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Week 12 - Social Media Campaign

Another example of a social media campaign is Cricket Australia’s advertisement for the ICC T20 World Cup. The world cup is an international competition of one of the most popular formats of world cricket, therefore, all the world’s best players will converge on Australian soil to showcase their skills and compete to bring home the world cup. This competition has the potential to bring in a significant number of viewers and attendees due to its worldwide reach (e.g post this analysis Pakistan VS India had over 90,000 in attendance). Despite this, Cricket Australia has done a poor job of marketing the event, only posting once on their Instagram account, declaring that the Aussies will defend their title on October 16th. Due to the potential for large crowds and significant viewership numbers, it would have benefited Cricket Australia to make more of a concerted effort to advertise the event.

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Week 11 - Generating Clicks

This week’s analysis is on news posts that the AFL publishes that are aimed at generating clicks to their website to see the full story. The example that I will be examining is a post delivering the news that Port Adelaide’s recently acquired player Jason Horne-Francis will undergo surgery on both legs during this year’s off-season. This link can generate a high amount of clicks due to the controversy that followed Horne-Francis since the beginning of his rookie year. As the picture suggests, the polarising circumstances surrounding Jason Horne-Francis’ departure, give a platform for followers to engage with the story and share their strong opinions on the matter. Using language such as “debilitating pain” could also shock Port Adelaide fans into ‘panic-clicking’ the post to get all the information on their prized recruit.

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Week 10 - Athlete's Social Media

This week’s analysis will be of a tweet released by Rashard Mendenhall back in 2011, where he revealed that he couldn’t believe that so many people would be celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden. He further proclaimed that he had a hard time believing that a plane would be able to do that much damage to a skyscraper and that the US had only heard “one side of the story”. This analysis is in respect to this week’s lecture that discussed the responsibilities that athletes have to consider when posting to their personal accounts, such as the values and reputation of the teams and organisations. This post was interestingly effective and detrimental to Mendenhall for obvious and fascinating reasons. The tweet resulted in apparel manufacturer ‘Champion’ pulling their endorsement from Mendenhall as they felt that comments of such a politically controversial nature did not represent the morals and values of the company, consequently costing Mendenhall financially. However, for a social media aspect the controversial tweet resulted in Mendenhall doubling his twitter following in 24 hours. So, although he lost the immediate support of a sponsor, he has created a stronger supporter base and has made himself more marketable for potential sponsorship deals in the future if another company decides to use his controversial nature to reach his follower base.

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Week 9 - UFC to Australia

The social media campaign that will be examined this week is the UFC’s announcement that they will be returning to Australia for a PPV in Perth on February 12th.  The news was a welcome surprise to MMA fans across the country as this will be the first UFC event on Australian shores since October 2019. As the PPV is set for February only a few fights have been announced, however, those fights will feature prominent Australian fighters including former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and current featherweight champion Alex Volkanovski taking on Islam Makhachev for the opportunity to win the Lightweight championship to become the first-ever dual champion to fight out of Australia. The UFC routinely places ‘hometown heroes’ on their cards to help increase buy rates and this event is no different. I suspect that more posts and announcements to come in the future to build up to what will be a monster fight card.

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Week 7 - Social Media Management

The AFL Grand Final is one of the biggest days in the Australian sporting calendar, so social media apps and television coverage is inundated with news stories and uploads surrounding the day in an attempt to excite fans and get them to tune into the game. The AFL posted regularly in the lead-up to the game with statistic comparisons and even made a post announcing the umpires that were selected for the big game. These posts are aimed at getting fans to comment on whom they believe will be victorious on the day, whilst also using the fan’s strong opinions on the umpires to generate interaction from the fans.

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Week 6 - Marketing Techniques

Today I will be analysing the social media strategy of the NBA leading into the 2022-23 season. The main strategy that will be analysed leading into the NBA season is the points tracker that is counting down the remaining points required for LeBron James to become the all-time scoring leader. This countdown is posted before Los Angeles games to inform fans of how close we are to having a new all-time scoring leader. This is an effective strategy as it will encourage discussion about when he may break the record, whilst also fuelling the unavoidable ‘GOAT debate’ that follows every post that features LeBron James, subsequently increasing fan engagement. Below is a rough SWOT analysis for the NBA that could be used when coming up with a new social media strategy.

S – leading basketball league in the world (most eyes watching and following games and SM pages).

Increasing international player representation (best players in the league are international: Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic)

Large follower base (71.9M)

30 teams

W – Doesn’t get viewership numbers or attendance of NFL and college football

Some states are underrepresented due to no teams (California has 4 teams, Seattle has 0)

Small market teams are hard to endorse compared to large markets (LA, Boston, GSW, Heat compared to Detroit, Indiana, Portland, Charlotte)

O – very lucrative sport, sponsors and benefactors will pay large amounts to be affiliated

Basketball is growing in popularity around the world

Plays majority of season after rival North American sports seasons have finished (NFL, MLB)

T – Competes with other more popular sports (NFL and MLB)

Although getting more popular internationally, they still are predominately an American market

The retirement of the face of the NBA (LeBron James) can make it more difficult to appeal to casual fans who may not know the other stars of the NBA.

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Week 5 - Content is King

The content that will be examined this week is the NBA’s ‘handle’s week’ which is run during the League’s offseason. To continue their regular posting schedule after the season has come to its conclusion, the NBA dedicate a week to posting some of the most impressive displays of a specific skill that occurs during an NBA game. The posts also ask followers to suggest what they believe to be the most impressive display of ball handling they have seen. The photo provided displays how extensive their following is, as several videos have over a million views. Posting engaging content during the off-season gives fans the opportunity to get their fix of NBA action whilst games are not actually being played, keeping the fans connected to the league, and whetting their appetite for live games when the season starts again.

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Week 4 - Cross Platform Strategies

This week’s lecture discussed the strategies for each social media app, and the ways sporting organisations can utilise the strengths of each app to spread their message. Therefore, this week I will be discussing the AFL’s marketing strategy surrounding the AFL finals campaign. The AFL used several methods across their multiple social media apps, such as playing a video advertisement on their YouTube and Facebook accounts due to the likelihood that viewers will watch quick videos on these apps. Several photos on their Instagram accounts that ask followers which club they think will win the AFL Premiership. The AFL’s TikTok account simply records the Premiership cup and once again asks followers for their opinions on the potential winners of the Premiership. The AFL does a good job at diversifying its content over its multiple platforms to generate the maximum amount of engagement by exploiting the strengths of each social media app.

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Week 3 - Social Media Engagement.

This week saw us talk about social media reach and engagement and how sporting organisations can get fans to interact with their content, and subsequently get repeat engagement from followers on following posts.  An example of this is the AFL’s Instagram post asking fans what they believe to be the best ‘defensive play’ of the season. This post saw 4 videos displaying incredible acts of defensive awareness that saved goals and matches and encourages fans to share their thoughts on what they believe to be the best. This is a great example of increasing social media engagement as it appeals to followers ‘tribalistic’ nature and forces them to explain why their favourite team had the best defensive effort. This post achieved its desired outcome, as it resulted in many comments and follower interactions, which can be seen through the comments as some have upwards of 400 likes.

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Week 2 - Marketing

This week’s analysis will be on the Big Bash League’s posts regarding the first-ever international draft before the upcoming BBL12 season. This was a post on the 7Cricket Instagram page that listed all the drafted international players and prompted followers to share their “thoughts on each draft haul?”. This post is lead channel 7 to get viewers talking about the BBL in the hopes that it will get fans excited about the upcoming season and increase viewership and attendance ratings. This week’s tutorial covered how organisations use social media to connect with fans and promote their products in a cost-effective and convenient way. This post does that by promoting the product (BBL season), whilst initiating conversation with their followers. However, the post has 8 pictures on it alongside 24 player names. This could result in followers losing interest whilst reading the names and therefore not interacting with the post in a way that was intended by 7Cricket.

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Week 1 - Introduction to Social Media

The first week of analysis will be examining an example of what social media can offer for a sporting organisation. This post is from the AFL’s Instagram page that asks their followers “what is your favourite club mascot?”. This is an example of how sporting organisations can interact with their fans and drive-up fan engagement and interaction. The post includes 8 pictures of mascots across the AFL to facilitate inspiration from their fans and encourages them to comment on the post providing their opinions on the question. They also decided to omit some of the more popular mascots on the post, attempting to irritate fans and increase the number of comments from fans outraged by the exclusion of their favourite mascot.