In the beginning, running social media for a sports franchise was easy. Post a game result on Facebook; watch likes accumulate; rinse and repeat. Twitter’s surge in popularity spurred a subsequent increase in fans’ thirst for more content. The explosion of Instagram brought with it a focus to publish high quality images on every network. The ascent of Vine, Pinterest, and Google+ brought about new demands for creative content, and suddenly every sports social media marketer had a multitude of networks to manage.
This proliferation of social networks once led San Francisco Giants Social Media Director Bryan Srabian to tell me, “You really have to understand your fans and what does well, because there are really special moments where you only get one opportunity to share something, and you have to decide whether to use Vine or Instagram or something else.”
The wide array of social networks available to marketers has created a need to pick and choose which networks are worth the investment, and which are best left to explore on a personal level for future consideration. That ability – the skill to correctly choose which social networks to invest in on behalf of a franchise – is crucial right now, because a new social network is about to explode among brands and sports franchises, and social media marketers will have to decide whether or not to jump aboard.
This network already boasts more than 400 million messages sent each day. It has about 30 million monthly active users, fifty-five percent of which use it daily. It’s enormously popular with millennials. “It” is Snapchat, and it is coming to a sports franchise near you.
In the last few months, professional sports franchises like the New Orleans Saints, Philadelphia Eagles, and New York Jets have joined the popular selfie service, along with college athletic departments like Eastern Washington University, and they won’t be the only franchises to start snapping in the very near future.
For the uninitiated, Snapchat is a social network that allows users to send private picture messages, often marked with text or drawings, to other users that self-destruct after a period of 1-10 seconds. Users can also send what Snapchat calls “stories,” a combination of images and video that can be viewed multiple times by an audience for 24 hours. The network has gained a large following among teenagers, and recently has gained interest among brands and franchises looking to connect with a younger audience on social media.
One of those franchises, the New Orleans Saints, have been on Snapchat since October of 2013, and have seen an impressive amount of growth since that time, according to Social Media Director Alex Restrepo. “It’s getting really popular, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.” Restrepo said in a podcast with Jenni Hogan. “Our fans have really liked it. At last check, we had 17,000+ followers…the reaction has been way better than I thought we’d see. It’s semi-hard to promote, because you have to search for Saints. You can’t send them a link to a page. It’s all been word of mouth promotion.”
Saints start @SnapChat account http://t.co/KZrptnmShb
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) October 9, 2013
The key to the Saints’ success on Snapchat is their ability to publish exclusive content on Snapchat. Doing so gives fans a reason to follow the Saints, according to Restrepo, who has enough access to content that he can afford to publish some things exclusively to Snapchat. That’s a luxury many franchises don’t have, however, and what makes joining Snapchat for the sake of joining Snapchat so dangerous.
For example, let’s say the Carolina Panthers, tempted by the success of their rival Saints, join Snapchat. Only the Panthers social media manager doesn’t have enough access to justify posting exclusive content on Snapchat, so he double dips and posts content that he’ll later post on Instagram. Now what is the incentive for fans on Snapchat to follow the team on Instagram? The Panthers, in an effort to boost their presence on a new social network, have done damage to their presence on an already established network with a higher reach and more engagement.
There are other hurdles to an investment in Snapchat as well. Many sport marketers question the ROI of images and videos that often disappear after 10 seconds or less, or at most, 24 hours. Additionally, Snapchat, unlike other social networks, does not allow for uploaded content, which puts the onus on social media managers to capture images or video correctly on the first try. When social media managers only have one opportunity to capture a special moment, are they willing to do so for Snapchat users of Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram followers?
Managers will also have to weigh an investment in Snapchat versus using Instagram’s new feature, Instagram Direct, which allows Instagram users to send private images to a maximum of 15 people and was released, in part, to compete with messaging apps like Snapchat.
This is not all to say that Snapchat isn’t worth the investment for all franchises. As the Saints have shown, franchises can have success with Snapchat. While the Saints only currently use the stories featured on Snapchat, there are many other viable uses for the service. Franchises may decide Snapchat is a good vehicle for redefining the idea of exclusive content. Others may use it to offer discount codes on game day tickets or team merchandise. Some franchises may use Snapchat to put a new twist on scavenger hunts, or as a fun way to involve mascots on social media (mascot selfies, anyone?).
In the comings months, there will be an outpouring of headlines and articles about new brands and sports franchises signing up with Snapchat, and the pressure will mount on holdouts to drink the Kool Aid. Before taking a sip though, take a step back and survey the situation. Does your franchise have the resources to manage another social network? Do you have enough team access to publish exclusive content to Snapchat? What is your strategy for the network? If you have a plan, good luck to you. I look forward to seeing what you do with the network. If you don’t, stick to spectating. The only thing worse than not having an account on a social network is having an inactive account on a social network.