As a sports lover (Go OKC Thunder!) and a 2019 Zintern, a lot of my interests and understanding in marketing lie in sports and the distinctive way advertising influences the industry’s consumers. Like all industries, sports franchises have an amazing opportunity to establish and mold their fans outlook on certain perspectives through social media. Regardless of your occupation in the sports marketing industry, social media provides lifelong benefits to your company.
Social media gives fans of a specific sport or franchise a place to communicate and have discussions about athletic events. This networking aspect can attract many people to a certain platform because of this sense of community that it creates. This idea of community can help you or your company attract more people and even strengthen the bond your current users have with each other. Here are some steps to follow to help establish this social community.
Proper Engagement
Engaging with your followers will not only expand your overall market reach, but also boost brand awareness. The role of social media is to ultimately connect individuals from all over the world. Good news: sports are literally worldwide! Also, it can help establish your brand tone and personality, which allows your followers and potential supporters to recognize your brand immediately.
Use of Hashtags
Expanding your reach is one your most important marketing tasks. With the proper use of hashtags, marketers can fulfill this goal while also finding potential target markets to gear new content to. Using trending hashtags is a great way to approach this. They spread quickly and are able to attract many people who may have never seen your content before.
Join the Conversation
Fans all over take to social media to voice their opinion on outcomes of games, how their team is doing, etc. From a company perspective, you can view this as an opportunity to join the conversation and leave a lasting impression on your followers. Using your personality and voice is key to leaving your mark on your followers. A good example of this is Wendy’s and the voice they have made for themselves on Twitter. They are known for popping in and responding to comments on a regular basis. This is a level of engagement any company should strive for.
There are already well-established social groups with many sports franchises. By honing in on these groups and gearing content that would influence these groups specifically marketers can effectively appeal to their consumers. By following these tips, marketers have the ability to accomplish their marketing goals and so much more.
—Janus Tanner, Spring 2019 Intern