Sport Buoy

Twitter is the simplest, easiest and sometimes the most effective way of marketing sharing your thoughts, likes and news with the world.

More than any other social media format, it’s also extremely celebrity-friendly: it’s far easier to translate a real-world fanbase into a dedicated online following via Twitter than any other network due to the simplicity of tweeting and the stalker-ish ability of people to hang on every word that you tweet.

Like it or not, as a sports player you are a celebrity. People watch what you do for entertainment, and depending on what level of sport you compete at they see your name or your photo in the paper, they might see your antics on the local or national news, they see your face on the website of their favourite team. They follow your sport, they follow your team, and now they want to follow you on Twitter.

However, there’s a big difference between someone following you on Twitter and someone paying attention to you. Followers boost your ego, but proving that your followers take your advice, spend money where you recommend and watch you perform is where the real value lies for you, your team and your sponsors – and if you don’t have sponsors then having an engaged Twitter following will certainly help you to raise your profile and your worth to prospective backers.

So here’s ten tips on how to make your tweets more likely to be retweeted – the most obvious form of engagement:

1.Link to things

Tweets with links in are more likely to get retweeted, especially if the page it links to is particularly entertaining. If you find something amusing, tweet it and your followers will spread it too. You’re more likely to get retweeted if you use a URL-shortener, with bit.ly outperforming nearly every alternative.

2.Beg

What? Really? Yes – statistically your tweet is more likely to get passed on if you ask people to. ‘Please’ and ‘retweet’ are the third and fourth most common words found in retweets (after ‘you’ and ‘twitter’), and the phrase ‘please retweet’ comes in at number eleven!

3.Don’t natter

Twitter asks you the question ‘What are you doing?’. Guess what: no-one cares too much, well not enough to share it anyway. Unless what you’re doing is really interesting, in a you’ll-never-guess-what-I’m-up-to way, then don’t expect anyone but your followers to notice, and too much much of that will be likely to turn them off completely too. Never tell people that you’re going to sleep, bored, or tired: they really don’t want to hear it.

4.Write smart

This one explains the Stephen Fry phenomenon. People are more likely to retweet content which uses words with more syllables and less abbreviations, apparently. If something comes across as clever, people are more likely to share it.

5.Use punctuation

Syncing well with writing smartly, adding punctuation increases the chances of being retweeted. Why? Because punctuation makes sentences easier to read, and tidies them up visually. The only exception is the semi-colon: most people seem to not know how to use or interpret it, which seems to act as a deterrent to it’s use.

6.Say something new

Tweeting something hot off the press is far more likely to garner attention and retweets than talking about something that everyone already knows. For sports players, this means you should become the engine of your own news: let your Twitter feed be the first place people learn about your moves, your injuries, your recoveries and your successes. Be sure to tweet your perspective after a game too.

NEVER tweet about a dressing room bust-up or training pitch disagreement: leaking information of a sensitive or morale-destroying nature is likely to have a detrimental effect on your relationships with your teammates and your coaches. Be sure to agree with your club just what you can tweet and what you can’t, and stick to it. Even if you’re planning to move, it would send a bad signal to future employers if you can’t tow the line.

7.Write headlines

Trying to get people to click your link? The best way is to write a headline-style tweet which will interest the reader, paying attention to what it is that will really matter to them. ‘Wayne Rooney dropped by England’ will get a better click-through rate than ‘New England team announced, and if more people click on the link and like the content, they’re more likely to send it onwards.

8.Be positive and inclusive

Avoid swearing, being negative or talking about yourself. People don’t want to be dragged down, they want to be made happier and be distracted from problems. Rather than talking about just yourself, talk in terms of ‘we’, especially when talking about team news.

9.Give them what they want

People like to be entertained, but by what? Think about your audience – what do they like?

The obvious answer is sport, so sports news and videos is a given. Outside of that, though, and they’re interested in the same things as everyone else: money, celebrities, controversy, jokes and news.

10.Tweet at 4pm on a Friday

If you want a retweet, this is the best time for it!

These tips are based on Dan Zarella’s The Science of Retweets, so if you want to see a bit more detail behind each tip then go and have a look. Otherwise, why not give it now!

Formula 1 has seen just seen it’s sponsors club together to form a new sponsorship lobby known as the Formula 100 (BBC news story here). The group aims to have a stronger voice with the governing body of the sport and influence key strategic decisions such as where to host races and how much testing is allowed (companies use testing days as hospitality opportunities), so they can protect and maximise their investment in the sport (with the average deals worth over $4m).

Formula 1 chief Bernie Ecclestone isn’t happy about it, worrying about meddling from parties who knew what they were signing up for in advance. Whilst an organisation as professionally run as Formula 1 may have less need of the strategic demands and insights from some of the world’s most rich and important companies, is the same true for your sports club?

Your sponsors may have answers to the problems you face. Individually, they may have gone through similar issues, know someone else who has or be able to solve it themselves. They might have a really bright idea about how to market your club, they might be able to retrofit your clubhouse or they might be able to give financial or legal advice.

But collectively they can help troubleshoot problems that you didn’t even know existed. If they get together and feel that the value of one of your hospitality packages isn’t up to scratch and give you advise on changing it, then you’ve got happier customers and a more marketable package.

The best bit of all is that it’s in the sponsor’s interest to do so. By lending their expertise they can generate a bit more PR both through you and the local press, and by making the club more successful they can raise the return of their own sponsorship.

Sports clubs are beginning to realise the value in seeking the opinions and engagement of their fans through social media and other activities, but is your club pursuing a parallel strategy with your sponsors?

Start with surveys and email newsletters. Continue with sponsors’ meetings. Don’t just rely on the ‘Sponsor’s Club’ special bar which was set up to generate yet more income from the same dedicated businesses – make it a no-strings attached engagement.

Make sure the comments from the sponsorship lobby reach the right ears: not just your sponsorship team, but the executive board. These are voices that you really want to listen too.

Don’t pursue this if you’re not listening to your fans, though. The last thing you want to do is give the normal fanbase the impression that your sports club is being run just for the benefit of the sponsors. Give everyone a stake in your team, and reap the rewards of that engagement.

Image by FirstStop @ Flickr