When designing a digital marketing strategy in sports probably one of the key initial tasks is media buying and planning; or as Hackley & Hackley (2018) put: audience buying. As I have discussed previously in this blog post (link here) I like to use the analogy of a place {particularly a bar} to imagine the distinct digital media platforms, and especially the different social media sites as YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tik-Tok, etc. In a way, when devising your digital marketing strategy knowing where to be is as important as what to say {the creative brief}. And where to be needs to be understood as who will be with you in that particular place, and how to behave on that place.
In a moment in time where the once sedimented ecology of media in sport is being disrupted by a myriad of new entrants (see post here) – and especially digital and social media entrants – the tasks at hand for media planners are becoming even more complex. Not only we have now a more fragmented ecology with a multitude of places to consume sport, but the way audiences engage with content is also changing due to digital disruption.
Appointment viewing – especially with the coverage of live sports events – is now fighting for attention (see post here) with other cultural forms of consuming content as binge-watching. Knowing and understanding those cultural consumption metamorphoses (Grant McCracken’s notion of Chief Cultural Officer springs to mind here) should be an essential part of the job of anyone working in the sports industry.
Moreover, as I have discussed here in relation to digital sports marketing, Twitter and Le Tour de France (link here) it is important that when devising the media plan to acknowledge that your brand and your message are now just one tiny member of an already formed community. Thus, it is key to accept that brands now are much more like a guest to a party than a host, and party-crashing it might end up creating more damage than good to their brand image.
Additional Resources: Statista Social Media Usage World Wide; Twitter Investor Relations; Facebook Investor Relations; Alphabet (Google and YouTube) Investor Relations; Snapchat Investor Relations; Spotify Investor Relations
Society + Media + Sports 