How to Grow Your Program with Social Media
Keelyn McNamara - Graphic Designer
Why Use Social Media?
Social media has changed the way we consume professional, collegiate and high school sports. In today’s sports world, social media is a resume for your program. It’s essential you have one so that people see you’re established, unique and worth getting to know. There’s a reason why almost every collegiate program in the country has an online social presence. It establishes your team as a generational program not just a temporary team. While social media may not be something you as a coach subscribe to, it is an incredibly important aspect of promoting your program, connecting with a broader audience and sharing your team’s story. Establishing a social media presence is vital to growing your program and its culture. An inactive and stale social media account isn’t going to get your players or community excited. By implementing the 3 tips below, you’ll be able to grow your social media account from the ground up and have followers wanting to engage and stay connected with your team season after season.
Content Is Key
The most important thing when building up your social media is having content that gives viewers something in return. Viewers want to see, watch and read content that excites them, informs them and grabs their attention. To achieve this your content should be visually interesting and informative. Game Day graphics are incredibly useful as they inform the community about game details while also showing off your team or players. Many teams create game day posts that feature a specific player or players. This allows you to include all players and players can repost and share your content on their own social media, broadening your media’s reach. Final score graphics for big wins are also great ways to celebrate your successes and get the community involved in playoff wins or championship runs. These graphics are incredibly easy to make and don’t require an artistic eye or complex software. If you want a free option, try using Canva.com. They have a wide variety of free sports templates that you can customize to your brand. If you’re looking to spend a little money and go the extra mile with looks and convenience try Gipper.com. Both of these options you can do directly from your phone on the bus to a game or in the locker room after a big win. If you don’t have the time to make your own social media graphics, we offer a graphics package as well!
Graphics aren’t the only way to create engaging content. Have a parent or local photographer that takes photos? Post the top action shots after each game or after each week of the season. Each week, have a team manager record a quick 30 second video of a senior on the team and create a tribute post for each senior. Grab a clip from Hudl and share your top offensive and defensive play of the week! Have some cool alumni playing at the next level? Shout out their post-high school accomplishments. Allow alumni to do an Instagram Takeover which is when they post daily video blogs to your temporary Instagram story about their life as a collegiate athlete. Advertise your fundraising events with a fun vibrant post and add a link to your bio so viewers can donate or sign up right from their phone. Engaging content doesn’t have to take hours to create or require a graphic design degree. All it takes is utilizing the tools you have available and being intentional about what you are sharing.
Consistency Will Go A Long Way
Consistency is key when it comes to building and sustaining your social media presence. There are two main areas where you should be consistent, your brand and your activity. Brand consistency means that your brand is recognizable and reachable. With just a quick look at your content viewers should know it is yours. It is more than just using your school colors. Keep the look of your posts relatively the same. Use a similar Canva or Gipper template for your graphic content. The posts shouldn’t all look the same but they should all be a similar visual style. This shows your program is intentional and put together. Brand consistency also comes from having one program account. You do not need a new Instagram or Twitter account for every season. Having multiple accounts hinders your ability to retain alumni followers and build an online presence. You want to retain followers and build a following over years. One account also means making sure you cover JV and Freshman content. You do not need separate JV and Freshman accounts as those are followers that should be linked with your main account. It’s imperative that you keep your following as one community rather than split between different accounts. Again, you're building a program, not just a team.
Consistency also must be utilized in account activity. Many teams will start strong in the preseason with a few game day posts and preseason pictures but then fall off and become inactive until the following preseason. It’s important to find a simple posting schedule that you can stick to. Assign an assistant coach or have your team manager help with posting game day graphics or final score graphics right after the game. Give your JV and Freshman coaches the login info as well as your graphics templates so they can post the underclassmen content. We recommend a post for every gameday, a final score graphic and then one additional extra content post per week. One post per day would be best practice but find what works best for you and your staff. Keeping consistent activity makes people want to come back and view your content. A viewer may see your game day post about the big rival game and come back to your account to see the final score. If people know you have new content regularly available for them, they’ll want to follow you. By keeping your brand consistent you build recognition and a following. A brand that is consistent is a brand that you can trust and keep coming back to.
Connectivity is a Two Way Street
The final way to grow your social media presence is to strategically connect with your online network. One of the best ways to get people to follow you is to first follow them. Connect with local businesses or shops. If your state athletics department or conference has social media accounts, follow them. Other teams you play may have social media accounts, go ahead and follow them to stay up to date on how they are using social media. Let your community know that you exist by reaching out and connecting with them first. By doing so you get your name out and you open the opportunity for them to follow you back. By connecting with your greater community to also open the door for them to tag you and bring followers to your account. Let’s say after you follow your state athletics’ page, they tag you in a post about one of your great wins. Now all of their followers can check out your account. You get exposure from other accounts connecting with and tagging you.
Another great way to connect is to make sure you tag the businesses and people that help your program operate. Having a team dinner catered by a local restaurant? Snap a few pictures at the team dinner and mention the restaurant in your post. They can reshare your post to all their followers and now you’ve just expanded your viewership and gotten your program in front of a new larger audience. The more you connect with other social media accounts the more likely they’ll want to reshare your content. By connecting with a larger audience you open the door not only for more digital followers but more importantly, sponsorships, volunteers and fans. If you put effort into who you are following and connecting with then your own following and supporters are guaranteed to grow.
Remember the 3 C’s (Content, Consistency and Connectivity)
By focusing on content, consistency and connections you will be able to exponentially grow your social media presence. The hardest part is starting. With planning and a little effort, social media can become a seamless and beneficial part of your program. Need help getting started? Story of the Season will take care of the 3 C’s for you with our social media package. Click here to learn more. Embrace the possibilities of the digital age. Don’t just build a team, use social media to build a program.
