Who will be our digital champions?

The race to follow in the footsteps of 2017-18 winners Farsley Celtic, Colne, Frickley Athletic and Cleethorpes Town and share more than £5,000 in prize money officially gets underway from 3pm on Saturday as the new Northern Premier League season kicks off.

Launched last August to drive up the social media stats of clubs and the EVO-STIK League and encourage the most innovative online content during the historic 50th anniversary campaign, this season's eventual winners will once again have demonstrated the greatest growth in web traffic, video downloads, Twitter and Instagram followers as well as the quality and impact of their content and engagement with fans.

To create a level playing field for clubs of all sizes and transparency for the competition, the stats of all 62 on key platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been benchmarked in August so the winners come from those demonstrating the biggest rises in web traffic and quality of social media engagement by next May.

And as added incentive to stoke up the competition and make a shortlist of finalists to be judged by a panel from the NPL and Bostik UK, the parent company of EVO-STIK, the club attracting the highest number of views or downloads for a unique piece of video content featuring EVO-STIK branding will also bank £500, collected in June by Cleethorpes Town for their efforts supporting UEFA's Everyone Plays campaign to promote LBGT inclusion.

With the online stats of the NPL and the competition's clubs continuing to break records, EVO-STIK League social media manager James Heyes is looking forward to another fierce online battle to create brilliant graphics and video content breaking out after the inaugural competition captured the imagination of clubs.

Heyes said: "It was so hard to judge the winners in the end because so many clubs rose to the challenge. The output of many on socials exploded last season and we're expecting the same again, if not an even greater reaction this time around. So good luck to all our clubs and everyone running their social media accounts - the race starts today!"

Images courtesy of Rob Lock

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