Twitter became a great tool to help fans
The explosion of several bombs in the way of Borussia Dortmund‘s bus made the UEFA suspend the match versus AS Monaco. It was a very hard moment for BVB team with one injured player: Marc Bartra. As soon as the explosion took place we decided to stop the Twitter analytics game: BVB’s Twitter league. It had no point at all not only because the game was going to be suspended, but because @BVB mentions were too high. Our client had very important matters to attend at that moment as you can imagine. But then, when darkness was supposed to cover everything, a hashtag made us believe again: #BedForAwayFans. We started tracking it (of course) to see the impact of a hashtag we consider “historical”.
#BedForAwayFans: the hashtag.
Dear supporters of @AS_Monaco_EN! If you need accommodation in Dortmund, please check #bedforawayfans. #bvbasm
— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) April 11, 2017
The game was moved, that meant Monaco fans had to stay in Dortmund one more night and many of them had planned to go back home in the same day. This was a huge problem for some supporters:
Hallo ich bin Fan von #monaco i am alleine in Dortmund and i have not money for a Hotel please help me #BVBASM #bedforawayfans
— Volkan Tyson (Botti) (@VolkanTysonBott) April 11, 2017
So Borussia Dortmund fans started to offer their homes to Monaco fans to sleep over. They used the hashtag #BedForAwayFans:
#bedforawayfans I have a bed for two people near the football stadium
— Inga We (@IngaWe2) April 11, 2017
#bedforawayfans I have space for 8 people. 15 mins away from the stadium.
— Fischer (@sulii___) April 11, 2017
And suddenly:
Thank you really i have respect for you Guys ❤❤ A Familly is going to pick up me thank you all of you ❤ Dortmund ❤ #bedforawayfans
— Volkan Tyson (Botti) (@VolkanTysonBott) April 11, 2017
AMAZING: @BVB & @AS_Monaco_EN fans enjoying their evenings together. 🇩🇪🇫🇷
The Beautiful Game. 😎👏 #bedforawayfans pic.twitter.com/QwYI29xzDI
— SPORF (@Sporf) April 11, 2017
77,000 tweets and counting
Then we did what we do best: track the hashtag to know the impact and reach of it. We registered more than 77,000 tweets since the start: 20:00 aprox. About 50,000 users participate in the conversation adding tweets with the hashtag. This is one of those hashtags that bring people together and unite them. There is this need of helping that many of us feel. However only a few ones can actually help: those with a house in Dortmund. That’s why more than 94% of the tweets are retweets, because people were sharing the tweets trying to help. @BVB’s tweet with the hashtag got more than 20,000 retweets.
Many popular Twitter accounts used the hashtag, specially media that wanted to cover it and even the official Twitter account of Twitter Germany.
For example, this is Telegraph’s tweet:
Borussia Dortmund fans offer stranded Monaco supporters accommodation in classy #bedforawayfans gesture https://t.co/3aFbnrAWKv
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) April 11, 2017
These popular accounts also helped to grow the impact and reach of the hashtag. Basically, stats are amazing and huge, this is because the hashtag itself is pure goodness. “Twitter” loves when these type of things happen because it helps us believe that, no matter how bad things can be, there are always great people to help.
Access the full Twitter report.