Bill Wilson- 24 May 2012 They might have lost to Chelsea in the Champions League and surrendered their La Liga title to Real Madrid, but FC Barcelona remain one of the great football clubs in the world.

With its "more than a club" slogan, it also is a flagship for Catalonia, while at the same time being one of the globe's major sporting brands.

The club estimates it has 349 million fans or followers around the world, including 145 million in the fast-growing Asian market, and some 77 million in the US. And although its Nou Camp stadium has the biggest capacity in Europe at 99,354, that still means only a small proportion of the worldwide fanbase can actually buy match tickets and get to games. So the club is looking to use new media not only to inform those other millions, stretching from South East Asia to North America, but to attract overseas supporters to become FCB customers too.The club is one of the most progressive in using new media and social media to reach those potential consumers.

'Expanding fan numbers'

"We have been looking at ways of expanding, and generating revenue," says Pasi Lankinen, Barcelona's business intelligence manager.

'Eleven brand ambassadors' Looking at the numbers, the club has more than nine million Twitter followers, and 31 million "likes" on Facebook. Also, it regularly appears at the top of, or near the top, of polls to find the world's most popular club, but Mr Lankinen says that such plaudits mean nothing on their own.

"Communicating values is more long-term, talking about what we are and making more loyal fans, so that when you stop winning then something stays and they don't move to the next team that is winning," says Mr Lankinen. "But to monetise - that is where the challenge is. The short-term goal is to monetise the emotion felt for the club." He says that many football clubs and other sports organisations make the mistake of looking to commercial organisations and big brands for a social media and website strategy, as they face different challenges.

Creating consumers

For a start, he says, football club social media budgets are nowhere near that of big brands.

"Commercial organisations have big budgets and purchasing clients, who they are trying to make into 'fans' of their products," says Mr Lankinen.

Whereas before the club might look at getting fans to buy a replica shirt as their first purchase, now the first point of commercial contact can be for a Barca app costing as little as 75 cents. "That then gives the chance to take fans to the next commercial consumption level," says Mr Lankinen. He says the road to profitability is in driving their huge social media following towards Barcelona's own website and apps, (or to the websites of their sponsors), and then making a sale there. "Social networks are the threshold to the world. But if we leverage too much with them we undertake to give some profits in the future. "We want to move fans to buying our products, whether it is tickets or merchandising, buying both online and offline."

Commercial channels

The club, which is a multi-sporting one including a basketball team, has seven different apps, three of which are free.

"In all of this, the end result would be to try and monetise one way or another." On YouTube, another builder of brand loyalty and potential sales, the club's channel has 291,000 subscribers and total views of 97 million. The channel, which includes things such as the live streaming of training, includes a link to the club ticket sales and also its online shop. For Mr Lankinen, Barcelona is just at the beginning of the road in using new media in creating financial value for the club "We are still working with it," he says. "There are many challenges ahead and exciting times coming. We are keen to tap all of the opportunities."{jcomments on}

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