Personally I think Twitter is a great tool to spread the gospel of Rugby league. In the days when media profile is so hard to come by, twitter could be the answer.

A perfect example is with the NRL. During the semi-finals they have managed to monopolise large parts of the trending maps in Australia and in New Zealand, on a couple of occasions they have also trended worldwide. For somebody who doesn't use twitter, this is hard to understand but it shouldn't be underestimated. On the homepage it shows you the top ten things that people are talking about. So basically if you trend worldwide, anybody in the world who logs into twitter sees a reference to Rugby League on the homepage. I remember when Widnes trended worldwide the numbers of people saying 'what or who is Widnes,' was incredible.

One of the big difference, aside from the popularity, is the hashtags that Australian followers have come up with. When following a game they have pre-agreed what hashtag every comment will have on the end. For instance this morning the hashtag #NRLmelwar was trending worldwide as was #NRLmanbri. Without these the messages may have got so diluted that they would not have shown up on the map.

Rugby League in this country is more popular than most would understand and we have trended both locally and worldwide. This tends to be times when one word is in every post. Widnes did because everybody was saying that 'Widnes had made it in' and Ganson did because everybody was criticising him. However during a game people are unlikely to mention the teams or players in every post. Currently we have a couple of hashtags but they are too generic and seldom used such as #liverl and #rugbyleague.

A few of us have decided to try and use a different hashtag for all rugby league related posts. We propose using something similar to what they do in Australia, so are trialling #RLwigcats for today's game. The hope is that not only will it make it easier to follow people's opinions of the game but also that in time it could give the game valuable promotion through trending locally and nationally. It could help people to realise that rugby league still exists.

I don't really get Twitter. I've got an account just to see what the craic is, but don't see what makes it so much better than Facebook that I shouldn't go on it.

Agreed, to me Twitter is full of 2 types of people:
1. People who think they're important.
2. People who also think those people are important.

I use it as a news aggregator rather than a social media application. That is the main difference. I can log onto Twitter and find out all I need to know on one website - i.e. all the latest RL news. In addition to this, it's not full of people going "Just had breakfast", "Going to work", "Now going to sleep" etc etc.

I've fallen out of love with Facebook - I find Twitter much more appealing for the aforementioned reasons.

And I concur with the comment about hashtags but that requires all RL fans to log on and post about it at the same time, which is very difficult to do. It also requires many people to be talking about it. More likely to be talking about Sam Tomkins tonight, I guess.

There's a few people going on this, it could trend.

Super League and the RFL seem to be that far behind on their use of Social Media that it isnt funny. All major sporting organisations have embraced social media and usually have a dedicated social media manager or a use a contractor to manage their new media.

The NRL usually have their games trending each evening, and have even hit the world wide trends during the final series on a regular basis. Post warriors v storm on Saturday, their were 4 'handles alone related to the game in Australia in the top 8.

For a game that struggles to get main stream media coverage, the RFL should have embraced social media and milked it for all it's worth.

typo

Quick update on yesterday's trial.

Trying to get #RLwigcats going was a moderate success and one that we're going to keep persisting with. Quite a number of people got into the habit of adding it onto the games and more as the game went on. We even got a couple of journalists to use it such as Chris Irvine and Gav Wilson. Keith Senior's fake account also used it. Quite a few people seemed to think it is a good idea and we had quite a few retweets on it, including Yorkshire radio. I'd say that more people used #rugbyleague but that in the long run a more specific hashtag is a better way forward. For instance in Australia people often use #NRL, but to my knowledge this has never trended compared to the specific tags. AFL fans also use the specific #AFLsydcol for their games.

The hashtag didn't come close to trending but this isn't the sole benefit of using a specific hashtag. I've followed RL on twitter for way over a year now and used the obvious search terms. I came to the conclusion that there were few people commenting about the game. It was only with Ganson that it became clear just how many people who use twitter actually follow the game. The only reason these were easy to find is that they all used the word Ganson in their tweet. On Saturday morning whilst following the NRL, it was brilliant to see just how many tweets there were about the game throughout the game and it was all possible because of a simple hashtag.

To look at a couple of tweets about the RL from yesterday,



This was what I got by looking about 5 accounts of people that I follow. The important thing here is that virtually none of these tweets would be easy to find by using a search term. So the only people that get to see these tweets are people that follow those people and put them in their timeline. Simply by adding on the hashtag #RLwigcats they would have shown up to a much larger audience.

This isn't an appeal to those that don't use twitter. It's one of those things you get or you don't. The point is that there are a lot of people talking about rugby league on twitter during games and a lot of this is hard to find. By adding on a hashtag it no only makes it easier for people to read but benefits RL by getting more people talking about the game. The end benefit could be that we get the game trending more often than we do now. Even if we don't it will be beneficial.

Ideally a publication or Sky would get onto this in the same way that ITV2 does for a program like 'The only way is Essex' and advertise it during adverts and games. However until then, those of us that are interested should tweet high profile players and commentators about using these hashtags for the upcoming games. It was a little last minute this week. With more of a concerted effort we could really see a big reaction next week.

The long term aim is to get people into the habit of it in much the same way as they do in Australia.

Twitter can be useful... www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 79200.html

Twitter can be useful... www.pitchero.com/clubs/burybronc ... 79200.html

Unfortunately, for me, the hashtag is the problem. You need to keep these things simple.

#RLWigCats is never going to help to spread the word of rugby league, most people will just look at that and will ultimately go 'wtf'. Keep it simple, #rugbyleague, #superleague are sufficient. If you have a few games going on the same day, neither of the more unique hashtags will trend, not over here anyway - in Australia you've got a much wider audience as the sport over there is much bigger and therefore more people can mention it at the same time and get it trending.

As you said, Widnes trended, but so did the challenge cup both this year and last, along with the grand final last year. You don't even need the hashtag, as things trend based on keywords. Leeds Rhinos trended earlier in the year without hashtags.

So say you've got a derby weekend, there's no chance you can get #RLBraLee, #RLWigSts trending, but you can as an overall #superleague or #rugbyleague tag. Uniques won't work until we get more people tweeting about League in our own country.

I completely agree, just use #RugbyLeague for all of it, it's all I mainly use and get enough responses.

As a side note, shouldn't it have been #RLWigCat, without the added 'S'? It's Catalan, not Catalans.

Sorry but I disagree.

As I pointed out, there are easily sufficient enough numbers for the game to be trending more often. The reason we don't trend more often is because there aren't enough common words in the tweets. In my previous post I pointed out a small number that I found in 1 minute where no search would find them.

#rugbyleague is already used as it is the natural hashtag to put but has only trended once. It is also too general, there are a variety of different things that people could be talking about. It has been in use for a good amount of time now and I've found it quite frustrating. People don't use it because it is generic and during games the number of tweets can be very few. When you're talking about an individual game, using #rugbyleague just doesn't seem natural.

Whilst the Australian style hashtags might seem confusing (which I would disagree too), once somebody was to click on it it would be clear what people were talking about - a specific game that they could potentially switch on if it was exciting. It is certainly better than simply 'Ganson' trending. People generally know what #rugbyleague means and I doubt the fact that they know about it would mean that they are more likely to click on it. Let's not forget, Australians have got their tag trending worldwide because it has been used that much, not just in Australia. Their generic NRL or rugbyleague has been much less popular. I think it's doing people a disservice to suggest that they wouldn't understand it, are Australians more intelligent than ourselves?

Even if it does not trend then it is not the be all and end all. Even between rugby league fans it would be beneficial to develop a specific tag system, especially if it gets people into the habit of tagging full stop. It would make it easier for people's views to be found. #rugbyleague hasn't caught on, it's time to try something different.

It's certainly worth trialling for the last few games of the season. If not we can always try something different.

Just found a great example of my point. Here are some Australians discussing hashtags back in May, Quote: nko11 "Rugby League and specifically the NRL has a large following on twitter. Many fans spanning across many teams converge to discuss each game. Unfortunately There is no set #tag for each game meaning most tweets either don't use any #tag or use the old worn out #NRL tag. If you sign into twitter during the weekend you will see in the Australian trends many AFL games trending. They use the system effectively and the AFL promote it extremely well. Unfortunately the NRL does not do the same. I have been in contact with the NRL about this, despite getting a reply they still have failed to organize anything. It will give a live forum(esque) type experience and will get Rugby League up in the trending topics where it belongs. I ask anyone who is on twitter to use #tags like these It then had the reply... Quote: nko11 "#RugbyLeague and that way there's even more chance of it trending because it's not just for individual matches but the game in general, English fans use it for Super League and others for different things going on around the world. Could even trend Worldwide one day.'" People underestimate how many people are following our game. It even suggests that twitter blocks #NRL and #rugbyleague from trending because they are ongoing hashtags. Anyone doubting should go to forums.leagueunlimited.com/showt ... tag&page=2 and see the bother that the Australians had in getting it started. Much the same criticisms applied. They even doubted whether they would be able to get rugby league to trend in Australia.

Just found a great example of my point. Here are some Australians discussing hashtags back in May, Quote: nko11 "Rugby League and specifically the NRL has a large following on twitter. Many fans spanning across many teams converge to discuss each game. Unfortunately There is no set #tag for each game meaning most tweets either don't use any #tag or use the old worn out #NRL tag. If you sign into twitter during the weekend you will see in the Australian trends many AFL games trending. They use the system effectively and the AFL promote it extremely well. Unfortunately the NRL does not do the same. I have been in contact with the NRL about this, despite getting a reply they still have failed to organize anything. It will give a live forum(esque) type experience and will get Rugby League up in the trending topics where it belongs. I ask anyone who is on twitter to use #tags like these It then had the reply... Quote: nko11 "#RugbyLeague and that way there's even more chance of it trending because it's not just for individual matches but the game in general, English fans use it for Super League and others for different things going on around the world. Could even trend Worldwide one day.'" People underestimate how many people are following our game. It even suggests that twitter blocks #NRL and #rugbyleague from trending because they are ongoing hashtags. Anyone doubting should go to forums.leagueunlimited.com/showt ... tag&page=2 and see the bother that the Australians had in getting it started. Much the same criticisms applied. They even doubted whether they would be able to get rugby league to trend in Australia.