Lockdown has made it close to impossible to engage with people in the traditional sense and adapting to the changing circumstances has been key for us at Surrey FA.

While social distancing has prevented people from being physically together, we’ve used virtual and digital tools to connect with our community.

Our official content partners at Capital Content have helped us take things online, opening up new ways to engage and maintain our existing relationships as well as connect with a wider audience. For those looking to do something similar, here are five steps we suggest you take to make staying in touch easy. We recommend, that during such an unprecedented time, other companies consider options that, likewise, enable them to keep in touch with their communities and customers.

1. Consider a live-streamed event

Every year, we host our Grassroots Football Awards to highlight some of the incredible individuals involved in the game across Surrey. When the COVID-19 crisis put the event on hold, we took to YouTube and streamed an online version with just as much sparkle as the original format. Capital Content helped us host a great evening with live as well as pre-recorded footage so that we could thank everyone for their hard work throughout the year. This was a first in the history of the event and the success of the evening means it will go down as one to remember.

2. Provide monthly updates

We were also able to provide our audience with recorded monthly updates from key Surrey FA team members. Seeing familiar faces during a time of uncertainty is always comforting and using video updates to deliver important information was an essential way of keeping things running as smoothly as possible.

3. Bring campaigns to life

During this year we also launched two campaigns, supporting LGBT+ inclusion and ethnic diversity in football. The videos we created for these campaigns helped bring the message to life and support our work in ensuring everyone playing football in Surrey feels welcome. We consider this to be a large part of our messaging and we were glad to be able to showcase our support during this time through these campaign videos.

4. Re-package useful information

We took the opportunity to review the information we provide and identify opportunities to communicate more effectively through video. One example was creating videos to replace text-only descriptions of referee and coaching courses.

5. Created a platform podcast for open conversation

Finally, we were able to use this time to create our very own Surrey FA podcast ‘Stoppage Time’. This allowed us to open up conversations with great guest speakers including former Premier League footballer Marcus Bent, Head of Safeguarding at Fulham FC Eleanor Rowland and Wembley’s ground manager Karl Standley.

If you’re keen to follow in our footsteps, our official content partners Capital Content will be running a live webinar with us on 11th February at 6:30pm, if you want to learn the basics on how to plan, shoot and share video content to help you achieve your goals.

Additionally, if you’re keen for more specific ideas on how to use video content to connect with your community, you can contact Capital Content for a free and no-obligation chat.

Details can be found here.