How representative is GOT

[Paul E]

Keyboard warriors on toast.

For example the average Everton fan, local or not, was quite ok with the Kenwright & Moyes-era. Obviously pissed off at certain results and that, but overall nothing like the scathing criticisms we saw on these boards before Mosh came.

Same with certain players like Leon Osman, who most non-forum dwelling fans quite liked.

Anyone who was happy with not winning one of nearly 50 away games against the 'top 6' under Moyes should support someone else. Awful record.

 

[GrandOldTeam]

I've always thought the point of how significant the digital voice is an interesting one.

Sam Allardyce's dismissive comments towards social media recently has prompted revised debate.

It's always been my view that GrandOldTeam should make every effort to avoid being representative as Evertonians because it's an impossible and arrogant stance.

This is why media requests that ask us to represent Everton or share what Evertonians are thinking get declined. We've been going for 11 years and only recently has @Adam-GOTTV started to do some media work - 90% of that is platform work - asking fans to give their opinion, nor "ours" - and on occasion when he's pushed for his opinion he'll make it very clear he can't and doesn't speak for Evertonians.

Whenever the debate is brought up, including this thread - there's a tendency to refer to match going Evertonians. Personally - I don't see them any more or less significant than any other Evertonian.

Consider GrandOldTeam has a forum which just on 30k 'active' (logged in recently) members. Very few (less than 1%) of our visitors actually register, never mind post their opinion.

We have over 300,000 social media fans and I see a significant difference in opinion/sentiment across all social networks.

On occasion though, there is a significant alignment between all digital platforms. One example would be the crest design disaster, another is Sam Allardyce.

The digital (forum+social) noise can be hugely misleading, I think social more so - digital can be significant but to fully understand the fan base you absolutely need to consider those that aren't shouting loud on social media, or forums - it's those people that are usually the most wise.

 

[dholliday]

It's always been my view that GrandOldTeam should make every effort to avoid being representative as Evertonians because it's an impossible and arrogant stance. This is why media requests that ask us to represent Everton or share what Evertonians are thinking get declined.

I always wondered why we never saw GOT represented in these things. Your philosophy (ouch) on this is probably one of the reasons why GOT is the best Everton forum, because it's not claiming or aiming to be representative and that's how we've got such a mad variety of weird & interesting blues on here.

 

[Jacko93]

Think I’m a number 2

I'm 2.5. MGEWIWSDAWTBU

 

[BernieH]

I think it gets a bit more virtriolic on message boards but the general sentiment tends to be correct, normally things that are discussed i.e managers getting sacked tends to transpire normally, once it reaches a certain level, there is no denying fan sentiment. They'll be a big mix of match going and non match going blues I'd imagine on here but people aren't as malicious in person at the game.

I find the abuse towards players is a lot higher online also.

 

[toffee matt]

Moyes used to get way more Stick online than you'd ever hear in the ground. Goodison never really turned on him till the Wigan game and even then he got treated as some sort of demi god after his last home game.

People turned on Martinez on here probably a good 6 months before the crowd catched up. Koeman and Allladyce both got pelters from the entire fan base though.

Those are my unscientific observations !

 

[Charles Hawtrey]

I've always thought the point of how significant the digital voice is an interesting one.

Sam Allardyce's dismissive comments towards social media recently has prompted revised debate.

It's always been my view that GrandOldTeam should make every effort to avoid being representative as Evertonians because it's an impossible and arrogant stance.

This is why media requests that ask us to represent Everton or share what Evertonians are thinking get declined. We've been going for 11 years and only recently has @Adam-GOTTV started to do some media work - 90% of that is platform work - asking fans to give their opinion, nor "ours" - and on occasion when he's pushed for his opinion he'll make it very clear he can't and doesn't speak for Evertonians.

Whenever the debate is brought up, including this thread - there's a tendency to refer to match going Evertonians. Personally - I don't see them any more or less significant than any other Evertonian.

Consider GrandOldTeam has a forum which just on 30k 'active' (logged in recently) members. Very few (less than 1%) of our visitors actually register, never mind post their opinion.

We have over 300,000 social media fans and I see a significant difference in opinion/sentiment across all social networks.

On occasion though, there is a significant alignment between all digital platforms. One example would be the crest design disaster, another is Sam Allardyce.

The digital (forum+social) noise can be hugely misleading, I think social more so - digital can be significant but to fully understand the fan base you absolutely need to consider those that aren't shouting loud on social media, or forums - it's those people that are usually the most wise.

I thought this was a great answer to the question of the OP as posed but I would like to raise the issue of the level of relative importance given to social media responses across industry as a whole. Whilst social media are read by a broad base, they usually reflect the views of the more edge case minorities. For instance if you ask the question "should BFS be manager next year" to 1000 fans you are always going to see a bell curve. The steepness of the curve and the movement to right or left is impacted by recent events (derby draw or win maybe). So my point would be that there is a whole industry (of which i am part) within all industries that professionally reviews weights and uses social media wisely.
Most casual readers are not part of that industry. I would hope that anyone partaking of the views on here keeps that in mind.
Lastly as recent poster said, much like supporting Everton, GOT is meant to be fun. sorry to be serious.

 

[Manx Blue]

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 99.9% of sane Evertonians want rid of Sam Allardyce asap.

Great post btw.

I've always thought the point of how significant the digital voice is an interesting one.

Sam Allardyce's dismissive comments towards social media recently has prompted revised debate.

It's always been my view that GrandOldTeam should make every effort to avoid being representative as Evertonians because it's an impossible and arrogant stance.

This is why media requests that ask us to represent Everton or share what Evertonians are thinking get declined. We've been going for 11 years and only recently has @Adam-GOTTV started to do some media work - 90% of that is platform work - asking fans to give their opinion, nor "ours" - and on occasion when he's pushed for his opinion he'll make it very clear he can't and doesn't speak for Evertonians.

Whenever the debate is brought up, including this thread - there's a tendency to refer to match going Evertonians. Personally - I don't see them any more or less significant than any other Evertonian.

Consider GrandOldTeam has a forum which just on 30k 'active' (logged in recently) members. Very few (less than 1%) of our visitors actually register, never mind post their opinion.

We have over 300,000 social media fans and I see a significant difference in opinion/sentiment across all social networks.

On occasion though, there is a significant alignment between all digital platforms. One example would be the crest design disaster, another is Sam Allardyce.

The digital (forum+social) noise can be hugely misleading, I think social more so - digital can be significant but to fully understand the fan base you absolutely need to consider those that aren't shouting loud on social media, or forums - it's those people that are usually the most wise.

 

[Sarnia Kevin]

mega WOOL

Is that racist? lollol

 

[Sarnia Kevin]

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 99.9% of sane Evertonians want rid of Sam Allardyce asap.

Is that an educated opinion or a wild guess?

 

[Sarnia Kevin]

Anyone who was happy with not winning one of nearly 50 away games against the 'top 6' under Moyes should support someone else. Awful record.

Surely anyone who was happy with that record is supporting exactly the right team? And if they aren't happy they should support someone else, logical isn't it?

 

[Tak]

I've always thought the point of how significant the digital voice is an interesting one.

Sam Allardyce's dismissive comments towards social media recently has prompted revised debate.

It's always been my view that GrandOldTeam should make every effort to avoid being representative as Evertonians because it's an impossible and arrogant stance.

This is why media requests that ask us to represent Everton or share what Evertonians are thinking get declined. We've been going for 11 years and only recently has @Adam-GOTTV started to do some media work - 90% of that is platform work - asking fans to give their opinion, nor "ours" - and on occasion when he's pushed for his opinion he'll make it very clear he can't and doesn't speak for Evertonians.

Whenever the debate is brought up, including this thread - there's a tendency to refer to match going Evertonians. Personally - I don't see them any more or less significant than any other Evertonian.

Consider GrandOldTeam has a forum which just on 30k 'active' (logged in recently) members. Very few (less than 1%) of our visitors actually register, never mind post their opinion.

We have over 300,000 social media fans and I see a significant difference in opinion/sentiment across all social networks.

On occasion though, there is a significant alignment between all digital platforms. One example would be the crest design disaster, another is Sam Allardyce.

The digital (forum+social) noise can be hugely misleading, I think social more so - digital can be significant but to fully understand the fan base you absolutely need to consider those that aren't shouting loud on social media, or forums - it's those people that are usually the most wise.

Interesting reply GOT!

My thought would be that posters on a site such as this are a small self-selecting group and as such the opinions here can never seriously be thought to represent all the people in the world who identify as 'Evertonian'.

 

[FC sexy xxx]

Is that racist? lollol

It’s WOOList

 

[GrandOldTeam]

Interesting reply GOT!

My thought would be that posters on a site such as this are a small self-selecting group and as such the opinions here can never seriously be thought to represent all the people in the world who identify as 'Evertonian'.

Which is true, not just to here, or football - but digital in any industry. I disagree with the self selecting group as we're an open platform, not just here but across social media but I understand the point.

We might not want GOT to be representative and we make every attempt to ensure we're not positioned as so (and at times I'd rather not have that burden!), but given the number of Evertonians on the site - GOT is EFC's biggest fan platform - 6-12m pages loaded a month from visitors in over 80 countries, 300k social media fans, 100k subscribers and so is inevitably representative - the question is to what degree and what significance that is.

Quick example - we sign Cenk Tosun, immediately we have a massive influx of traffic - Turkey becomes our 2nd biggest referrer replacing USA for traffic. What Turkish fans see on here will inevitability represent/influence their view on EFC.

[Edit] Here is an interesting question - what is more Everton representative and diverse than GOT? As in, if you had to analyse the fan base and report on sentiment on a particular issue across the entire fanbase, how would you do it?

 

[matty1878]

lol