There was this moment that broke all the boundaries of the imaginable. TSV Sulzfeld, who usually plays soccer in front of 80 spectators in the district class, suddenly had a digital audience of millions. “3.5 million!” Says sports director Benny Krumpholz on the phone. The 34-year-old repeats the number as if he couldn’t believe it himself ?? and is still amazed at the almost unlimited possibilities of the internet.
A short video made the small association from the Kitzingen district known in the social network Instagram in autumn 2020. TSV Sulzfeld was already a little celebrity thanks to its footballers on the platform. No amateur club below the fourth division has more followers on Instagram in Germany? So people who follow the club on the net, says Krumpholz. There are currently exactly 9856. How did TSV Sulzfeld manage that?
A random snapshot inspires thousands online
The clip in question is only a few seconds long ?? and yet Krumpholz is asked about him to this day. You can see in the video how a footballer turns several times around a pole anchored in the ground during training, how he wants to shoot after several pirouettes, stumbles and finally falls like a battered boxer on the lawn. A clumsiness, a not particularly flattering moment, of which there are hundreds of thousands on the net; a snapshot taken at random with the cell phone.
Krumpholz takes the video snippet and moves it into the vastness of the Internet. Then something amazing happens. “It went viral right away,” he says. The short video inspires thousands of people in no time? and spreads more and more.
It all started with pictures and little stories
When Krumpholz asked for the access data for the TSV Sulzfeld Instagram channel in the summer of 2018, the club was far from an internet phenomenon and the range in social networks was manageable. Krumpholz wants to change that. The secondary school teacher picked up a few things from his students, but he is neither a member of one of these networks at the time, nor does he know exactly how they work. So he starts by adding pictures and making up little stories about them.
Nice photos and short videos called “stories”. Krumpholz quickly recognized the potential that lies in this combination. Only a few amateur clubs were active on Instagram back then, least of all professionally. “We found a niche that was completely vacant,” says the 34-year-old. “There was hardly any amateur sport on social media.” After three months, the club has the first 1000 followers.
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“We found a niche that was completely vacant.”
Benny Krumpholz, sports director of TSV Sulzfeld–
That is not enough for Krumpholz. He feels: There is more. And he’s curious. He spends hours on the Internet, looking at the profiles of other clubs, networking and experimenting. Over time, he develops a feeling for what the platform requires. What rewards and punishes them.
“Action scenes are the most attractive”
First and foremost, Instagram is a visual medium. “The quality of the pictures is the alpha and omega. They must not be blurred or dark.” And: They should broadcast something. “Action scenes are the most attractive.” Many clubs simply post photos of their matches on the web. “That is not what the user wants to see,” says the Sulzfeld sports director. Interaction with users is also important, ideally through comments and likes.
More and more often, Krumpholz is being supplied by his club colleagues with pictures and stories that ideally have so much depth of field that they ignite on the Internet; it could be a look into the cabin or a little story about the groundskeeper. In this way, he manages to establish familiarity and create an identity, for example with the groundskeepers of other clubs. Krumpholz is now flirting with success. “We are a completely normal, average club, there are 10,000 others who do the same thing as we do. The difference is: we make it publicly visible for everyone.”
The greater the reach, the higher the value for sponsors
Is that the secret? A pronounced sense of mission paired with a little understanding of technology? The fact is: Krumpholz staged and established the club as a brand. “Many clubs in Germany now know what the Mouse Valley is,” he says. The sports director uses this catchphrase from the Sulzfelder Weinlage to mark every contribution on the Internet.
Krumpholz maintains the club’s profile for one and a half hours a day, not only planning content, but also considering how and when to play it out. In this respect, Instagram ticks no differently than other social networks: attention is rewarded. “The first minutes are decisive. If you are successful there, you get a much greater range.” And the greater the reach, the higher the value for sponsors.
With every click it becomes more interesting for sponsors
Krumpholz ?? The calculation goes like this: “If you have a hundred spectators at each of the 26 match days, 2600 people will see the advertising on the jersey in the season. This number is tens of times higher on Instagram.” With every click it becomes more interesting for sponsors to advertise on the TSV Sulzfeld jersey. Companies can also place advertisements directly and thus address target groups that they can hardly reach in the normal way.
Where does Krumpholz see the goal for the club? With 20,000 or 50,000 followers? “I have the feeling that Instagram no longer wants to allow large reach of individuals,” he says. “They want advertising to be shown on the platform, and that’s why they don’t let others become so big and famous.”
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