner was introduced alongside our twitter handle at the centre of each new image. This is something else each club has started to include on images tweeted out from their accounts, something I learnt from my time at Eastleigh FC.
April 2018 - May 2018
As the BUCS season came to an end we added new features to the social media game to keep up above others at the University. Firstly we improved and modernised our goal gifs, making them player specific and more personal as seen below:
The players responded well to this as they had something of their own and something more personal when they scored. In terms of improvement they could be cleaner when it comes to transitions but are fairly simple and do their job.
Varsity in May was a huge occasion for the team and always is. For that reason I wanted to step up our media game, gaining a continuous theme throughout all of our social medias. When researching what type of route to go down when it came to theme I decided to go for a marker style font linked with a standard modern capitals look; used by Arsenal as seen below:
In combination with this I saw Liverpool were amongst the host of clubs using graphic designs in their twitter work, something my links with my brother helped with as he is venturing into this field. Examples of Liverpool’s and my brother’s work (JW Designer) are below:
What resulted was several drawings by JW Designer which I used for brand new game day pictures, team sheets and score highlights. As seen below these are the ones used at Varsity:
All of these drawings got a great response, again the girls loved the social media coverage becoming more personal. As seen above our social media game had a continuous theme throughout all platforms, making it look more professional in my opinion.
Also in the lead up to Varsity we produced a few videos to increase attention and traffic to our social medias in the lead up to the big event.
The first was a review of the season with manager Rafa Citron. My role in this was to edit the opening and the editing to the video, as well as film some of the cutaways.
Rafa Citron BUCS Review 2017/18
I also edited the thumbnail. The concept of this video was great and Rafa offered some great answers. The cutaways as a whole worked well and I really enjoyed my introduction with the book. In terms of improvements I would make some of the video cutaways of Rafa towards the end of the video matched up with the main audio.
The second video was inspired by a common feature on Sky Sports’ Soccer AM, Teammates. We asked the girls in pairs questions regarding their teammates and shared this just before May’s sport awards.
Solent Ladies Teammates
Again the girls enjoyed the personal aspect of this video and so it was shared multiple times on social media. I must say I did not intend to feature in the final video, this was down to another member of the media team editing it!
The final video was a sit down Varsity preview with Rafa and the players. I edited most of this video and was quite proud of it.
Varsity is Coming: Varsity Preview 2018
I edited the majority of this video and felt I did well in terms of continuinty and editing to music. My favourite part comes at the very end where Rafa Citron finishes speaking and says the hashtag “Varsity is Coming” to camera. We had a couple of problems with the microphones so some of the girls struggle to be heard at times. However overall I liked the outcome.
A further video was produced in line with Solent’s hockey team. Over the course of the BUCS season we had shared a tweet or two with this side, as we were both recognised as the two teams with the best social media. Based on this the hockey guys suggested we combined and create a video. The outcome was brilliant and got a good reaction from many.
September 2017 - March 2018
In September of 2017, during my second year at Southampton Solent University, I became part of the media team at Solent Ladies FC alongside a course mate of mine. We were to cover the Wednesday BUCS league games for the side, whilst the other two media men who currently worked for the side would cover the Sunday league games until the end of the academic year 2018.
This role gave me my first ever opportunity of covering a football team on a matchday and being responsible for all aspects of social meda whilst it was happening. My experience at Gillingham FC and Tankerton FC meant that I knew the ups and downs of how to run a social media account, but on a matchday this pressure (both in terms of time and the quality/quantity of posts I put out) is increased.
Firstly I went along with my course mate to a Sunday League game to see in person how the two regular media men did what was needed on a match day. During this game I was in charge of the Snapchat account, something I of course had experience of doing whilst at Gillingham. I felt the Snapchat story from that day was a success, and it can be viewed by clicking here.
In the build up to my first game I was required to produce a feature for my Sports Journalism course, and I chose to use my Solent Ladies links to do just that. As part of a group of three we produced the following 2 minute feature, which has a few flaws but was considered around a B2/B3 grade by our lecturer considering it was a first try. The clip can be accessed by clicking here. The following is a video of the interview we took with SL Head Coach Rafa Citron, which is used in the feature:
The following week saw me take sole charge of the Solent Ladies Social Media as they had their first BUCS game. I was on my own as my course mate could not make the first two games of the season due to work. The Snapchat story I produce from that day (a game away to UWE at the start of October 2017) can be seen here.
I was also required to make and produce images so that the tweets I was putting out were more illustrated and ‘clickable’. I did this using an app called Canva, which helped me produce the following tweets from that opening game:
In the build up to the following BUCS game of the season me and the other media team members produced GIFs to go with our tweets. These gave the twitter feed a far more personal feel:
The next BUCS game saw more of the Canva pictures used, and as my confidence grew I got amongst the players more taking pictures etc, as seen below:
The tweets we produced are encouraged to be professional but amusing at the same time, in order to keep the university team aspect present on our accounts.
The girls generally respond well to our tweets; scrolling through the live tweets after each game and sharing those which feature their name. The closer I get to the squad members however the greater the posts will become (more Q&As for example).
More examples of work I have produced during the opening half of the academic year for Solent Ladies are seen below. They include more of the Canva gameday and line-up pictures, as well as special feature images and goal gifs. A key special feature was the advent calendar set of images used during Christmas. I would edit pictures of the girls into a Christmas theme. They responded very well to this.
AdamHWhyte 