Fan-Engagement is Your Business.

The sports and events industries are unique in that they have always had their own terminology for calculating customer experience—fan-engagement. 

But, let’s face it: gone are the days of brick-and-mortar fan engagement. Society is in the thick of an increasingly complex digital media revolution, and the commercial world of sport is no longer a ticket-sale dependent economy. 

Competition for fan engagement has shifted from merely other leagues—and maybe sports—to anything digitally available to them, from on-demand entertainment such as Netflix and YouTube, to gaming (such as e-sports), to social media (rife with high-quality content produced by league-level athletes and brands alike). Sports organizations are no longer only competing for fan loyalty, but for their attention—and against increasingly high-quality content.  

The good news is this: social and digital media are also unlocking new revenue streams for the brands and leagues that play them strategically. As a long game, prioritizing engaging content builds followership, followership builds digital assets, digital assets unlock new partner revenues, and new revenues and partners enable more engaging content. 

Salsify, in their 2017 Cracking the Consumer Code report, found that 87% of consumers rate product content "extremely" or "very important" when deciding to buy. 

It’s clear that content that adds value before, during and after purchase should no longer be distinguished separately by the organization from the product, service or experience itself.

That’s why, in today’s digital media landscape, it’s simply not enough to only engage fans on game day: fans are always online, what was once a game-day experience is now a week-long experience, and the season lasts year-round. In order to keep up in the business of sport, as teams and leagues globalize to expand their audiences they need to create effective year-round content.

Today, sports organizations have access to a global pool of over 10 billion potential fans and customers: and, at a time where there are more platforms to engage with content than ever, a clever use of digital media can play a decisive role in driving fan engagement and revenue. 

This is achieved through engaging content, which gives fans an all-access pass to the team and its personalities, brews excitement and anticipation for the next match, enhances the game-day  experience, and more. 

Sport is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this burgeoning demand for engaging content. 

Consider the greatest moments in sporting history: a Sombrero-donning Pele being chaired off of the Azteca pitch after Brazil’s third World Cup win, Usain Bolt’s final blurred lunge across the finish line as he broke the 100m world record, Muhammad Ali towering over a sprawled Sonny Liston—in all likelihood, the first images conjured
by your mind are the single snapshots that rendered
these moments famous. 

These are powerful photos for a reason. This is an industry with the unique capacity to drive compelling narratives with its media, to bring people together, and to demand the enthusiasm and investment of its consumers. The fans that follow sport are already interested and invested in its stories: the stories of a team’s wins and tales of their resilience, of athletes' success, and of the history of the game. 

Those teams, leagues, and organizations that capitalize on this by harnessing the power of visual media to create an engaging purpose around their stories, and delivering on them as core business, will create growth amid an ever-evolving media landscape. 

Yes, your organization is a brand of its own. But, in today’s influencer economy of social media, your athletes and participants are too—and they are equally driven to make their mark on the world stage.

Athletes and participants looking to raise their profile are gold for the sports organizations that they represent. Their growing popularity fosters fan investment in their personality and performance, which translates into engagement for the wider businesses they are involved in. Organizations that provide athletes with easy access to quality social media collateral and personal brand assets feed their success, which in turn, feeds into the wider success of the sport. This makes everyone a winner. 

How Sports Digital Media Made Michael Jordan a Legend

Consider a moment that defined a winner: when the Chicago Bulls were up three games to two on the Utah Jazz in the ‘98 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan’s game-winning shot in the final 5.2 seconds of Game 6 cemented him as a legend—and a personal brand that would endure for decades. 

If sports is a media business—and it is—then athletes are its celebrities. Fans are invested in the narrative of the game, and visual media is the engaging language that supports it. When Jordan decided to shoot his shot, the sports world galvanized an idol, and from GQ spreads to Time Square billboards, he not only had the world talking but established himself as a brand as much as he was an athlete: and the Chicago Bulls—in fact, the entire NBA League—reaped the rewards. 

The fans of Jordan’s personal brand—including his Instagram following of 27 million—gather around and become excited by the quality content he consistently delivers, garnering engagement on his own profile and providing prolific awareness for his, his sponsors’, and the NBA’s brands—as well as, importantly, their affiliate partners. 

Fans want an exciting and intimate glimpse into athletes' worlds'—and Jordan couldn’t accomplish this without the right tools. One glance at his online presence reveals access to striking digital media assets that he and his team use seamlessly to encourage engagement with his team and sponsors. 

But it all starts with the willingness of sports organizations to give their athletes the ability to build their profiles and foster fan-engagement by way of high-quality digital media assets. If a team or league can give its athletes exclusive access to their own personalized hub of carefully curated media, athletes can easily promote their personal brand—and the wider business, and its sponsors- exciting fans and manufacturing a seamless flywheel for marketing success. 

Imagery is at the heart of the sport-fan relationship—and these are the relationships that lead to meaningful commercial success. It’s no secret that sport is incredibly positioned amid the digital revolution to not only succeed, but to thrive—and the organizations that understand that each piece of digital media they produce has the purpose and power to define fan-engagement in the long-term will come out on top. 

Engaging content grows a more engaged fan base, and the broader and more engaged the fan base, the more lucrative commercial opportunities open up for organizations. This is why, today, the most compelling sports organizations function like digital media brands, engaging fans with unique content regardless of whether they are at the stadium, catching the match from the couch, live-streaming at work, or watching at the bar with friends. 

A digital media hub like GeoSnapShot ensures that these opportunities are capitalized on by busy teams, providing seamless management, monetization, and security of your digital media—and ensuring that the right people within your organization have the tools at their disposal to maximize on blue-sky brand possibilities and commercial success.