Transfer deadline day: The secrets of successful social media reveals

Declan Rice to Arsenal was one of the biggest transfers of the summer, and they were quick to get him on their socials

Transfer deadline day is over for another year so football fans can stop frantically scrolling through social media to see who their club have bagged.

But long-gone are the days of a new player being announced with a simple picture of them holding a scarf above their head.

These days it's all about carefully crafted, smoothly edited videos, usually inserting the star signing into a funny scene from a TV show or some other pop culture reference.

So what do the Teletubbies, the Inbetweeners and Back to the Future have in common?

Yep, they've all been used in these carefully crafted videos by Burnley - who are widely considered the GOATs in this space.

But how important are these videos? And do they have a bigger purpose beyond getting praise for "admin" in the comments?

'Give Burnley a run for their money'

That was just one of the replies to Bristol Rovers' Friday Night Dinner-inspired transfer announcement video for defender James Wilson earlier this summer.

It currently has more than 900,000 views, way above the club's average engagement on X, or Twitter as it used to be known.

More recently, the club had another go at breaking the internet when they superimposed new loan signing Ryan Woods' face on to Woody in a reveal video inspired by Toy Story.

Bristol Rovers are in League One, so a few rungs below Burnley in the Premier League - but their social team reckon they can compete in the top flight when it comes to transfer reveals.

"So Burnley have done some really good announcements that have gone down really well. If we can try and match that, that's excellent," says Liam Headen, who works for Rovers' media team.

"I'd like to think that we are one of the best clubs in League One, we probably put out media, especially transfer announcements, at Championship level, if not higher than that.

"Ultimately we're a League One club. And we want the things we put out to be at the highest professional level, obviously Premier League."

You can't accuse Bristol Rovers of being wooden with their social media player reveals

Liam's favourite video so far has been the Friday Night Dinner parody, but he says they don't always get long to think of ideas.

The 20-year-old tells BBC Newsbeat they barely had any notice to come up with the Toy Story idea when they signed Ryan Woods.

"We literally got told we're signing this player, we then get in the car to the training ground. Within that window we have to think of an idea.

"So when we signed him, obviously we're thinking Woods. And then all of a sudden you think 'hang on, Woody from Toy Story'.

"Can you get something with that? Is that his nickname? It's Woodsy. We'll go with it anyway, see what we can make happen."

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But Liam says football clubs aren't just making these videos to give fans a bit of a laugh.

"Every player has a commercial value and you've got to try and suck as much out of that as you can," he says.

By doing a funny announcement or something with a twist, "you can engage a wider audience other than the fans".

"If you get a video that gets 30,000 likes, the club can earn a bit of side money and just grow the profile.

"And ultimately the game of the media team is obviously to get the club as big as possible."

So has the admin had a raise at Bristol Rovers?

"The admin has not had a raise unfortunately," Liam says.

"Maybe after the window is done we can have a look."

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