How can a Sport Club build a solid Social Community
The ultimate goal of a Sport Club or organization is to appeal to their fans, building a solid and passionate Social Community through Social Media.
More and more Sport clubs are using Social media tools as the communication method of choice, because it is a free form of communication, it is easily accessible and it is immediate. Club members can link social media to their smartphones and receive instant messages – all of which makes this form of communication very effective.
Tips for building a community filled with people who are passionate about what you do
The ultimate goal of a sport club or organization is to appeal to their fans, and to do that they need to build a solid and passionate social community.
The social and information-exchanging characteristics of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, can be used by sports organizations, teams and athletes engage in dialogues and to establish relationships with the public.
Below, a list of tips that could help to start with the building of a Social Community
- Build a personal communications plan that will enable you to stay engaged with your community. You need to inform your community members that you are there and that you CARE
Social media such as Facebook and Twitter can provide opportunities for Sport organizations or clubs to interact directly with the public, promote dialogue and two-way conversations with the audience. Sport organizations can use social media to involve their stakeholders and to build a community under their mission and values
- Lead your social media community by connecting them with your passion and ideas.
What really connects people to you are shared beliefs and ideas. Talking openly about what you’re thinking and where you want to head will help unite your followers and grow a stronger, more passionate community.
- Tell your story and help others connect it to their own
What’s so special about you? And what’s the STORY behind that? A nice or well telled story can attract readers to share, comment or retweet with the result of increasing visibility.
- Make it easy for your customers to connect.
Tactics like these can help make sure you are found and accessible:
- Place social sharing icons on your website
- Insert your website URL on your social media channel descriptions
- Include your website URL and contact info on your business cards
- Join social media groups in your niche and enter the conversation
- Track mentions and associated hashtags to identify who is talking about you and your work
- Make sure your business can respond to social mentions and inquiries FAST
- Give email responses a personal touch — don’t automate your service help desk
- Create community relationship:
- Organizing online activities with followers (such as voting on the MVP (Most Valuable Player of each game and guessing game results, etc.) or promoting events related with clubs and community
- create more opportunities for interactions between star athletes and their fans through public messages and retweets
- share expressions of emotion about the team or athletes, and showing love for them
- Entertainment, such as having fun with fans and relaxing them
Conclusion
People who share the same values and passions tend to group themselves in a community. If a Sport club or organization wants to bind those people, has to work in communicating with the same language. It means sharing the right contents, listening carefully to the audience and interact as much as possible creating moments of entertainement. The 2 way-dialogue possibility offered by Social Media communication, seems to be the perfect tool for that, as showed by the use that the most popular clubs or sport association make of Social Media.