We are continuing with our “10 components you need to include in your sports marketing strategy today” series and today’s focus is on leveraging your social media platforms. This is the 6th component we are discussing so if you have missed the first 5, make sure to listen to those too.

According to Nielsen, 47% of people who watch sports on TV or via digital platforms simultaneously watch other live content. Among these different multi-screen viewing activities, social media engagement makes up 32% of this total number. And this number is even higher for Gen Z, where social media stands for 46% of their viewing activities. So it then goes without saying: making social media a part of your sports marketing strategy should be a given. By being present and playing an active role in your supporters’ favorite social media platforms, you are able to:

1. Open a window into the lives of your supporters and understand their specific needs, preferences, and behaviors.
2. Maximize fan engagement by interacting with them on social media, for instance via accounts that belong to your club or athletes.
3. Leverage the social media data you have collected about your supporters to find and create new monetization opportunities.

However, there is a huge mistake that most sports organizations make when it comes to social media. From small clubs to big ones such as FC Barcelona, this mistake is indeed a common one. Many sports organizations actually make the mistake of not converting their followers into contacts in their database. Let’s take FC Barcelona as an example. Out of more than 350 million social media followers, Barcelona only had less than 3 million contacts.

Not converting your social media followers to contacts in your database can limit your sponsorship value and the effectiveness of your communications. So you won’t be able to segment or target effectively, personalization becomes near impossible if you don’t understand your fans. And you can’t understand your fans if they are not even in your contact database.

So how can you make sure that you increase your social media followers while simultaneously growing your contact database? Remember we said that content is king? That’s what you need to leverage to grow your social media followers and contact database. However, it is crucial that you direct your social media followers to one of your own platforms. Here are a few examples of such content:

1. Giveaways where your supporters have to sign-up and leave their contact information
2. Another amazing way you can grow your contact database is to run competitions
3. Promote gated content on your social media. This will require fans to once again, sign-up in order to access the content
4. Subscriptions are another fantastic way of gaining more followers while growing your contact database. Do you have a newsletter or a blog? Are you maybe a bigger organization with a digital newsroom or do you offer regular public relations communications? Then why not create a subscription call to action? Something along the lines of, “subscribe to our newsletter and never miss a thing we do ever again”.
5. Give discounts and vouchers - Everyone loves discounts and vouchers, especially nowadays where “entertainment” is becoming more expensive and sports tickets are becoming more and more expensive. So why not offer your followers discount codes if they sign up for something on your website or any other platforms you own?

In summation, leveraging social media is crucial for every sports organization’s growth.

Try our DEMO free today!