Improving Your Sports Team’s Social Media

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A delightful bonus of being a sports fan in the social media age is the ability to connect with professional sports teams and athletes via their social media accounts. The content is unlimited: hobbies, families, talents, mockery, vacations and so much more are shared. Fans can follow along with more than the actual games, and even get to look at their favourite athlete’s dogs occasionally!

Social media doesn’t have to be limited to just professional sports. Any recreational sports team can use Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to build a following, share tournament updates, and generate community relationships.

In order to bring together the spheres of social media and sports, we discuss the best tips for leveraging social media and generating a team page that will keep all followers engaged: 

Social Media and Sports: The Must-Haves

1. Find a social media administrator

Most parents will have their own social media accounts and will know the rules of posting content. Try to find someone who is (almost) always in attendance and is passionate about helping out to become your sports team’s social media administrator.

A social media administrator will be in charge of posting to your accounts, monitoring new followers (to avoid any spammy accounts that might follow you), and reviewing the analytics of each social media post to understand what content is performing well.

 2. Outline social media rules

Inform parents that this page will not be used to discuss player availability, team concerns, or any other back-and-forth conversations that can be done through another portal (PSA: go and see our friends at TeamSnap for this).

Instead, let them know that your sports team’s social media account will be strictly used for connectivity and shared experiences. Explain that similar to any other Facebook or Instagram page, comments will be monitored and deleted if necessary by the administrator of the accounts.

3. Share exciting sports content

As soon as sports evaluations wrap up and teams are formed, start posting content! Post scores throughout the game, photos after a big win, community events that the team took part in, highlights from Tuesday night’s practice, or a birthday wish to a player on their big day.

Are you looking to drive thousands of followers to your social media pages? No. Are you looking to drum up some excitement, have an easy place for Grandma two states over to tune in to, or keep a Mom who is stuck in the office late informed? Absolutely.

If you are feeling super inspired, have a post-game interview with the kid who just caught his first pop fly or post a contest for your followers to win a prize donated by a local business. You have endless options when it comes to content, and the benefits for morale and fun are just as plentiful.  

4. Thank your teams’ sponsors

Do you have a local pharmacy that continues to show your team support? Or maybe a tire shop that sponsored your new jerseys this year? Tell your administrator to write a post thanking them for their support across your sports team’s social media accounts. Be sure to let the sponsor know that you will be sharing their information in the rare case there are any objections.

5. Maintain consistency with posting

It is easy to come out red hot at the beginning of the season before sliding into a routine and struggling to drum up exciting content. By developing a plan and sticking to it, it will be easier to avoid the “social funk” midway through the season.

Ask other parents to share content ideas with each other to help keep your accounts fresh and exciting all year long. Create an Excel spreadsheet and share it with all parents of the team, encouraging anyone with a creative and fun content idea to drop it in the spreadsheet.

Wrapping Up

Regardless of how many likes, comments or charges these posts get, make sure your sports teams’ social media accounts accomplish the original purpose of connectivity of information (and fun!). When leveraged properly, the impact of social media can be tremendous.

Aside from social media, another way to build excitement internally with your sports team is through SkillShark’s live leaderboards. Generate some friendly competition among your athletes, in which objective scores (i.e., run time, distance covered, goals scored etc..) will be posted on a live leaderboard for players to see during practices.