Sports and Social Media: A Perfect Match, PART 1
“Sports leagues all over the world are benefiting from active social media accounts; from amateur to pro, teams are providing fans with behind-the-scenes content, getting them involved, and building value into ticket prices.”- Brad Ouldhouse, @NextGenBizMan
Recently, I’ve been hired to help a hockey team improve its marketing. Funny thing is, this is not my first go around with this team and this goal. It is the very organization that I began my social media marketing career with. In this first of a two-part mini-series, I explain a very intentional strategy that I saw the need for even before I began that position in the 2014-’15 season, and plan to continue and improve upon this coming year.
The sports teams that have a great social media presence recognize that the fan experience doesn’t start and stop when they come into our venues for games. The best in the business are able to use social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (and a few more have adopted) Snapchat to give the fans what they crave- ACCESS! Using this strategy, they are able to improve the overall game-day experience in the venue as well. SO, how do they do it, and what can sports marketing personnel learn from it?
STEP 1: GIVE FANS OWNERSHIP
I’m not talking about actual stake in the team itself (although, KUDOS to the Green Bay Packers for allowing their fans to “invest” in the franchise; who doesn’t know that person who brags every year that they are part-owners of the Packers?), rather, they recognize that opening up the organization to allow fans to express themselves and they’re own experience, and in turn rewarding them for this, the fans become emotionally invested. For marketers in general, this is the Promised Land of advertising, the unicorn- WORD. OF. MOUTH.
By encouraging fans to participate and interact with their franchise through social media, they inspire this emotional investment, all from a familiar term we all know and love- “User Generated Content”(UGC). Professional teams like The Chicago Blackhawks (NHL) are amazing at this part of the strategy. While nearly every pro team is now displaying fan-generated content inside the venue during games, Many teams like the Hawks go one step further by sharing these UGC pieces on off days as well. This one features a brand partner of the Hawks interacting with fans, where both the Hawks and the sponsor gain benefit from UGC:
This isn’t exclusive only to the Hawks, nor is this a new tactic by any means, BUT minor and amateur teams alike can take a page from how “the pro’s do it”. Here’s another great example:
Forget the fact that these two are just “totes adorbs”, what a great thing for the Packers to do for their fans! All they did- ASK THEM! You can do this to, for your small town team or minor league franchise. Get the fans involved outside of game day in your social media.
STEP 2: GAME-DAY GRAPHICS
I don’t like being advertised to, and neither does any other fan of team sports, so stop doing it. You know, “HEY WE GOTTA GAME TONIGHT COME OUT WE’RE PLAYING AND STUFF”! You can advertise game-day specials with your cover graphics on your Facebook page, for example. This gives you the air-cover to talk exclusively about the match-ups, your players, your fans, etc. inside your actual posts. My first point here is this- let the avatars and cover profile graphics be the advertising, but post content that your fans love inside the feed!
Your Game-day post strategy could begin with an infographic, displaying the stat comparisons between the two teams: Here’s mine from a couple years back:
Not very clean, in hind sight (I haven’t looked at these in a while!) but later in the day, closer to puck drop, I’d put these player cards up on Twitter when I knew who the starting 5 were:
NHL teams inspired nearly every post I designed that year, organizations like the Los Angeles Kings, The Hawks, and The Toronto Maple Leafs all provided me with amazing examples for me to run the social media for our small town team with a professional flare and style. These “wowed” our fans that year, as they had never seen anything like what I was giving them. I ended each game night with these little beauties:
Your graphic images can tell great stories without blasting your fans with spammy advertisements. Yes I designed all of these each and every game, and NO I am NOT a professional as you can clearly tell, BUT you really don’t have to be. The fans shared these and commented on them and it was a great way to keep them informed without beating them over the head about coming to the games.
An obvious opportunity for your brand partners and sponsors would be their logo on any of these graphics. Get creative with your team’s investors.
STEP 3: BE TRUE TO THE PLATFORM
Warning-pending industry buzz terms here: ready? Be “native to the platforms” which is fancy marketer talk for storytelling to the strengths of the social sites you use.
Instagram is perfect for those great looking images and videos. Twitter is incredible at keeping a conversation with a hashtag alive and well, as well as in-game updates for stats and the score, of course. Facebook is also great for the in-game updates. YouTube is a wonderful library for your video content- I love the Playlist feature, myself! Snapchat gives that raw look and feel of being inside the action that fans crave. I’ll talk more about how Snapchat as well as new tools like Facebook Live, Periscope and how new ad products from Instagram, Twitter and Facebook can be used in Part 2 of this mini-series.
I believe one of the mistakes many smaller organizations make with their social strategy is generating one post in one platform and carrying that same post across to other channels. Instagram posts are notorious for this because of the share feature the platform has. Just before posting your IG picture or video, in case you haven’t used it before, you have the option to share this content to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr and Swarm. PRO TIP: Just because you CAN share this to these platforms doesn't mean that you SHOULD. Nobody wants to see the same post across every channel. For a fan base like ours, where they follow us on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram (about 34% of fans follow us on all three) it feels spammy to see the same thing. If you have a message, be creative about that message and look to the channel’s strength before you create your messages.
Pro teams are great at this! Go check out any social media site from the NHL Carolina Hurricanes or San Jose Sharks!) I don’t mind seeing a similar message across platforms (channels, social sites, all terms mean the same) so long as the post is natively strong. A picture featuring a fan with a promo cup on IG is fun, but that same promo cup can have its own mini-movie on Twitter and maybe our mascot juggles them on a quick video on Facebook. All three feature a Promo cup, yet not one is the same, and each are shareable, snackable pieces of content that now make me want to make sure I get a promo cup at the next game. Right? Got it?
STEP 4: A STRONG STRATEGY EVOLVES
For this step, please read the “Sports and Social Media: A Perfect Match PART 2”, as I do a complete deep dive on Live Streaming, Snapchat and ad products that teams are starting to use, as well as how you can use them, too!
Are YOU in sports marketing and using social media? I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions! I’d also love to follow your accounts, so leave those in your comments as well, please? Thanks everyone!
