Sport

Social media and sport: A winning mix

B2B Editor12 November 2015

Social media and sport: A winning mix

Not sure whether social media is relevant to your business success?

Ask Barack Obama who raised more money for his Presidential campaign than his competitors by using social media. Ask Proctor and Gamble who invigorated their ‘Old Spice’ brand by engaging with their
customers in real time or even ask an Islamic state supporter why they constantly use Twitter.

Think about your business. Do you use social media effectively? Do you have an online presence in most forms of emerging social media such as Facebook, Twitter Instagram etc. Do you personalise your message or just blast it out there? Do you use social media to target the people that use your service or buy your goods?

If ‘yes’ congratulations. If ‘no’ you probably need to become more digitally savvy.

One area of business using social media well is the business of sports.Coinciding with the slow death of traditional newspapers and magazines, social media has become the go-to information resource for fans

seeking photos, gossip and the latest information about players and teams.

Social media has another huge advantage.It allows personal interaction.

Personal interactions connect sports with fans and strengthen identification with teams and players. Through the communicative capabilities of social media, fans can provide direct feedback and feel more
engaged with their team, thus strengthening the brand relationship.

Social media combined with sports marketing can be a valuable marketing investment – with sporting celebrities engaging with brands in an active sense, providing endorsement throughout their community of followers.

By way of example, the famous FC Barcelona soccer club found there was an extraordinary amount of value their shirt sponsor was receiving from social media which had not previously been factored into the
sponsorship deal.

Other advantages of using social media are that it is usually inexpensive and businesses can personalise the message they want to send rather than using a generic theme over and over again.

All good. The big problem is that you must understand social media and the implications of using it.

An ill-advised post on Twitter or Facebook from a sports star can have a
horror outcome.

An ill-advised tweet or a poorly constructed campaign can be similarly detrimental to a company’s brand.

So how does a company using sport create the benefits and positive outcomes from social media? Catch us next month for some answers.

paul-smith

For more information, contact Paul Smith,
Secretary and Chief Financial Officer of Yabba.Guru
on 0401 400 779 or go to www.yabba.guru

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