Hanging out with Tommy Elphick

AFCB continue to push the envelope when it comes to communicating with their fans. I am really glad that they do as well, as if you are like me you can't get enough of the Cherries. While I am sad to see that the Hot Radio podcasts are no longer a feature of the club we have a new audiooboo service for post and pre-match interviews, and the YouTube match highlights and interviews have been particularly well received. Now the club is trying another communication vehicle with the Google+ service which will see Tommy Elphick need to face up to a few questions that hopefully lots of you have all been thinking up via video link. 

Tommy Elphick at Huddersfield for the first game of the 2014/15 season.

AFCB fans had to pre-register for the screening with their questions sent into the club before 17th August so that Tommy could pick out the best questions. I am gutted that I will be somewhere in the air over the Mediterranean when the actual event takes place from 6pm today (Thursday 21 August), but I am very keen to hear how the online chat goes. I asked the club about the time of the broadcast and they had said that they had also considered a midday spot, but hope that more people can get home in time to see the videocast in the early evening. 

Hopefully the club keep a video online for those who miss it. AFCB says that some other clubs have had some successful goes at hosting such chat rooms and as long as you have signed up to Google+ and have a gmail account it is fairly easy to get involved. Cherry Chimes itself uses the service to send its message out everyday and there are lots of Championship clubs that have accounts that you can tap into to hear what is going on at their clubs and to see videos of goals and interviews. I find that I tend to scroll through the top few stories but only perhaps use a fraction of the services that are available.

At the moment the club has some 4500 followers on its Google+ site and I expect that they would like to see those numbers go up significantly seeing how we AFCB has been doing on Facebook and Twitter which have probably been running longer. It is clear that clubs are going to be doing more in terms of online and social media forums to grow their supporter base and it will be a bit of trial and error to see what methods become the most popular.

I am only glad for Tommy Elphick that the questions will be pre-picked so there should not be too much potential to be tripped up. At the end of it as well you might even know a little bit more about Google circles and I predict a lot more about your captain at AFCB.