Social media and communications

Harnessing the power of social media

Let’s get straight to the point with a very simple question: what is social media?

There are two parts to the answer.

Firstly, social media is all about communicating via the internet, whether it be via desktop computer, laptop, tablet or, predominantly these days, smartphone.

And secondly, social media helps create online communities, which are really groups of people with a common interest.

So if we put those definitions into the context of your sports club, then social media is about sharing stories, pictures and videos with the people who are interested in our club via the internet.

And while this briefly explains what social media is, it doesn’t really explain how it works.

How does social media work?

The best way to explain how popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube work, is to think about the traditional noticeboard at your club.

Usually, when the club has information it wants to share, it would put that information on the club noticeboard. Generally club noticeboards were put near the front door, so as people walked into the club each day they would physically check the noticeboard to see if there was new information relating to them.

Popular social media platforms like Facebook work exactly the same way except in an online environment.

So your club, instead of physically putting up the notice board would create an account within a social media app. This becomes your club notice board, except now it is online. Your club can now update this online notice board with its latest news and information it wants to get to its community or audience.

Individuals using that particular App, doesn’t matter which one at the moment, will also have their own account where they too can share information to their community. If an individual is interested in receiving news from your club they can link account to the clubs account.

Theoretically this now means that each time the club updates their online notice board, their account, anybody who is linked to the clubs account will be notified of the new piece of club news or information.

One of the huge benefits of social media is that if I receive information from say your sporting club and I think it is going to be interesting to people who have linked to me then I can share the clubs information with my audience, either individually or as a group.

The other significant positive of social media is that the information which can be shared can be either written, photos and images, videos or audio making it really quick and easy to send really interesting information about your club to your audience.

The power of social media

Regardless of the size of your club or is strategic goals, every club should be dedicating resources to social media. Social media can make it easy to achieve all your communication goals, whether it be:

• Increasing the size of the clubs audience, or the number of people with whom the club has a relationship
• Creating depth within these relationships, culminating with the each individual feeling a strong sense of belonging with the club.
• Engaging future participants
• Supporting the delivery of club objectives