Being a British Basketball fan, Luol Deng is one of my favourite athletes. Recently I had the chance to interview him and it’s safe to say his journey to the NBA has been a remarkable one. Deng’s journey to the NBA couldn’t have started further from the league. The Great Britain and Chicago Bulls forward…
Ash Read
Author Archive | Ash Read
Top 6 Tips On Community Management
A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of building a community and becoming more than just a sports team. One thing I didn’t really touch on in that post is the importance of community management. The community manager is often the front line of communication between a brand and it’s customers or a…
Top 4 Ways to Utilize Social Media to Grow Your Fan Base
Over the past four weeks I’ve been writing a short series of articles taking a look at how social media can be utilized to grow a sports team’s fan base, regardless of whether the team already has a large following or is starting from the grassroots level. You can find the posts in this series below….
Take Online Connections Offline
This is part of a short blog series where we take a look at how social media can be utilized to grow a sports team’s fan base, regardless of whether the team already has a large following or is starting from the grassroots level. You can see the other posts here.
The first three posts of this series have covered listening, content and community. This week I’m going to focus on the importance of taking online connections offline.
Keep It Consistent
Offline conversation about brands is still what prompts us to search for more online. If you want to build awareness and grow your fan base, you need to get out into the community offline as well as online.
Your message should be consistent across all platforms and all types of media, whether it’s online or offline. Make sure that if people see your team online they’ll recognise your brand offline and vice versa. Online and offline marketing should be part of one strategy and both should be kept in mind at all times.
Creating Great Content with Social Media
This is part of a short blog series where we take a look at how social media can be utilized to grow a sports team’s fan base, regardless of whether the team already has a large following or is starting from the grassroots level. You can see the other posts here.
In the first two posts of this series I covered the importance of listening in social media and turning your sports team into a social experience. In last week’s post I briefly touched on the importance of content. Today’s post we’re going to take a deeper look into this subject.
You Have Great Content
Everyone has the ability to produce great content, whether you’re an amateur soccer team or an NBA franchise. Producing great content is not about glitz and glamour. If you’re making videos it’s not the quality of the camera that makes the difference; with blogs it’s not the widgets and plug-ins that make it successful. It’s the content.
Think about what content people will want to see: fans, players, coaches, sponsors – what appeals to them? What will make them continue to pay an interest in you? And importantly when you’re looking to expand your fan base and reach new fans, what will they share? That is your great content.
From Sports Team to Social Experience
This is part of a short blog series where we take a look at how social media can be utilized to grow a sports team’s fan base, regardless of whether the team already has a large following or is starting from the grassroots level. You can see the other posts here.
In the first post of this series I covered the importance of listening in social media. Today I’m going to cover how community can help your fan base grow.
Using social media to create an online community is a great way to bring your fans together, constantly keep them thinking about your team and also reach new fans. You can also use an online community as a way to add to your teams overall experience and create brand advocates.
Utilize Social Media to Grow Your Fan Base
When we talk about social media in sports the majority of case studies and best practices come from high profile and established sports teams and we tend to focus on how these teams engage with their fan base through social media. But what if your team doesn’t already have tens of thousands of fans-how can you utilize social media to grow your fan base?
The above question is something I get asked a fair bit and to be honest there’s no set answer – the answer depends upon you, your team and your target fan base.
Whilst I can’t give a set in stone plan that will guarantee your team’s fan base will grow, I can certainly give you some tips that will help.
Starting today, I’ll be publishing a short series of weekly articles about how I feel teams and sports organizations can utilize social media to grow their fan bases.
Know your audience
Listening is a key factor in successful use of social media. Before you jump into social media you need to make sure you know your audience – if you don’t you will end up wasting a lot of time.
The Power of Social Media in Grass Roots Sports
The opportunities social media provides to pro sports teams and athletes are well documented, but I feel social media also provides massive opportunities for amateur and semi-pro teams.
A lot of the conversation around sports and social media focuses on the idea that teams already have a massive following they can just tap into This isn’t often the case for grass roots teams though, many teams need to build their followings up from scratch and social media is a great way to do this. However, in order for social media to be successful it must be approached in the right way.
Beckham, Thanks For The Memories
I’ll warn you now this isn’t one of my typical articles, if you’d like to read about how sports can utilise social media, I’m sorry to disappoint you (this time), but I feel sometimes we need to take a step back from social media and remember exactly why it is we love sport so much. This is simply an article to say thank you to a sporting icon and a true England legend.
Growing up in England, football was my first love and David Beckham was my first sporting idol. Last night it seems Fabio Capello called time on Beckham’s extraordinary England career when he said “I thank [David] very much for helping me at the World Cup but probably he is a little bit old.”
Even though Beckham has always come back stronger whenever he’s faced adversity or been dropped in the past, even as his biggest fan, I would admit that it’s hard to see him coming back this time.
Beckham though, will never quit on England and give up a chance to play for his country.During an interview with BBC Sport in July he said; “I’m not ready to step aside. If I don’t get picked for England again then I’m very proud of my record, 100 starts and 115 games. I’m very proud of that but I still believe I have a part to play. I take each day, week, month and year as it comes. Like I say, I never want to step down from playing for my country.”
British Basketball Uses Power of Social Media
Social media has opened up the doors for fans to have a voice like never before, this is something which in my experience scares some teams but also offers great opportunity. The upcoming free agency, or Decision 2010 as the NBA have branded it, has lead to many fan led campaigns telling stars like LeBron…
Social Media Adds to Fan Experience
We’ve all read posts about how social media will benefit sports teams, and the benefits of constantly engaging with and having a dialogue with fans, so I don’t want to cover that in this post, I’d like to look into a few of emerging tools and explore ways in which they could improve fan experience and encourage fans down to the stadium.
How to Follow the World Cup
June 11th 2010. I’ve been counting down to this day for what seems like an ice age! For those of you who may not be aware, (if that’s possible) today is start of the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa. This is the first tournament held in the continent of Africa and promises to…