Score with Twitter on the # WC2018
The sports summer of 2018 offers golden opportunities for sports marketers. Even though it is an Orange-free World Cup, football will dominate news, television and social media in June. One thing is clear in advance: more than ever, social media will play a leading role in this. Especially Twitter has proven itself as a platform par excellence for sharing live sports moments.
Social media platforms make it possible to ‘consume’ sport quickly and easily, but also to enter into discussions with other sports enthusiasts. For example, the hashtags of Ajax, Feyenoord and PSVeen of the most well-wished hashtags of 2017 and the European Championship of 2016 broke many Twitter record. It is expected that the World Cup of 2018 will break records again.
Football on Twitter
Football belongs on Twitter to the most important ‘topics’ that are followed by sportminded Nederland. Research from Twitter shows 71% of users plan to follow the World Cup. Of which 65% of users say they are football fans. The football fan is not an inveterate TV viewer, but actively uses social media. To follow the latest news and “sit on top” when the favorite team wins.
Twitter and Live TV reinforce each other. When users combine TV with Twitter, Event Engagement is 35% higher. This is also evident from the Event Memory Encoding. But in 2018 Twitter is more than a second screen. Videos, Twitter-moments and Periscope have made Twitter a parallel of the first screen.
Engagement
But this does not only apply to the event. The Ad Engagement also rises by 42% with Ad Memory Encoding even rising to 52%. A nice example of what can be done with Twitter in practice, was Champions League-sponsor Heineken with a campaign around all matches from the quarter finals. Fragments from that match were tweeted by SBS6 (@ sbs6) to their own followers, and then sent as Promoted Tweet to a selected audience target group of UEFA sponsor Heineken. Here you can read more about the possibilities of Twitter Amplify .
Moreover, the greatest football heroes give their vision of what happens during the tournament. You can not miss that as a football fan. Every (ex) top footballer is potentially an influencer. Content they make is appealing and authentic for fans. As a brand you can make smart use of this by picking up this content and giving it a boost. Organize a Q & A on Twitter, in combination with an account take-over. For fans the chance to get closer to their hero than ever before!
In short, the marketer who wants to link his brand to sport can not ignore Twitter. Twitter distinguishes three ways to claim the conversation around the World Cup:
- Twitter and (live) TV reinforce each other. Video content is the most effective for sports and Twitter.
- Twitter Amplify / Whitelisting. Publish sports content ‘near live’ and link the name of a sponsor.
- Connect with the fans. Make sure that athletes or influencers themselves involve their fans.