5 Ways Your Favorite Sports Teams are Using Social Media
Everyone and their grandma has some type of social media account by now. Before these accounts and websites were mainly used for personal use, to reconnect with old friends or see what your family is up to a few cities over. Now, companies and organizations have jumped on the social media bandwagon to gain your attention where you are already spending some free time.
There has been a large rise in the way major league sports teams have integrated social media into the fan experience. You can get to know your favorite players, when the next game is, where you can listen to or watch it, and even get by the minute updates for every game. Here are some of the most popular ways major league sports teams are using social media to keep you, their beloved fans, in the loop and coming back for more.
1. In-game Twitter updates
Twitter has become a great platform for anyone anywhere to get to the minute updates on today’s game, recaps from yesterday’s game, and predictions or information about tomorrow’s game. Some of these updates include weather information about rain delay’s or player injury updates, when is your favorite player going to be back in action or how did one of the star players just get hurt and what will the team do? The Colorado Rockies Twitter page does an excellent job at keeping their fans updated. They also keep their fans engaged by responding to personal tweets with questions or comments. See what the Rockies Twitter page is up to here.
2. Professional Instagram photos
Most, if not all, major league sports teams have a slew of photographers taking thousands of photos per game, but where do all of those photos go? Some probably make it into the local newspapers or somewhere on the team’s website, but Instagram has been the perfect space for some of those great photos to be published for everyone to see. Some great examples are the San Francisco Giants and the Denver Broncos.
Some teams are even playing around with the landscape of Instagram, posting only parts of the photo at a time and you have to go to their page to see the whole thing. You can see that on the Colorado Rockies Instagram, you may have to scroll back a little ways but you’ll know when you get there.
3. Experience the game through Snapchat
Some many sports teams now have a Snapchat account you can follow, many of which use it for different parts of the team. Snapchat has been used mainly to give the fans an inside look into practices and allows you to experience the games like you are there, even if your team is not playing at home.
The Snapchat spectacles have helped this tremendously! The Colorado Rockies had a few of the players wear the spectacles during Spring Training practices and on the grounds crew while they prep the field so it looks like you are watering the grass! The Chicago Cubs have used them from a spectator viewpoint to give their fans a look at what it is like to be a Wrigley Field. Here is a list of every major league sports team in the US that has a Snapchat account, of course with their handle so you can go follow them.
4. Live Facebook Videos
Many major league sports team have now started using the live feature on Facebook. This has been used for informal interviews before games, access to pre-game warmups or events, and MLB even streamed a game live on Facebook from the MLB Network. You’ll have to follow your favorite team to see how they like using Facebook Live, but expect to see it more and more! The Colorado Rockies use Facebook Live for those informal interviews mentioned earlier that they call RockTalkLive.
5. More than just specific teams are using social accounts
MLB. NFL. ESPN. Just to name three.
Focusing mainly on Instagram and Twitter, you can find most every major league organization with their own social media accounts where you can get all the important information about the league in general. Bigger companies like ESPN use their accounts to give all sports fans updates they didn’t even know they needed. You can also find the Olympics with their own accounts, keeping people updated and engaged in the years between games. These organizations are giving their fans up-to-date information through platforms their fans love to use and not having them wait for game recaps in the morning paper.
Almost every individual player has their own accounts, too! (But that could be an entire article on it’s own, so we won’t dive into that here)
Here is a list, created by Sports Illustrated, of some of the top social media accounts across all sports.
