Ryan Stephens Marketing

There is TONS of information in the blogosphere about various ways to utilize social media in the business world. But for every sports company out there actively using social media there’s countless Zappos and Ernst and Young’s that are well ahead of the curve. For whatever reason, sports haven’t been early adopters.

The only thing I might be more passionate about other than my family and friends is sports. I also have a niche group of people who follow this blog that consistently ask me about my experience working with sports brands so I have been wanting to put together a list of ways to use social media in sports. Periodically I would like to update this list with new ideas so that it can become a great resource for those thinking of using social media for their sports’ brands. Please help me in the comments section by adding additional ideas, and I’ll be sure and add them to the list. Now, without further ado:

25 Ways to Use Social Media in Sports

1.) Utilize Ballhype to keep an eye on the top stories in sports.
2.) Interact and debate with other passionate sports fans on fannation
3.) Read professional athlete’s blogs on Yardbarker
4.) Tweet live updates during events/games
5.) Promote your upcoming event using Twitter
6.) Interview athletes and post the videos on your blog or Youtube
7.) Subscribe to great sports blogs (i.e. Deadspin, The Big Lead
8.) Compile some of the ‘top,’ ‘best,’ etc. sports videos somewhere
9.) Create a squidoo page highlighting your sports organization
10.) Create a forum for your specific sports niche
11.) Start a podcast or vlog about the hottest issues in sports
12.) Use Flickr to raise awareness for your sporting event
13.) Start a community group on facebook or Ning for your favorite team, player, league, etc.
14.) Start a community group for alums of your university sports team
15.) Organize an online newsletter, blog about current news for your university sports team.
16.) Highlight things about an athlete people that don’t know them personally might not know. Share this information on a Squidoo page or blog.
17.) Ask for reactions to a game on Twitter. Post these reactions somewhere. Continue the conversation.
18.) Have a contest for your fans. Who can create the coolest fan art? Who can make the best highlight video for the current season?
19.) Create a blog network compiling all the significant blogs about your team into one place.
20.) Create an athlete bio for yourself to help you get recruited
21.) Build an interactive calendar around your teams’ events, both on the court and off.
22.) Are you an athlete? Build your brand by actively communicating with your fans where they’re at: twitter, blogs, forums, etc.
23.) Start blog dedicated to the parents of athletes? What stories can they share? What sacrifices did they make? What’s it like being a hockey mom?
24.) Turn complaints into marketing opportunities, like EASports did here.
25.) Start your own baseball card show. Gary V says it will work!

Reader Submitted Additions
26.) Add your profile on I Love to Play — Jake Smith

So now you tell me, what did I miss? I’m sure you can come up with tons of other things. List them in the comments section and I’ll add them to the list and attribute the addition to you (and the link to your blog if you’d like). What other industries aside from sports could benefit from the value of using social media?