John Terry? Ashley Cole? Frank Lampard? Wrong answer. The most valuable asset of Chelsea FC is far far away from its roster: it’s their people, a huge community of fans spread all over the world and kept together via several initiatives, most of them online through www.chelseafc.com.

I am glad I bumped into this article on their website,  where the Club is calling for all young fans between 12 and 16 years old to become journalists for a brand new section targeted to young fans in Chelsea’s official monthly magazine.

This is a fantastic example of one of the advantages of having a vibrant, engaged and active online community.

It is not just about page views, site visits and tickets sold, it’s also about having the advantage of the availability of an active online community, increasing potential success for events and promotions.

So when you plan, like in this case, to tap into a specific audience segment with the goal of involving it in a new initiative as end users but also as generators of content, BANG! there they are already.

This is not happening overnight and it is not just because Chelsea FC is one of the most popular clubs in the world: I could write a list of popular clubs twice as long as this post without any of them having an engaged online community.

It is about planning, goals, strategy, technology and yes, a lot of hard work. But it pays off!

Alessandro De Zanche