Tag Archives: social media

Oct 12

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This is the age of Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Snapchat just to name a few. Or, the new way to watch your team’s play even when you can’t.

Thanks to social media, if you miss a big game you can now go on Twitter for an up-to-the-minute highlights or even get a game report from multiple fan perspectives. Platforms such as Instagram will give you the behind-the-scenes information you can’t find anywhere else. Whether you like it or not, social media is the place for die-hard sports watchers to go to these days.

Creating a voice for teams that is consistent with the overall team brand as well as fans is something social media coordinators have to do every day.  “It’s the social media coordinators who are responsible for finding that nexus of humor, truth, and branding,” according to the Complex Magazine article.

Complex Magazine zeroed in on the single-handed and sometimes dual presence that drives the witty social media presence behind NBA teams such as the Brooklyn Nets, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Atlanta Hawks. Some, like the Nets and Sixers, notched many more wins in the social sphere than they ever did on the court.

Complex delved deeper with a profile on the daily lives of social media coordinators who work for The Brooklyn Nets and The Philadelphia 76ers.

It seems as if the teams who have great standings are the only teams who play nicely on social media–they simply can’t take the risk. Teams like the Nets and the 76ers, on the other hand, are encouraged to draw outside the proverbial box as much as possible since neither have top standing.

For the Nets, Sixers and even successful Hawks it seems the secret to a slam dunk is crafting a witty, clever tweet that lands at the right time.

Being empathetic with your fan base is what the 76ers social media crew does exceptionally well. They have adopted the ‘if you can’t beat em…join em’ attitude in regards to their team. This is a creative approach for a franchise that has spent years at the bottom of the NBA standings during a years-long rebuild that has featured two of their #1 draft picks spending their first season on the sidelines with injuries.

Social media highlights for the Nets’ season include capturing moments fans would not have had access to otherwise—shots taken at practice, locker room, pressroom and keeping tweets witty yet aligned with their stylish image.

The Atlanta Hawks made a splash on social media when it had a groundbreaking, interactive ‘Swipe Right’ Tinder night where basketball fans were able to combine love and basketball in one quarter. Matches could meet in lounges filled with Altoids and roses.

All of these teams seem to make waves with mash-up’s that infuse their teams and players with witty pop culture references. The NBA social media coordinators also interact with fans, rival teams while, above all, making sure that they are still brand appropriate.

Reshares, retweets any and all forms of social media attention can help boost sales, merchandise and everything else NBA related.

Sep 9

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The social media celebrity has killed the traditional sports marketing agent. That’s at least what marketer Evan Morgenstein recently told Forbes. Morgenstein believes that, ”The athlete market is dead. Sports agents are losing so many deals that they used to get as full endorsement deals to ‘celebrities’ just willing to lend themselves on social media. [There is] no need for appearances or traditional advertising.”

Morgenstein holds the sentiment so true that he’s abandoned professional athlete marketing for the “social media celebrities” that cut into his former sector.

Though most athletes should expect lesser endorsement payouts in the coming years, Morgenstein believes that the top athletes can still expect even higher payouts–like Houston Rocket’s James Harden’s recent $200 million deal with Adidas. However, to achieve these types of deals a player should expect to not only produce on the court, but also on social media. Figures like points per game and jerseys sold matter just as much to a marketer as does the athlete’s social media following.

“The first question asked by PR people is, what’s your social media numbers? What’s your engagement numbers? What kind of sell-through are you getting? These are the questions that sports agents never had to answer in the past,” Morgenstein elaborated to Forbes.

As social media continues its further immersion into the fabric of our lives, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to see this sort of shift. Social media represents a significant pulse for fans and athletes. Just as sports has embraced analytics, so too has its advertisers. Certainly, the social media celebrity may eventually burst, but for now, it continues to grow as some athlete endorsements lose air.

Copyright © 2016 Thane Ritchie. All Rights Reserved.