Playing the Digital Field as An Athlete — Part 2

5 min readApr 17, 2020

Part 1: https://medium.com/@motaelb/playing-the-digital-field-as-an-athlete-part-1-95c7cbf305e2

What’s the easiest project an athlete can kick off?

Content and social media.

Which is the most natural way to create content for you? What comes easiest to you? You really must choose between audio, video or text.

Strategize and plan as if you are planning your game or next competition

Whatever you choose, you can easily create the other forms, so again, don’t worry about being first.

How do you start?

Everything starts with picking your driver. Your driver is either text, audio or video. Go from there. And keep it simple.

Create content at least 2–3 times per week at bare minimum. Now you’ll start to have some clarity. Do that for at least two weeks.

Once your two weeks are over, look at the results. Ask the following questions:

What is working?
What is not working?
What can be improved?
What can be made easier?

What you are doing first — and then focus on the rest.

You’ve got this. I know it’s a bit overwhelming at first. Here’s the good news: once you have clarity and know what your driver is, you’ll start to move faster. The process will become more natural for you, I promise.

The Social Media Problem

Most people try to be everywhere on social media. But you can’t be everywhere. It just doesn’t work.

This is actually how you get discouraged.

Pick one platform that you enjoy using and start there.

If the answer is none and you flat out hate social media, I think I’d recommend using Instagram. Why? It’s one of the easiest ones to use. It’s also the one that provides right now the fastest reach and engagement.

If you are just testing the waters open up a TikTok account now. It’s new. It’s fun. And has great potential.

But focus on Quality.

However, as you can imagine the ‘quality’ of content is important. A piece of content will only be shared if it is share-worthy. For example, an Instagram account with a lot of followers can post a bad quality Post and receive zero Reactions, while an account with a small number of followers can share a great piece of content that can reach millions of users. The important thing is to create content that people will be willing to share. Without content, social media is nothing. What is ‘share-worthy’ content? More on that below.

Tell a story: you know that humans are hardwired to love stories. Whether you’re communicating through video, blogging or just tweeting, your audience will feel more emotionally connected with you if you use stories. Your stories don’t have to be epic in scope. You could, for example, talk about how you got involved in sport, tell a funny anecdote about a training mishap, or share what you’ve learned about a recent loss.

A behind the scenes look into your unique world. People love the idea of getting a sneak peek behind the headlines into the world of high-performance athletes. Focus on the process: Focus on the aspects of your performance that are under your control. For example, instead of saying “I can’t wait to get out on the track and win a gold medal,” you could say, “I’ve been training hard and I can’t wait to be back”

Motivation. Many people choose to follow athletes via social media because seeing someone putting in the hard work necessary to achieve their dreams is extremely motivating. Someone trying to run a 5K for the first time, for example, might be inspired by the lengths that an elite triathlete has to go to achieve a personal best.
Engage with the larger sports community. Social media is a dialogue not a monologue. To increase your social media reach, remember to connect with your allies by tagging them in your posts, share their content and engage in conversations with them. Your provincial sports organization, national and international governing body, teammates, and even your competition and training venues are excellent allies that can help you spread your reach.
The feeling of being part of something bigger. How many times have you seen a follower on your social media accounts post content that supports breast cancer awareness or spreads the word about a potential health problem? It’s no secret that people love to feel part of a larger community.
Health/fitness/sport tips and tricks: Remain positive: This doesn’t mean that you have to put a ray of sunshine on every post — after all, it’s not easy to be cheerful when you’re dealing with a tough loss or setback — but when in doubt, choose positivity.
Be consistent: One of the biggest mistakes that athletes make is only updating their social media accounts only at big events. Unfortunately, building a social media following is a slow, incremental process. You’ll have more success posting a few times a week than you will if you post only when you have big news to share. Don’t be that friend that calls you up when they need something.

Still confused? Here are some direct examples

Offer a live session of training for your fans:
You must have a recipe lying around that you eat before going to your game. Cook it, videotape it then post it!
Answer your fan questions
Share some of your highlights (if you don’t have any, reach out to your Federation or Club)
Share your art, creativity, dancing skills outside of the court.

Share some tips on mental preparation
Which tip you would have loved to get from your idol when you just started your journey?
Do a podcast or videocast with Zoom or Skype!

But, isn’t my life boring? What do I have to offer?

As an athlete, you know that your day-to-day life isn’t all that glamorous. With the towering mountains of laundry, the restrictive diets and the cramped apartment shared with your training partners or teammates…

Being an athlete in a specific sport, you’ve probably reached a level of performance that required a certain level of knowledge. Your knowledge is your bargaining leverage. Becoming active on social media by sharing insightful, entertaining content is how you can get the attention of sponsors and potential funders. Sharing content is how you show-off your knowledge. Sharing content is how you connect with people; they will want to know more about you and your athletics.

In fact, what’s just another day to you is an exciting peek into the life of a high-performance athlete to your followers. Let’s face it: even if you’re just starting out your elite athletic career, you’re still on a life path that many people only dream of.

Most of all again, stay healthy and safe.

Found this useful? Add me on linkedin, let’s have a virtual coffee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/motasemelbawab/