Tracking: What's 'Appening

Fan engagement is all about, well, engaging with your fans. And engagement means connecting across multiple touch-points.

For the Chinese Grand Prix, I was interested in tracking how the Formula 1 teams updated their fans outside of social media. After all, not every fan uses social media! While there are apps and websites (both official and unofficial) that provide updates for the entire grid, I wanted to know how individual teams were capturing the attention of their fans.

As far as I could tell, four teams provided live updates for their fans outside of social media:

Mercedes, who have live updates on their website, as well as a (sponsored) WhatsApp channel, and Ferrari, Williams, and McLaren who all have fan apps.

Note: I have chosen not to include Discord servers in this discussion as they’re a gated form of engagement that I’ll cover in another post

Jump to:

• Call To App-tion

  • Email

  • Social Media

• Live App-dates

  • McLaren

  • Williams

  • Ferrari

• Bonus

  • Alex Albon

  • Mercedes

• Conclusion

Call To App-tion

The first step in engaging with your fans via an app is letting them know you have an app in the first place. So how do the teams do it?

Email

Social Media

McLaren were the most vocal about their app across the weekend. At the start of each session, they would link to the live commentary that was happening on their app. It was a clear CTA with a direct link to the app store.

Williams don’t directly link to their app, but they do link to the live coverage on their website, which then prompts you to download the app. It’s a good middle ground of providing the information for the fans who don’t want something else clogging up their phone, while still capturing the attention of the fans who do.

Ferrari reminded their fans of their app just once across the weekend, and it was technically before the weekend actually began. For a team who hosts most of their fan engagement content on their app, they don’t go out of their way to let fans know it exists. If you weren’t closely reading all of their posts and emails (which were difficult to find in the first place!), you may miss out on its existence.

Live App-dates

Across the weekend, I was interested in how the teams would be actually updating their fans through these channels. The Chinese Grand Prix was the last of the races that are in a decent timezone for us Aussies, so it was a good chance to follow along and grab some screenshots as the Sprint weekend unfolded.

McLaren

McLaren’s app is pretty standard in its features outside of its live updates, acting primarily as a replica of their website in terms of news and video content.

However, I was very impressed with their live commentary across the weekend. They had a mix of commentary and pit-wall messages, which helps fans feel connected to what’s happening on track (especially if they can’t watch live).

McLaren also did a great job at push notifications, sending thirty-minute reminders, session start messages, and announcing red flags and incidents.

(apologies for the switching between light and dark mode in these screenshots!)

I’m a fan of their live commentary feature, but would love to see some more integration of their McLaren Plus program into the app as a whole.

Overall Weekend App Rating 8/10

Williams

Like McLaren, Williams’ app largely functions as a replica of their website. However, as they have their fan club with collectible badges, it does offer an extra level of engagement for fans.

Like McLaren, the Williams live feed is a mix of commentary and pit-wall messages. I do like that there’s a clearer visual difference in their feed between the two compared to the McLaren feed, making it easy to see at a glance what they’re sharing. I also like that they have the drivers’ positions in the feed following the sessions so that it acts as an all-in-one information source.

I didn’t receive any push notifications from Williams across the weekend (despite having received app notifications at various other times from them), so I do think that’s the one area where they could take an extra step.

Overall Weekend App Rating: 9.5/10

Ferrari

Ferrari’s app is their one-stop fan engagement shop, offering far more in terms of videos and bonus content than you can find on their website.

However, despite having a “live” update section on the app, actual updates across the weekend were few and far between.

Long after the race had finished, the most recent update in the commentary section was from lap 39/56 (even though the front page of the app had been updated with results). This seems to indicate the commentary feed isn’t a high priority for them. It seems very odd to go to the effort of having a feature and then not using it properly!

While the app is useful for fans, the actual live coverage feature has a long way to go to match their competitors.

Overall Weekend App Rating 6/10

Bonus

The three team apps are not the only way fans could get their live updates over the weekend!

Alex Albon

Alex is the first of the drivers to have his own dedicated fan app. Outside of race weekends, it’s mainly a newsfeed, although there is a membership element that I’m hoping will be further developed.

Alex’s app had some of the best live updating across the weekend. Frequent push notifications were combined with a mix of commentary, pit messages, and photos to give Alex fans the complete experience.

Overall App Rating 9/10

Mercedes 

Mercedes don’t have an app, but they have created a WhatsApp channel (primarily because WhatsApp are a key sponsor for them this year). However, I actually found it quite hard to locate! I only found out that it existed because I saw someone sharing a video from it on Twitter, and then had to investigate to find the link.

Searching “WhatsApp” through their Twitter account brings up just three instances of the team sharing a direct link to the channel (most recently in mid-February). There is a link to the channel at the bottom of their website under “follow us”, but I feel like the use of WhatsApp channels isn’t widespread enough for that to be a clear CTA for fans.

Then again, 1.9million people follow the channel, so this might all just be a me problem!

Much like the apps, the WhatsApp channel functions as a one-way update system where fans are provided with key information and results. It doesn’t seem to aim to function as a full commentary feed, as they also sent reminders to follow along on their website for all updates.

Like Williams, Mercedes also provide live commentary updates on their website homepage. They share regular updates and commentary, quite similar to what you would find on their social media feeds (minus the images).

Conclusion

Overall, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams do quite a good job of keeping their fans up to date away from their social media accounts. Ferrari are making an effort, but with limited reminders that their app exists, and actual live updates remaining sporadic, there’s a lot of work still to do.

While I’ll likely always be someone who gets most of their race updates from Twitter, I think giving fans a way to engage with you outside of that ecosystem is extremely beneficial (especially with Twitter now limiting what you can see if you don’t have an account - which many fans won’t!).

I’m sure a lot of it comes down to resourcing (although if you’re creating updates for one channel, it’s not a huge chore to paste them across to a second one, like Mercedes!), but I think the six teams who currently aren’t making an effort should look to up their games to ensure they’re reaching their fans in as many ways as possible. After all, reducing friction in a fan’s connection journey increases the likelihood of ongoing engagement, leading to longer-term loyalty and eventual spend.