For many athletes, growing their careers requires more than just playing a good game. It requires improving their visibility, networking with brands, gaining sponsorships, and connecting with fans. All of this can be done online through creative marketing tactics, but nothing helps more than boosting social media presence.
Here’s what you need to know about how social media drives athletic sponsorship opportunities and benefits both teams and brands alike. This is also called social sponsorship. Social media sponsorship is a very powerful tool for athletes to attract sports sponsorships.
Let us Talk About the Power of Social Media
First of all, let’s look at why athlete influencers are so effective on social media. There’s a lot to be said about this topic, and it’s important to understand ‘’the why’’ before moving forward.
Understanding the importance of social media for athlete sponsorship and for sponsors is key to learning the right way of leveraging the power of the audience. Â
Sports Fans Always Follow Their Favorite Athletes
It may be hard to believe, but many athletes have the ability to direct their fans’ support and buying power. How? Through social media channels. Fans have the opportunity to follow their favorite athletes and sports teams online.
They see what activities athletes are doing, what brands they love, where they travel, and even how they travel. If they support that athlete, they’re more likely to purchase the same brands or work with the same sponsors whenever possible.
Sponsorship allows sponsors to build off of players’ connections with their fans. Brands, as sponsors, understand the power of social media and know that working with certain athletes increases their visibility among people already likely to buy their products. Remember, companies sponsor athletes that would represent them best. They would not offer you any sponsorship proposals if they do not think you are a good fit.
Online Presence Attracts Brands Faster
Social media can make sure that sponsors will want to work with you a lot faster. It’s all about receiving a great ROI for businesses. Sports sponsorships are just one way for them to get extra traction.
Professional players have a limit to the marketing channels they provide. However, a large social media following and engaging activities might set you apart from receiving an opportunity from different sponsors.
Building Your Personal Brand Awareness
In sports sponsorship, raising brand awareness is key and where do you think it’s best to do it? Yes, you’re right. In social media. Many people are social media followers of athletes and even athletic companies. From Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, social media help marketing, sponsorships, endorsements of not just athletes but also businesses. If you would like your personal brand to have a good marketing performance, utilize social media posts to gain followers and sponsors
Reaching Your Targeted Fanbase
Let us talk about the role of social media in finding the right target market for you to gain exposure, and even find sponsors. Nowadays that all athletic events can be broadcast live from any device, there is great value in being exposed to your targeted fanbase that would bring you more opportunities. These fans are your lifeline, these are people that you inspire, and in return would make noise about you. Just look at how famous Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are even with today’s generation. This is because of their loyal fans. So, new audiences or not, you should take social media for granted when it comes to finding athlete sponsorship.
Improving Audience Engagement
A player is usually only in the spotlight when they play a big tournament. But because of social media platforms, these opportunities are now limitless. Now, being a sponsored athlete?
That’s a different story. In 2022, we will see a big change in how sports are processed over social media. Engaging with fans online is very easy and can be done daily. We already know that social media influences consumer purchasing decisions as well. Especially now that young athletes are all so familiar with social media usage, nothing can be done with the right sponsorship opportunity.
Sponsors would rather work with someone that has 10k followers, with a 15% engagement rate, than with an account of 50k followers but only 1-2% engagement. Make sure to keep this in mind when you are looking for sponsors to work with.
Everything About SMM and Athletic Sponsorships
Accounts Have to be Active to Become Sponsored
In the 21st century, almost everyone has a social media account. A professional athlete that is looking for sponsorship NEEDS a social media account (preferably multiple). It’s not a coincidence, that both athlete & fitness sponsorship opportunity is often given to players and teams with active social media channels.
This is because they’ve already networked with their fans. It makes it easy for both the athlete and the sponsors to market to the fan base. Every time athlete associates themselves with a certain brand for activities that matter to their fans, the brand benefits.
Athletes are the New Influencers
Players have become the new ‘’social media influencer’’, and they have a lot of power over their fan base — especially Instagram, because of its unique business model. Allowing businesses to reach their audiences in diverse ways, either through video, audio, or content, has never been easier. This is just one of the best parts of being one of the elite athletes with sponsorship deals from brands with an already huge fan base.
Analytics have also made tracking everything, easy. This can give you valuable information about which product your audience likes, what they engage with and which product isn’t that great. These social networks present a very unique opportunity to showcase a service or a product for sponsors. The popularity of an athlete is irrelevant, rather it’s about how many people will engage with them when they share a post about their sponsors.
Improving Activities & Create Campaigns
Building a thriving social media presence takes a lot of time and effort, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. With the right strategy in place, players new to the game can build strong relationships with their followers and create an online presence that attracts sponsors consistently.
Athletes that can’t be bothered with updating their Facebook posts or Instagram photos can always hire social media marketers. These products or services are also available with Creatitive.
Stay Genuine with Your Content
A more important metric is the engagement of those followers. A smaller following with high engagement is usually preferred compared to a high following with low engagement.
For that reason, cheating the system by using ‘’follower bots’’ is not recommended. Most likely, companies that sponsor will not see a good return on their investment. Simply because their sponsored post did not receive the correct engagement with its target audience.
It’s very important to stay genuine. Professional players can hurt their brand if they buy followers. This can lead to businesses not wanting to work with these athletes anymore. Presenting a truthful and transparent influence on the fans is very important. Remember, big brands such as Nike, sponsor athletes that have advocacy and those who are genuine to it.
A social media account for a player grows naturally as well. If they have great results, perform outstandingly during games or matches, and have won a lot of tournaments, their social media following will increase.
Conclusion: Social Media is the Perfect Gateway to Show Everyone Your Story and Get Sports Sponsorship
Undoubtedly, social media is an area that has grown in importance a lot for sports sponsorships. When looking for a sponsor, one of the main topics of conversation is social media.
Every
professional athlete should focus on this besides their professional career. A large social media following can set you apart from the competition. Brands sponsor athletes who are a shining example in social media for all sports fans to see.
There are many companies that sponsor athletes they have discovered on Instagram or even Tiktok. The chances are unending! If you can’t be bothered doing social media for players, an agency like Creatitive can help you with this. We are prepared to commit time and effort to your social media accounts. We also have a plan for how to grow your follower base while at the same time keeping your audience and potential sponsors in mind.
Struggling to Improve Online Presence And Get Athlete Sponsorship Deals?
Building a thriving social media presence takes a lot of time and painstaking effort, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. With the right strategy in place, players new to the social media game can build strong relationships with their followers and create an online presence that attracts sports sponsorship opportunities consistently.
Schedule a Consultation and Become a Sponsored Athlete in No Time!
Give us a call or contact us online to schedule a consultation. At Creatitive, we’ll help you harness the power of your personal brand quickly and effectively to get as many sponsorship opportunities from sponsoring companies as possible!
