Over the last decade, social media has revolutionized the sports industry, which isn’t surprising given the power of social media wields. Thanks to diverse social media platforms, the sports industry has found new and unique ways to communicate and engage with internal and external entities.
Sports clubs and teams have found new ways to relate with the fans. Community spiritism has entered the equation, too. Because of social media, the ties that are built between teams, athletes, and fans have phenomenally increased loyalty level. Also, sports consumption has greatly increased.
Here are 5 reasons why social media is the best tool for engagement within the sports industry:
1. Enable Sports Organizations, Leagues, And Teams To Connect With Fans
Fans crave information and details about their favorite teams, leagues, and more, whether they’re on or off the field. Fortunately, social media has made it possible for leagues, teams, and sports organizations to intricately engage with their fans like never before. With the introduction of social media, sports organizations can now give their fans everything they crave.
The interactive structure of social media is the backbone of the sports industry. By providing insight into different happenings within the leagues and teams, fans can conveniently engage with the sports industry on topics and events at hand. Through this, millions of fans are now able to relate with one another like one big family.
Twitter and Facebook are perfect examples of how social media can house huge fanbases of the sports team and unite them. This is beneficial to the sports industry because it helps build loyalty and unity. Since out of sight means out of mind, sports organizations now use sports management tools, like Greenfly, to engage with their social media accounts, allowing them to connect with fans.
2. Gives Opportunity For Fan-to-Fan Interaction
Thanks to social media, fans can gather together online, irrespective of their physical location, to discuss the sport or team that unites them. Fans also get to discuss content concerning their favorite team and even create fan arts to help relieve beautiful sports moments. Social media also enables fans to get fast updates about the current happenings of their favorite team.
The likes of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram enable fans to have an in-app community where they engage and relate as one big family of a specific team, league, or club. The fans can use hashtags, comments, tweets, likes, and more to help them communicate and foster a strong community.
This move encourages unity, oneness, and loyalty to a chosen team or club. Even sports organizations and teams benefit from a thriving sports community. This is because it helps build their reputation and will also motivate them to do good as not to disappoint their fans.
3. Allows Athletes To Personally Connect With Their Fans
Athletes also feel the need to personally connect with their fans. Through social media, athletes can connect with their fans on a personal level and give them insight into their lives outside the field. This is a wonderful tactic because it encourages fans to relate more to the sports industry.
For instance, you can see that Messi posted a picture of himself working out at the gym on Instagram. Within that moment, you’d see the post have over 5K likes.
4. Improves The Way Sport Is Reported
Another way in which social media is revolutionizing sports is that it’s changing the way sports news is reported. Unlike before, when sports fans depended solely on mass media outlets for news on sports, particularly updates concerning their favorite teams and athletes, much has changed.
Now, popular sports outlets like ESPN, WWE, Bleacher Report, Barstool Sports, Sports Gossip give popular news updates concerning sports on social media platforms. These sports media outlets have thousands to millions of followers that wait on them to give solid information and updates on sports activities. Also, sports organizations, teams, leagues, and more now have social media publicists that directly communicate with fans/followers online and give them timely updates.
5. Serves As A Top-notch Way Of Generating More Revenue
The sports industry’s revenue stream has expanded ever since social media became the ‘it’ network. Social media greatly aids sports marketing through the use of social media ads and sponsored posts. These days, it doesn’t take hours for games and sports arenas to sell out fast. The hype that some sports events generate on social media makes the athletes, sports clubs/leagues, and the likes get more than twice of their projected income.
With regards to sponsored posts, several athletes make a lot of money through their social media accounts. This occurs through ‘post sponsoring.’ Brands and businesses that would like to showcase their products and services to a wider audience sometimes partner with popular athletes. These athletes usually get paid a huge sum of money per sponsored posts.
Conclusion
From expanding the income stream to helping build loyal fans and followers and standing as the in-between between the sports industry and fans, there’s no doubt that social media is the best tool for engagement within the sports industry. This is why social media will continue to dominate the sports industry for a long time.
