Top 8 Social Media Ideas for Youth Sports Clubs and Leagues
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List of the top 8 social media ideas for youth sports clubs and leagues to help them promote their organizations and gain social media engagement.
Social media is one of the fastest-growing communication platforms available in today’s world. A recent study showed 4.8 billion social media users globally, or nearly 60% of the population. It’s everywhere: in our communities, our schools, our jobs, sports, and many more places.
Social media has many benefits and that’s especially true for the world of youth sports. Running engaging social media accounts for your youth sports teams, clubs, leagues is a great way to attract new members, market your programs, foster team and community spirit, and much more.
Here’s a quick look at the top 8 social media ideas and tips for youth sports clubs and leagues to help them promote their organizations.
Best Social Media Ideas for Youth Sports
#1 Focus on Your Top Social Networks
Don’t get overwhelmed when you make the decision to leverage social media for your club or league. Start small. You don’t have to be on every single platform. If you’re starting from scratch, choose one or two platforms to build your audience. If you’re taking over social media accounts that already exist, just focus on the one or two best performing ones. Learn and harness your social skills before taking your content wider.
#2 Get Help from Coaches and Parents
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This feels like an anecdote that works for every aspect of running a youth sports program, but is especially true with social media. Getting assistance from coaches or parents will help burden the time spent on your end, and who knows, you may have a parent that runs social media professionally in their career!
#3 Interact with Your Audience
Interaction is one of the main reasons society loves social media. It’s a place for us to connect virtually and feel part of our communities. Picture this: you commented on a highlight video from your favorite professional sports team. Then they like the comment and comment back. How cool does that feel? The same can be said for your audience
#4 Make it Fun!
Social media should be fun. Especially in youth sports. Highlight the stories that show your organization, especially the coaches and athletes, having fun.
#5 Use Your Marketing Budget
If your youth sports program has a marketing budget, don’t be afraid to use it. Take advantage by boosting certain social posts or running paid social campaigns. These can be especially advantageous when you’re trying to boost participation or registration numbers for an upcoming season, running a charitable cause/fundraisier, or showing off new sponsors.
#6 Go Behind-the-Scenes
Take another tip from the best professional sports social media accounts. We all want to see the behind-the-scenes stuff. How about the halftime speech from your favorite basketball coach? Or a day-in-the-life of your favorite football players and coaches? These are cool ideas (especially for youth sports coaches) to give a better understanding and sense of community for your programs.
#7 Short and Simple
Don’t make things too complicated. This applies to the general time, effort and strategy you put behind social media. But, also the content itself. Are you making a video? Ideal lengths of video content on social media depends on the platform, but for example, TikTok videos are typically 10-15 seconds long.
#8 Get Visual!
Similar to the above – make sure you get visual! There is a lot going on when you scroll social media feeds. Get visual. Make your content stick out, whether that’s with the use of graphics, videos, audio, etc.
Social Media Objectives for Sports Teams
Below is a quick list of the top objectives for sports teams to gauge their successes on social media. This applies to any level of sport, especially youth sports:
- Engagement, Interaction, Impression #s: the main goals for any kind of content on social media
- Real-time Updates: crucial in the world of sports
- Recognition for the Fans: make them feel like they’re part of the team/club/league
- Tell athlete stories: the best way to personalize your accounts
Best Sports Brands on Social Media
In 2024, the Webby Awards (the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet) announced two winners and five nominees/honorees in the award category “Sports Social 2024.” According to the Webby Awards site, the award was for “social media accounts or content dedicated to sports news, sports culture, athletes, teams, statistics, data, sporting events, and sports history.”
Winners
Nominees
Los Angeles Chargers Social (NFL)
Honorees
Indiana Pacers (NBA)
