Social media has become a revolutionary staple to the newest generations of American society. It is used for recreational entertainment, a social platform to connect with friends and family and as a way to promote businesses and brands. We have seen social media embrace advertising and become the primary income for influencers. Sports teams often have social media profiles to promote content centered on the team. The teams promote their players, the current season they are playing, the legends from their past who are being recognized and more. Some sports leagues and corporations take a different approach. Italian Fight Magazine is a group that broadcasts and promotes mixed martial artists. Fighters compete for the chance to receive an invitation to compete in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).
“I was doing videos in Italian and in English speaking about soccer because I grew up playing soccer,” says Massimo Bellew, a content creator from Italy who did videos on Instagram for Italian Fight Magazine. “I started just wanting to develop my acting skills in front of the camera and my storytelling skills…I would post on Instagram. I would get not big numbers, but decent numbers for a small page that just started. Then…I just started sending my videos to people involved in sports, to people who I thought would gain from me being in their team. So I found this guy…He had 150,000 followers on YouTube. The name of the page is Italian Fight Magazine… It felt good. It felt that I was part of something, and I had a lot of fun working with him.”
For promotions of any kind, whether on social media or any other platform, knowing the audience is crucial to the success of how a promotion is received. For sports, this includes general themes that match the tone of the event, personalities, confidence, knowledgeability and representation. If you are looking at someone who is promoting content you enjoy, you would want the person to know what they are talking about and to be exciting and enjoyable to watch and listen to.
“I had to read; I had to watch; and I did not have a 360° view on the sport; and…people know that immediately,” said Bellew. “There will be kids who know less than you and kids who know as much as you, and they will enjoy you; but if somebody really lives the sport every day, they’ll pick on you on every little detail and it’s pretty fair. It’s pretty fair, and you need that, too, as a journalist to keep your standards high. I did my mistakes and that was part of the process of learning, and it was part of the process of making me a better combat fight commentator.”
“If you don’t know your audience, you don’t know who you’re talking to,” Says Bellew. “If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you don’t know how to talk, which means that I have to understand what most of our followers are looking for, what type of register or tone are they looking for and then apply that. I think that being smart means getting things that are difficult and complicated and speak about them in a way that everybody can understand them. So I did that. I wanted to explain something that people outside of this sport couldn’t understand in a way that they could just catch it right away.”
Target audiences help cater how content is promoted. For instance, some promoted content can be more “child-friendly” than other content. Sometimes the scenario means that the content cannot be promoted that way, like with mixed martial arts. Mixed martial arts are an extremely violent sport that often results in blood, broken bones, or other serious visual injuries that may appeal to kids or some adults. Therefore, the target audience would reside best among adults who happen to like watching violent sports.
“You’re going to have to understand that everybody has a different life,” said Bellew. “I want to be aware of my friends, the people I’m talking to, and once I once I know them, you know how to talk to your friends…but there’s something that gets them all together and that’s fighting. All these people have in common that…maybe they don’t fight, but they have the fighting game inside of their heads. There’s a very violent component there and…I think you have to acknowledge it. The people who watch this sport appreciate that side of it as well too.”
Representation has always been important in promotions. Diversity and inclusivity have become major contributing factors to long term promotions success. For example, mixed martial artists fight in male and female divisions, as well as weight classes. Fans may prefer to watch a heavyweight fight over a lightweight fight and may want to see more content promoting fighters in this weight classes. Other fans may find more enjoyment watching female fighters over male fighters. The job of promoters on social media is to provide fair and equal promotion among the numerous classes and divisions to appease its fans.
“The original owner of the page gave space for the women as well, because they’re underrepresented in this sport,” says Bellew. “I think some fights between women are much more enjoyable than some boring fights between two fighters who are there for the belt and are just too scared to make the wrong move. Women’s MMA, they’re great. I think that MMA is part of a sport that highlights women more than a lot of other sports. I think that the things you see them doing are absolutely incredible, so I would suggest people watch that.”
Social media has become increasingly impactful as we continue to progress in the digital age. Therefore, business positions in social media have become increasingly crucial to the future of promotions. Sports leagues and teams understand this fact, and so sports fans are now seeing the experimentation of sports promotions on social media.
“This is important because it creates a platform in which [the leagues and fans] can share their thoughts,” says Bellew. “They can see what other people in the community think, and it’s open to discussion. It’s a spot where somebody can share their thoughts on something they’re passionate about.”
As fans, what do we get out of sports teams and leagues being on social media? The short answer to this is interaction. We are able to interact and feel included in the daily lives and interactions of figures we genuinely look up to.
Bellew says, “You [as a fan] want to feel like you’re a friend of that person you admire, and social media kind of creates a reality in which you guys are somehow friends; in which you get to know things about their personal life that otherwise you wouldn’t know. You keep up with their lifestyles, you can hear some good advice and overall, really people are looking for something to dream of. If I have somebody I really admire and I want to be like him, it inspires me to see what they’re doing, how they’re doing it and maybe they’ll know that they inspired me to do the same thing and be successful.”
Social media is the future of commercialization, advertising, and promotions for not only the sports industry, but businesses as a whole. Therefore, it is important for sports fans to understand their role in their own future. Social media has become a promotional space for content through advertising, highlights, fan interactions, and even live broadcasts. As sports fans, we benefit by interacting because we feel a sense of gratification and inclusion with human figures we admire. For the teams and leagues themselves, they are able to continue promoting the growth of the passion of sports fans outside of the in-game experience and the broadcasted experience.
