Generating Fan Engagement Through Video
Fan engagement is ultimately about giving your supporters or customers what they want, when they want it, in the format and on the platform that suits them.
There are now so many ways for sports fans to satisfy their desire for information, entertainment and interaction that the fight for their eyeballs is incredibly competitive.
That's why innovative and captivating visual content (video and animation) that grabs users' attention is so vital to sports clubs, rights holders and brands.
Sports marketers can leverage visual content marketing in numerous ways to keep up with (and grow/enhance) their fans’ seemingly insatiable appetite for more relevant conversations and engagements while at the same time growing their sporting organisation, brand, business or franchise.
Participation is key
Recent research reveals that fans (just like the rest of us) feel rewarded when they get to share their personal thoughts and experiences, similar to the neurological feelings we all have when we eat food.
If you think about this in your own life and your own circle of friends you will begin to unravel and understand how this simple neurological compulsion has led to a phenomenon that every second of every day results in countless selfies, food pics, check-ins, comments and posts about seemingly dull daily moments in people's lives.
People like to share.
Fans like to participate.
And, increasingly, they just like every other market segment want to be engaged.
Clever brands and sporting organisations are already on board with thinking about building more interaction and engagement into their video and animation campaigns as well as leveraging personalisation to increase relevance and deepen the experience.
Give your fans a voice
The natural extension of this philosophy of participation is providing ways and means to actively give your fans a voice in the storytelling you serve up to them and the experiences you wrap around that storytelling.
Fans have invested more time in their teams and players, the coaching staff, the politics of their organisation (even the politics of other supporters), the apparel they wear, the food and beverages they consume and the things they do for R&R than many of us will ever have enough time to contemplate anything else that matters to us in a single life time.
This kind of insight can be tapped into to develop relevant stories and experiences that will engage and activate your fanbase.
A simple way of obtaining useful fan based research is as simple as starting to post questions on social channels that get relevant conversations started.
You would be surprised how much engagement asking the right simple question can be.
This is a great way to get direct insight into what your fans want.
Pay attention to (but don't be beholden) their thoughts, trending ideas, questions, and reactions, across social media platforms, with priority given to Facebook, Instagram, WeChat and Twitter.
This will not only boost your engagement with your fans but will give you as sports marketers a good sense of what types of visual content will resonate with your fan base.
Another great way to give a voice to your fans is by inviting fans to tell their own video stories related to great experiences and memories they had such as the first game they attended as a child or to create their own version or extension of a current popular campaign.
Ensure that whatever you do supports your overall strategy and objectives and that you fully leverage every fan engagement opportunity and turn it into incredible video and animation content that you can showcase across social and owned and bought media to boost engagement.
Give fans skin in the game
Complementary to my thoughts above about participation and giving fans a voice...
It is essential that you as sports marketers make it easy for your fans to get some skin in the game too.
One way to achieve this is through visual content is by sending edm's and private messages to fans with an exciting personalised video distributed through an interactive player that enables you to position a relevant and clickable call to action that will drive more traffic back to your website or fan microsite.
Examples of a solid call to action could be something as simple as running a limited time contest during game time (something that runs for a quarter or a half with results posted in the next quarter or half).
Sports fans are 67% more likely to use social sites like Twitter to enhance their viewing experience so considering leveraging this social platform during a game time contest with short burst video (6 to 12 seconds) to both track and boost engagement.
Turn big data into bigger fan engagement
Data from fan surveys, social media (including activity monitoring and engagement), website metrics, mobile habits and device preferences, data from contests and competitions, and of course game day stats like ticket sales all provide sporting organisations, sporting and active wear brands and team franchises with analytics to better understand their fans to grow their fan engagement.
You can also learn through the metrics that you collect from video.
By using smart players like wistia you can obtain a lot of valuable information about your fan audience.
The seven key metrics you should be following to build these insights are:
- View Count
- Play Rate
- Engagement
- Social Sharing
- Click Through Rate
- Conversion Rate
- Feedback
This kind of data will inform you on how your fans engage with your content, why they engage with it and which campaigns are most effective for which segments of your fan base.
By measuring these 7 key factors you will also quickly know which visual content campaigns lead to the most significant conversions and activate your fans to take action.
Provide athlete and KOL access
Providing fans access to the athletes, players and sporting KOL's they admire and idolise is an extremely effective way to grow engagement and it can come in many forms.
Videos that feature athlete/player or KOL stories or player interviews will drive views and comments on social, but the most engaging (and potential for viral) athlete/player and KOL stories are the emotionally driven stories or stories where their personal experience ties in perfectly with the story the brand or team is telling.
Some example of a few different styles effective sports campaigns that drove fan engagement and interaction can be found here:
Create great content and experiences (and not just lots of video)
Last but certainly not least, create amazing content and experiences for your fans and don't limit this to just amazing video and animation content.
In sports marketing you already know that you as a team, sporting organisation, club, apparel, beverage or lifestyle sporting brand need to stand out from the pack and that mediocre content will never get you far (which is often the same kind of message you give to your fans and customers).
If you strive to be bold and are regularly publishing great content and creating unique fan experiences, you will be rewarded!
Fans are ever so willing to engage with your brand’s amazing content through shares, likes, or comments, and will more often than not choose organic content over any TV or digital advertising (another good reason to stop throwing money into advertising to boost engagement and start telling stories that are relevant to your fanbase audience).
Also, incorporate live video experiences into your content marketing mix, and be sure to live stream the experience to those fans around the world.
Conclusion
Fans need to comment, critique and contribute.
Fans and non fans alike believe our voices are valuable, and we use social media and engaging with content we like and dislike to affirm these needs.
In this participatory fan based culture, getting eyeballs is no longer enough for sporting and lifestyle brands.
Now, the goal has to be to engage the fans in your fanbase on a much deeper level and foster long-term fan loyalty.
Incorporating these inherent fan needs, such as their need for belonging to a club, team, subculture, brand lifestyle and their need for self-validation, into the strategy and content design process for your video and animation content will elevate your fan engagement campaigns from average to extraordinary and deliver the wins for your fan and your brand alike.
Thomas J Elliott is the Senior Producer/Director for APV an advertising agency specialising in video and animation with offices in Wan Chai Hong Kong.
He is a winner of numerous international awards for video and animation and the author of five books on visual content.
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