Reviewing this year’s #Wimbledon Fortnight Fever… https://t.co/BdyogMw0mr pic.twitter.com/9nD8vbD9TY
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 14, 2015
Many sport events, leagues, teams and players are utilizing social media in creative ways to increase reach, access different demographics, connect with stalwart fans and satisfy sponsors. They’re winning big in the social media marketing game.
Most recently, the Wimbledon tournament aced social media. Tournament promoters posted updates and high-quality photos and video clips on almost all major social media networks – a total of eight by its own counting. Marketers posted video clips of matches, practice sessions, interviews with players, and even crowd scenes and tournament staff at work.
Wimbledon also used social media monitoring software to track and engage with users, discussing the tournament, states Sendible.
The recent growth in the social media audience for Wimbledon and most other sports has been remarkable. Wimbledon began sharing real-time video clips of on-court action last year. It received 3.5 million views over two weeks, the Financial Times reported. This year, a single, daring shot by tennis start Roger Federer netted 4 million views in 24 hours.
Novak Djokovic won the men’s singles tournament, becoming a three-time Wimbledon champion. Serena Williams won her sixth Wimbledon women’s singles title, her third grand slam tournament win of the year.
In a League of its Own
The NBA is the champion sports league in social media, say many observers. NBA executives have recognized that more fans are viewing videos of games through social media channels. Teams are transitioning from publishing content on their websites to publishing and promoting it on their social media accounts.
“Across the board — at the league level, at the team level, across all social media channels—the NBA is miles ahead of any other sports league in the country,” Jaryd Wilson, who runs the Atlanta Hawks’ Twitter account @ATLHawks, boasted to Complex Sports.
“It won’t be long before we start to see [NBA] teams beefing up their social teams in lieu of staffing traditional content creators,” said Max Rappaport, a web content coordinator for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Surprisingly, given the trend, some teams still lack a social media coordinator and treat social media as PR mouthpiece. Teams like the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers play it safe and, not surprisingly, have fewer followers. Teams like the Brooklyn Nets and Atlanta Hawks are more relaxed, light-hearted and witty and have a much stronger online presence. Their social media success is due to a small group of staff (mostly Millennials) armed with iPhones, freedom and creativity.
Other businesses can gain awareness and good will among a team’s fans by participating in the social media conversations with interesting comments that align the business with the team and its fans. It may also be possible to inject a promotion to the fans participating in the social media discussion, but it has to be done without violating the website’s policies on advertising.
Keeping Advertisers Happy
Advertisers like social media because television viewership often spikes based on social media posts and video snippets. The key is to quickly post analysis, comments, videos and other content that is likely to be shared.
Social media by sports teams appeals to television advertisers in another way as well. If fans watching a game are busy communicating through social media during television commercial breaks, they won’t change the channel and will pay at least passing attention to commercials. In other words, keep their thumbs busy on their smartphones so they’ll stay off the TV remote, said Ivan Farneti of Glory Sports International, a kick-boxing channel.
Even fans attending live games share on social media. The centerfield camera at baseball games shows the people sitting behind the plate. At any given time, the camera shows a large proportion of them looking at their cell phones. They’re focused on the cell phones and ignoring the live event after they paid $50 to $1,500 to attend the game.
World Cup Winner
Nike was a recent winner from its sponsorship of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Nike had more references online associated with the Women’s World Cup from June 6 to July 5 than any other brand, including the soccer tournament’s official sponsor Adidas, notes The Wall Street Journal that cited data from Amobee Brand Intelligence.
Nike ran its “American Woman” ad featuring U.S. team players and the hashtag #NoMaybes. Nike also promoted a tweet with the hashtag.
Amobee counted about 26,000 Nike-related tweets about the World Cup and nearly 10,000 tweets carrying the #NoMaybes hashtag around tournament time. That compares to 2,453 Adidas World Cup-related tweets.
Like their teams and sponsors, many professional athletes actively participate in social media to build their personal brand and connect with their fans. Athletes like basketball player Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavs also use social media to express their opinions on issues affecting them, their team or their sport. Their social media comments often attract extraordinary online conversations and publicity in traditional media.
Bottom Line: Sports teams and event organizers are finding great success with recent social media marketing campaigns. Some marketers stress frequent high-quality videos posted on a range of networks. Sports teams meet their goals by giving young social media coordinators the freedom to engage with fans. Other companies that target younger consumers and have even a tenuous connection to sports may also score business wins by investing in social media campaigns that engage sports fans.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
That’s true! social media plays a vital role in shouting out word, whether it is sport, finance, ecommerce or any other stream. Earlier it was just used to share feelings, moment and information but now it has changed, people started marketing over social media platforms. Twitter plays a bigger role in this because of its 140 character real-time message.
The brand that gained the most attention in connection with Wimbledon wasn’t even a sponsor. It was Pimm’s, a popular drink in the Wimbledon culture. And the brand never even mentioned Wimbledon in it’s social media marketing.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/brand-scored-most-digital-attention-wimbledon-wasnt-even-sponsor-165873