The best social media posts in Sport

Foreign. So what we're going to cover today is how you can use charity and community led content to show that you're connected to what's going on. Basically how you can really focus on your area, your place and using content to connect, how monitoring your local content stream and businesses in your area could help find you new content, which is always amazing. We always look at how we can save time, time and effort on here so that we can get you guys engaging with as much content as possible and then how you can get creative with campaigns without the need of a marketing team. I think everyone always gets really scared of coming up with marketing related campaigns and for this, this is all about how you can, I guess, do I guess what the big boys are doing but without the having to pay the marketing team a whole load of salaries and then how you can take what is going on in the world and share authentically to connect with a new audience. It's how you can I guess, take what's going on in the world or maybe come up with some new concep or things that I guess are important to you and connect a new audience in maybe a different way. Okay, so for anyone that hasn't seen it, this is the maybe platform, this is your dashboard and this is basically how we do what we do. What we do is we make social media work. So we help you guys understand what is working, what isn't in your social media and we do that through case studies, through training and through helping you guys get better informed about what's working. AKA your best post, your best content against that of one of your competitors or perhaps someone that maybe inspires you in some way, shape or form and then help you get better on a weekly basis through training like this. And I am just going to get cracking. So the Salvation army, why would that have anything to do with sports? So the Salvation army decided to show off one of their managers who recently represented Sunderland as one of the Queen's baton bearers and it was to mark the start of the Commonwealth game. So we're going to start by talking about Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Games. So what I, I just love this post so much. Anyway, so this is Christine, she's the manager of the Swan Lodge and it really shows off Christine and goes into a ton of detail about why she was nominated and even giving the quote. So special. So I'll just, I won't read out all of it but it basically says that she was, she represented Sunderlands as one of the bat invaders. She was one of the 14 people so it shows what a select amount of people it was. It needs to be really special selected to represent the Northeast as part of the Baton's journey. It gives the detail about how it works, in case you didn't know. And then she says that she was nominated for being an extraordinary asset to the Salvation army, who's selfless and always goes the extra mile and encourages people to be the best version of themselves. Then it goes. Then there's got a quote from her which says that she's so excited, but she doesn't even know who put her forward. But obviously that she's so happy. And then she's saying that she's carried it on behalf of all the clients and staff from the Swan Lodge that are there to cheer her on. She was worried she might have to run and she makes a little joke about it. Now, this post is everything, it's absolutely everything. So let's have a look at it. So it shows from the Salvation Army's point of view, you know, obviously it's a. It's a big organization and it shows that just how granular I guess they get in terms of the detail and the understanding of their team, of their volunteers, of basically, you know, the people that physically help them deliver and all the help that they deliver across the, you know, across the UK and further. So I love that and I love that. Then they've got the actual, you know, the image of her there with, with the baton and, and just how happy and excited she looks. It's just, it's a great, great picture and obviously shows off everything. The background, it's got the branding on it from the Salvation army, which again, anybody could do just popping on their logo. But I think it's actually also Christine's quotes as well, when, you know that they've explained, they've explained that she's been nominated and they don't know by who, by somebody and who's saying that she's super selfless is an all round gem of a person, I guess. And she's just talking about, yeah, just how amazing it was. And what I love is that she's also celebrating her team and celebrating the Salvation army and saying that everyone was there to cheer her on, which shows again, that camaraderie, that team effort, that spirit, which again, tends to only come when it comes to people coming together and through sports and events and that kind of thing. So I absolutely love that. And I just think that, I guess any business, big or small, can do something like this. So for me, it's if you're based in Sunderland or the surrounding area, I think go on there and find this post and like it, comment on it. It was only on the 26th of July when, like, comment on it, share it on your own feeds. Because do you know what? This is a winner. This is something to celebrate. If you're an independent business, if you're a shopping centre, if you're a council, a bed, whoever you are, this is. This is you celebrating, you know, ultimately the Salvation army celebrating them and what they do for people. But it's also celebrating a local hero. It's somebody who is, you know, as I've said, selfless and works off, run steam and just really works to help, help support, you know, I'm sure hundreds of different people throughout the year at the lodge. So I think it's all about finding content from local charities, from local community initiatives that you can go on and support as a business, even if it. Even if you're not able to give anything financially. This is about, you know, promoting what they're doing locally and it's about celebrating the local heroes. I would 100% be going in there and getting involved in this conversation and liking it. And it might even be that you start following some of these hashtags as well as a way of supporting them. And if you think about it as things like the Commonwealth Games, Commonwealth Games 2022, Commonwealth 22, Make a Difference, charity, nonprofit, all of these things are going to be where you'll find all of the great content for Commonwealth. So just make sure that you're in there and engaging and commenting and it might be that you find other things that are, I guess, more applicable to your business that you could go in and share, perhaps. But I guess any business can do. This is about celebrating your wins, like a sports team would like with sports. It is about taking a little win or a big win and then turning it into something great on social media. So capture the excitement on video or through images. Whether it's that you won an award or you're up for an award, or it might be that one of your team's done something really nice. Maybe someone's has a baby, someone's getting married, it doesn't really matter. For me, this is all about actually celebrating teams, going into the detail, really showing that you are somebody that understands their team members and the value that they bring, because people love supporting people. So, yeah, I just absolutely love this. So, you know, it's a great way of taking, I guess, Commonwealth content and turning it into something that you could use, but it's also just a really lovely way of someone celebrating a member of their team. So, yeah. So massive, massive. Well done, Salvation army, because I just love this. And well done to Christine as well, because it's just lovely. And then why not try out some of the Commonwealth hashtags to see what you can find going on? Perhaps you might be able to find some content that's for shading in your local feed. So, for example, I literally went into the maybe platform, into Engagement Engage, and I added in Commonwealth 2022, because again, that was one of the ones that was found on there, but it was Commonwealth 22, there's Commonwealth Games, Commonwealth UK, you know, there's loads of ones like that. So it could be worth going in. And if you know sports or fitness or just community is anything to do with your business, then get on there, get involved and start looking for different things that you might be able to share. Just make sure that at the top you can do best post, but you can also choose local. So if you want to look at independent businesses that are supporting it, or any independent business that are doing anything for the Commonwealth and you want to get some ideas, there's lots of different ways to do it. Yes, I just wanted to highlight that that's a really easy way of being able to find some really good content that you might be able to share, whether it's from national news or whether it's from a local business, and then a couple of other ones. So these are national businesses, obviously. So I'm going to start by talking about specsavers. Speaking of which, I'm going to put on my glasses as well. Just realized I was squinting. Right. So specsaver's marketing team, they have been super busy recently and I don't know whether any of you guys have seen, possibly even featured them. So Stranger Things is obviously a massive Netflix show and they did some really cool billboards for that, where they turned what effectively would have been, you know, their. Their eye testing board, and they turned it upside down because it's the world of the upside down. And then what they've done for this is, again, they've spotted that the lionesses, funnily enough, this is all about Euro 2022. We spotted that everyone was talking about the lionesses, everyone was talking about coming home football, coming home England, all that kind of thing and all about. Yeah, it was just, you know, it was a national. It was a national hero sort of campaign, I guess. So they took that and thought, what else can we do? With this. So they decided to take this billboard and they've done. It's actually coming home and then they've done spec savers. So here, obviously it is like one of their, you know, like eye test boards. You know, anybody who's had an eye test would recognize that would go. So you have to kind of take a little minute to read it. But it is, it is, it is the image of a physical piece of advertising, I guess, which I love. And then the fact that they've taken the image and then they posted it on Twitter and they've obviously posted on some of the other feeds as well, with some really excellent hashtags. So it's a clever play on the eye test. It's really focusing on the big seller celebration and it's taking an outdoor campaign and making the most of it and turning it into something that you could post on social media. So it's a really good way for a brand to win in multiple different ways on social media, I guess. So Here they put 56 years of heart over amazing site. So that's them basically going, yes, you know, we did, you know, we've done this. They're celebrating national pride. They're celebrating along with the rest of the nation. And then they've used the hashtags Lionesses, they've used the Euro 2022 and then they've used it's coming Home. So all the kind of key hashtag that people have, people have generally been using. And it had 144 retweets, 10 tweets and a thousand, well, 1700 likes. So it's really, really strong. And you can see when they posted it as well, which was ranged about when all of this was going on. So I think for me it's just, it's multiple things. It is about coming up with a concept that fits your business and your brand identity and what you guys do on a local level and then adding that into what's going on in the world. So, aka the Lionesses, aka the Euro 2022, any World Cups or Commonwealth or anything else that's going on, just a big event that's coming up and thinking about, okay, how can we turn that into some content that we can use? Because guess what, even if you're not a massive football fan, most other people are in some way, shape or form, or at the very least, even if they're not football fans, they all got really behind the Lionesses for this year and everybody had that sort of real national pride. And it was something that was Talked about everywhere. So I think Specsaver is doing something with it that is clever, that is branded, that leads back to them, which is, AKA the eye test, which is tongue in cheek. And then that's also. Then I guess got that element with the 56 years of her amazing site, got that element of emotion that's attached to it. So I think it's just such a clever thing for the marketing team to do. And again, it's something that anybody could come up with and you don't have to have some huge advertising budget in order to do it. It's just about thinking, how can you connect a big thing that's going on in the world right now, AKA lots of sports at the moment, and connect that to your business. And then the next thing I wanted to look at is Amazon. Now probably don't focus much on Amazon on here. And the reason why is because obviously they're an absolute huge corporation and we tend to work tons with lots of independents and cities and town and beds and it's all about connecting people and places and things. But Amazon are a huge company, they've got a big marketing team and what they did to celebrate the lionesses was they just smashed it with this post. I just. It's so clever in so many different ways. So anybody who's ever ordered anything from them, they know that this is on your dashboard here. So you would get what day you ordered it and then you would get the day, the day that it was dispatched and where it was dispatched from. Then you would get when it's out for delivery and then normally you would get with the little thing saying, you know, it's. It's arrived or arriving. And what they've done is it's just been so clever. So they said it was ordered the 6th of July, so that's when it all kind of kicked off literally and started. Then you've got. It was dispatched from Sweden, aka where they came from. And the 26th of July, they put the date out for delivery, the 27th of July and then the 31st. So that the idea is it's like following the team as they go through all of the motions and then at the end of it, it's coming home on the 31st of July, which obviously the date that of the game. So what I love about it is the actual. It's just so clever. It's really, really clever. But you know what, it's super, super simple. Anybody could have done that. If you were a takeaway business, you could have done, you know, like Literally a screenshot of how you do your delivery and done. If you were a nail bar, you could have done some nails and it could have been like it's coming home or, you know, anything at all. There's lots of different ways that you could have done it, but this business, obviously huge and they chose to do it. And actually a really simple way, you know, that's not something that's going to cost them a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of time. They just knock that up and chuck it on Instagram. But it's just, it shows you that even the simple things can be clever. And obviously, irrespective of how anybody feels about Amazon, it's just a great way of them creating the engagement. So they've done one stop away. Good luck to lionesses tonight. And then they've done all of the hashtags that people would use. And then of course they've got Alexa to do setting a reminder to bring it home at 5 o', clock, which is when everything literally kicked off. And then they've got their Amazon UKC order delivered. So they've done the update saying congratulations. So it's, this is when it's coming out, this is when it's so due out for delivery. And then they've done a little update saying it's come home. Obviously there's lots of people who are going to be engaged in this that are saying, you know, fingers crossed. And there's some people that are finding it a little bit controversial. That's okay, because guess what, they're engaged with it. They have gotten involved, they've gotten engaged, they've gotten involved in the conversation and Amazon have taken something that's got nothing to do with them whatsoever and turned it into a piece of content because it's national pride and something that they feel would get them, get them engagement. And that's what they've done. So again, it's just a really super simple way of any business being able to take something that's going on that's big, you know, all this time and people are interested in it and then turning it into a piece of content. So, yeah, really, really good. And then I was thinking about Spec savers, funnily enough, I was thinking about spec savers and they actually do really, really good content. And I don't think we talk enough about them. But when you go on, I'll just see if this click through. Let's. Fingers crossed. So when you go on to the maybe platform and you go on now to Content Calendar, so what you can do on there is you can schedule in all your content now, which is something people ask us for for years, and it's now here. So you can now schedule in all your content across all the platforms, which is brilliant. And when you go on, you can start to look at your own content and start to kind of like understand what's working, what's not. But you can also compare your content to anybody. So it could be that you compare it to someone like specsavers, it could be that here you compare it to someone like Budo, which is a jewelry company. It doesn't matter. It's just what you can do is you can get inspiration. So say it was Specsavers. So say you were a jewellery company and it's boodle like the below. What you can do is you can see. See their post. You can look at viewing it and you can go, do you know what, actually that is really, really interesting. It might be that, I don't know, you are a beauty retailer and, you know, sharing some diamonds would fit in really well with your, with your audience. Great if you're spec. If you are, I don't know, maybe more female led or something like that. And specsavers has some great content. You can also find that here as well. And you can actually physically go in and share that on your posts, or you can look at them and go, do you know what? Actually this is what this brand did for the last week. Let's see here. So you can see all the content that they posted over the last week and then you can start to compare and contrast. So this might be that you go, do you know what? Actually I want to look at this local sports club, I want to look at a national sports club. It might be wanting to look at the lionesses, or it might be, you want to look at Amazon, specsavers or any of the other ones that we feature on here. What you can see is all of your own content and then you can start to see theirs and it's incredible. So you can start to understand what's working, what's not. You can view their posts, you can duplicate them and you can see which channels are using on a more regular basis. But as I say, it's a. It's a really good way of you've been able to monitor. See, it was to do with the Commonwealth, or say it was the England sports team, or it was the athletics, or it was gymnastics or whatever it was that you wanted to follow. Pop it in here. And then all the content will come up here and you can go, do you know what? I've got a little hole in my content on, I don't know, Friday. So I'll just take this, repost it, and share it as my own, and then that will turn into some really good content for your followers. So it's just a little top tip there. And then last but not least, I wanted to feature an independent, because I and how I found this was actually through the maybe platform. And I was looking for best post, and I was looking under Linuses, so I typed in lioness into hashtag and this is what came up. So here she is. So this is Lucy Clare and Lucy Clairdonbar, and she is a digital watercolor artist. And she created some absolutely stunning cards with an image that I think everybody would recognize that really summed up the Lionesses game last week and turned the image into something that should and could be used, I guess, empower. That's what it was designed for, and it was to empower women and girls everywhere that they can do absolutely anything they want to do. And I think what I love is the image itself is lovely, and I love even just the little backdrop and subtle detail, but it really shows you just how stunning the image is. And I think it's an iconic image that anybody could recognize. Now, off the back of all of the press over the last couple of weeks, I love what she has put in her post, which is for young girls, for women of the nation. And she talks about how she witnessed history, not just for women's football, but for women in general. She hopes it gives them inspiration. You can do anything, no matter your gender. What I love is that she's really honest and says she's actually not a big football fan. So she's kind of obviously gotten behind it. Did she even watch it? Who knows? But what she's done is she's gotten behind the ethos and the story behind all of it. She's gotten behind the fact that she's a huge believer in dreaming big. What these women did was dream big, you know, and, you know, they turned women's football into this huge thing to celebrate, which is amazing. But what she's put is she's shown that we can do anything, and then she's tagged the lionesses, which, again, is a really brave thing for a small business to do. Thank you for inspiring not only me, but for millions. I absolutely love the post because it is creative. It shows how stunning her artwork is, which really shows off her skills. It shows off her passion and it's honest and it shows that, yeah, you don't have to be a football fan to have appreciated what's going on in the world and why everybody would be excited about this. And then she's tagged in the lionesses, which is amazing. And then she's done all of the right hashtags as well, which again is absolutely nothing to do with, with gift cards or any of our, any of her products particularly. It's all about the euros and it's all about football. Because guess what? Any football fan and any female football fan, anyone who is, I guess, you know, a champion of women, for example, who would be really inspired by this image is going to be following a lot of these hashtags and going to find that, find her through those hashtags and go, oh my goodness, that is an iconic, an iconic image. That would be amazing for one of my friends or, you know, it might be a good birthday card. It might be a good just, you know, like all round, you know, friends support events kind of card. It might be something you get for your daughter. But they would never have found her otherwise if they were just, you know, because they might, they might just be big fans of football. So she's opening herself up to an incredible new audience by doing these hashtags. So she is just. It's a mix of everything. It's getting behind the sport, getting behind something, but being honest and saying she's not a massive fan of football, but she's a fan of women, she's a fan of championing women. So she's doing all this for that and she's created an amazing, amazing content off back of it. I think what I love as well, look at the rest of her post, she's done absolutely loads of them. So there's lots of different. And look at the, look the amazing, the content that she's got. I love that you created this. It's so awesome. Here you go. We've never doubted. Well deserved from start to finish. So these are all, you know, like football fans, women's sporting women, people absolutely love it. Are you selling this? So people are actually asking, you know, and these are new people that have come to her off the back of again, using these hashtags. So it clearly works really, really well. And again, what I, what I want to show is also just how authentic she is as well. Just a little check on Sunday morning. These are little squares that show part of our life. But sometimes I need to remind myself yeah when I spiral into comparison remember life can't always Be perfect. So this is her making everything look, this is her designing it, this is her creating it, this is her showing her, you know, like British English pride. This is her getting behind and the lionesses get in behind her business as well. And it's showing what she does and how she actually does it. So again, any new people that have come to see this image are suddenly transported by this and suddenly gone, oh, my goodness, I need to share this, I need to get involved, I need to show that. And look at the difference in her hashtags. Absolutely nothing to do with football and everything to do with what she does. She understands her hashtags work. She. She understands how to sign those people to her business and she's opened herself up to a completely new audience. So, yeah, just well done. And on that note, I guess anybody could do that because if you think about it, you know, Linuses is still something that's hugely celebrated at the moment. Commonwealth is hugely celebrated at the moment. All those things are potentially new people that you could open up your business to. Potentially new people that might buy from you. Think about it, any sports fan who's following lioness content are going to be doing it through hashtags. So it could be, I put in, say hashtag lionesses, but you might put in hashtag Lioness Team Lionesses 2022 Euro 2022. Whatever you put in, it's getting a lot of news, it's getting a lot of coverage. So it might be that there's content on there that because you might not be particularly interested in, I don't know, the Commonwealth Games or football or whatever it might be, doesn't mean that your audience isn't. So have a think about what your audience is going to be interested in. Try out some of the hashtags on the maybe platform in here, see what content comes up and think, you know what? I might not know enough about it, but I'll share it. And again, just make sure that you're using those kind of hashtags in any content that's related to it, because again, like Lucy, you're going to attract new people to your feed that might never have come to you before because they might not have just known to look for you. Whereas they know what they love and they know what they want to support. So, yeah, just a little, again, top tip for me on that one. And remember, when it comes to content, you can compare and improve. You can compare to one competitor forever for free. So when you go log on, as I say, on the left hand side here, you can get your best post every week and then you can also get the best post of any business whatsoever and that you want to hop on there. And you can. And it might be a competitor, or it might be, as I say, a national treasure, or it might be, I don't know, somebody that you want to get some inspiration from. But either way, this is going to be a game changer for you because you can start to really understand what's working, what's not, how to improve, how to compare, how to level up as well. So key takeaways for me are, I guess, follow what is going on with local charities and initiatives because that really makes sure that you're supporting your community. Get involved with as much as possible. Watch the different local hashtags, watch what the local charities and community groups are doing, share some of it, support some of it, because again, it shows that you're then an integral part of your community. Sports clubs, local young youth sports teams, anything like that, just make sure you're supporting them because again, they get good coverage, they get support, but it means that you're then getting involved in their conversation and you're appealing to a whole lot of fans that might not never have known that you existed. You can also get creative with your copy and any static posts on social media or offline. So just think about Specsavers should have gone to Specsavers, have a little look at the kind of stuff that they've done for, as I said, sport. Stranger things. I think they did love island something and it is they've just gotten a bit creative with how they want to show their interest and show the excitement for what's going on. And they've related what's going on directly back to their business through a bit getting a bit creative. So it just gives you an opportunity to think about things in a slightly different way. Then even if you're not hugely interested in sports for whatever else is happening at the moment, if it appeals to your customers, then find a way to talk about it because it does drive engagements. Think about any like big events. As I say, it might have been a big festival that's going on in your area. It might be a charity event or it might be a national, national event, it might be a concert, whatever it is, even if you're not interested to follow it all because it might be that, you know, it really engages with, you know, a bunch of your followers that might not have otherwise commented or engaged in your post. And then as I always say, use maybe to learn what's working for you and others and focus your efforts there. That's exactly what we do. Every week we come here and we try and give you guys some hints and tips and tricks on how you guys can level up and come up with some new content, new ideas, but also how you can take your existing content and turn that into something even more amazing and make it go further for you, make it work harder for you. That's what we do.