How do you align your social media content and tone with your sponsors' goals and values?

Knowing your potential sponsors is key, so you join yourself to the right brands. I would personally never bring a sponsor on board if our social media content and tone was not already a good fit for their goals and values. This is a recipe for disaster.

Know your sponsors, and let them know you. Ideally, this sort of rapport building and values understanding would come during the prospecting phase - determining if you two should even be partners! - but will be ongoing nonetheless as organizational priorities update and change. Follow their channels, see how they post, see what they publicize most, and share with them how that aligns with your own social brand voice and center opportunities around that overlap.

Understand your sponsors' goals, values, and brand identity. Research their mission, vision, and the key messages they want to convey. Engage in direct communication with your sponsors to gain a deeper understanding of their expectations and objectives. Personal insight: Schedule regular meetings or calls with your sponsors to discuss their goals and preferences, ensuring alignment and building a stronger relationship.

I would add to that : know what SoMe guidelines your sponsors have given to their SoMe agency in order to avoid a clash of tones & styles. Running a quick Social Media listening tool to understand what is the perception of your sponsor on the market is also a best practice as it helps your sales team understand who they are, what they stand for et what are their struggles in order to adapt their proposal in the 1st place.

Your audience has expectations of you. They likely also expect sponsored content, but they likely do not want it to be completely different from your usual values, priorities, and sharing styles. If a sponsor cares about specific things your audience also cares about, centering campaigns around that will be more authentic than allowing your partners to use your channels as regurgitations of their singularly-owned content.

Identify your target audience and understand their interests, preferences, and behaviors. Aligning with your sponsors’ goals means creating content that resonates with both your audience and the sponsor’s target demographic. Personal insight: Conduct audience surveys and analyze social media metrics to gather insights about your followers, helping you tailor content that appeals to them while meeting your sponsor's objectives.

A recurring observation in many sports partnerships involves logo placement on social content. Evaluating the goals of your social partnership is crucial—is this the ideal content platform for growth with a partner? Possessing a deep understanding of the intricacies of social media is essential to maximize opportunities with partners. The key question is whether the proposed strategy will genuinely contribute to the partner's business growth or merely fulfill objectives in the proposal. Recognizing this, I believe there's a significant evolution needed in sports partnerships, emphasizing further development to foster authentic and substantial growth in true partnership collaboration.

Different social media platforms cater to different types of content and audiences. Tailor your content and tone to fit the platform you are using, whether it's LinkedIn for professional updates, Instagram for visual storytelling, or Twitter for real-time engagement. Personal insight: Develop a platform-specific strategy for each social media channel you use, ensuring that the content and tone are appropriate and effective for that platform.

If your Social Media team is doing a good work, anyone should be able to know on what platform each piece of content will pe published, before it's published. SoMe platforms are working hard to differentiate from one another and as a result, the top performing contents from one platform to another really don't look alike. Hence, it's to the benefit of everyone (rightsholder é sponsors) to have the most taylored pieces of content dedicated to each platform. Which is where content repurposing comes in play since you can talk about the exact same topic, you just need to change the format.

Clearly define and communicate the unique value you offer both to your audience and your sponsors. Highlight how your social media presence aligns with your sponsors’ values and goals, and how it adds value to their brand. Personal insight: Create a value proposition statement that outlines the benefits of partnering with you, and use this to guide your content creation and communication strategy.

That is the most single important thing ! THe whole partnerships / communications strategy is determined by you organization's value proposition. The St Pauli football club in Germany is a really good example. The whole club is based on anti-capitalistic values and every piece of content they create aligns with that. Same for the Venezia FC or the Como FC women team who have chosen super lifestyle positioning. Everything they create is a true embodiment of this positionning. Hence any sponsors going to those organizations knows exactly what to expect and can only be fully embracing those values if willing to join the organization's list of sponsors.

Establish and adhere to social media guidelines that align with your sponsors' brand standards. This includes tone of voice, visual aesthetics, content themes, and any legal or compliance requirements. Personal insight: Develop a detailed style guide that outlines these guidelines, and share it with your team to ensure consistency across all posts and interactions.

I think key here is making sure both entities align. Make sure your partner (not sponsor) understands core pillars, what you're known for with your audience, what you avoid, and so on. Then if the partner fits, it's a matter of piggybacking off cadences, key beats, how can you help one another. Lastly, also keeping in mind...how do we measure effectiveness, what are the goals and making sore all parties are aware and what is expected.

In sponsorship, authenticity reigns supreme. The content disseminated through a sports organization's Owned and Operated (O&O) channels must resonate with the team's unique voice to garner validation from discerning end-users. Genuine communication is the linchpin, ensuring a seamless alignment with the overarching brand identity. In navigating the symbiotic relationship with sponsors, it becomes imperative to harmonize social media content and tone with the sponsors' goals and values. The key lies in selecting partnerships where the brand fits within the shared ethos. Attempting to force a misfit is akin to fitting a circle into a square peg—an exercise in futility within the authenticity-driven landscape of sports marketing.

Speaking from my position and with my limited experience as a Strategic Partnership Manager at Falke Esports, it is essential to always be aligned with and knowledgeable about the goals and values of your sponsors. This alignment will ensure that the relationship is enduring and successful, adding more value to our companies through effective collaborations. To achieve this, it is important to define common objectives and create content that naturally integrates their products. Additionally, having a publication calendar is crucial for maintaining good organization and visibility.

If you want to ensure effective communication, I believe you need a strong branding. What I mean here is that the company that sponsoring you can't just buy some visibility. The brand needs to buy a brand, a project, a personality. If this is the case, you will be able to do whatever you want, and the sponsors will follow.