Social Media has become an indispensable part of the world of sport. Recent studies have shown that especially sports fans frequently use various social media platforms before, during and after matches or tournaments.
The most popular social media among sport lovers are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Instagram (for more information about sport fans and social media, see Sport Fans Using SocialMedia).
But how do sport clubs use social media and do they use it in a correct way?
Sharing News, Photos and Videos
Research shows that sports clubs are using social platforms in particular to share news, invitations to various club activities, results of the teams and sharing photos and videos. Social media is hardly ever used tp recruit new members for the club or to promote the sponsors of the club.
Furthermore, the sport clubs are mainly so-called ‘broadcasters’, there is very little interaction between the followers of the social media account(s) and the club and if there is any, then most of the time this is not initiated by the sports club.
No Real Objectives
Most sport clubs are using social media without setting real objectives, so they don’t have, for instance, any goals with regard to awareness, recruitment of new members or increasing the amount of people involved in club activities. The initiative to use social media comes 9 out of 10 times also from volunteers.
The sport clubs also have a lack of people who are knowledgeable in the area of social media statistics and if there are people with this kind of background, then most of the time, these people lack time to evaluate the success or failure of the club’s social media activities.
Facebook is favorite among the clubs, more than 90% of the sport clubs use this platform. Twitter (approximately 40%) and YouTube (around 20%) complete the top 3.
Members of sport clubs on social media
Most members of sport clubs follow their clubs on social media because they want to stay up-to-date with the latest news. Other important reasons to follow a club are information sharing, and video and photo sharing.
(Source: W. de Graaf Slideshare)
