With the NHL playoffs in full swing, the social web has been flooded with posts from fans documenting nearly every second of every game.
As Canadians feast on the season’s final games, Sport Chek will be right alongside them, fingers on the tweet button, ready to post about the next exciting moment.
The 2014-2015 sports season saw the retailer ramp up its live-tweeting for the NHL, but also during Toronto Raptors games and a handful of other smaller events like the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup and the high school basketball All-Canadian All-Star Game.
With the end of the basketball and hockey seasons in sight, Marketing spoke with Marc Binkley, Sport Chek’s social media manager, about what he’s learned from a season spent live-tweeting and asked him to share five of the brand’s game night social hits.
Live-tweeting can help brands connect with customers via a mutual passion
Because of its sporting focus as a retailer, live games are a natural fit for Sport Chek. Its target is plugged into sports culture, so just as game broadcasts are an attractive property for its media buy, it makes sense for the brand to have a social game night presence.
It’s also a chance to connect with customers on a mutual passion. Binkley said the brand sees live-tweeting games as a way to relate to consumers. “It’s a fun way for us to show that we’re fans and put the brand in the conversation people are having around sports,” he said.
It provides a natural extension for sponsorships
Sport Chek has inked sponsorship deals with a host of sports properties, including almost all of the Canadian NHL teams and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Staying active on game nights extends these programs outside the venue.
For example, the brand gives away sponsor tickets via social contests and shares content from the athletes it works with, like Toronto Raptor Kyle Lowry, as a complement to newsier, game-focused posts.
The sponsorship world also presents a host of challenges. Each league has separate guidelines for what brands can and can’t share on social media without laying down sponsorship dollars. When Sport Chek wants to join in on the conversation, but doesn’t sponsor either team playing, Binkley said he retweets teams and news outlets to maintain a presence without breaking any league rules.
Priorities need to be set – not every event is a fit
Sport Chek can’t live tweet during every game, so Binkley said his team has to set priorities based on its objective. That means the teams it sponsors take priority, as do Canadian games. When two big games happen on the same night, he said he’ll keep an eye on both, looking for exciting moments.
Being live can be a staffing challenge
Games happen outside traditional office hours, which can present a staffing challenge. Binkley said Sport Chek’s taken a divide and conquer approach. First, an editorial schedules is set based on game priorities, then team members take on different games, splitting the responsibilities. (Sport Chek splits its social media management between in-house staffers and its PR agency North Strategic.)
Timing is everything
Binkley likened social management to surfing – you have to catch the wave at the right time. He lists one of the brand’s big social hits of the season, a Vine it created with Tampa Bay Lightning player Steven Stamkos (see below), as an example.
The vine shows Stamkos taking a shot via a camera placed in the back of the net. It was uploaded about an hour before the player took the ice for the slap shot competition in the NHL All-Star Weekend. Any earlier or later, and it may not have gained as much traction.
Being live takes planning, but it can’t be scheduled
A lot of prep work goes into live-tweeting, from setting an editorial calendar to finding content sources and arranging tie-ins with other marketing programs. But if a brand can’t actually be live in the moment, it shouldn’t be there, Binkley said.
Sports games are spontaneous and anything can happen, so brands need to actually be live and watching alongside fans, not just scheduling content to go live when the game starts, Binkley said.
Four of the brand’s biggest sporting social hits
Wow! @Klow7 with a big dunk
— Sport Chek (@SportChek) February 16, 2015
This simple tweet celebrating a big game moment pulled in thousands of impressions. Engagements: 83 Impressions: 5,853
Lazar hands the trophy straight to Fabbri. Classy move from #captainCanada to recognize a great player who couldn’t be on the ice tonight. — Sport Chek (@SportChek) January 6, 2015
This tweet celebrating Canadian sportsmanship attracted a lot of attention and good will.
Engagements: 335
Impressions: 12,661
Check out @RealStamkos91 practice his #onetimers – good thing we put a mask on the @GoPro #MyBetter #nhlall… https://t.co/hP88uaptg0
— Sport Chek (@SportChek) January 25, 2015
Impressions: 101,427 Engagements: 21,024 As Binkley said, this tweet was supported by good timing, but other factors were also at play: it’s a short, entertaining clip that was linked to a big sporting event. At the time, it was the most traction the brand had gotten on any organic tweet.
VASQUEZ sinks the 3 for the tie!!! https://t.co/kiT3kZ0YhK — Sport Chek (@SportChek) April 18, 2015
Impressions: 21,422
Engagements: 1,344
On game nights, the Sport Chek team is always searching for content it can share. This video highlighting a big game was a big win for the brand.
