Over the past decade, social media has developed at an incredible speed. The number of people who are joining social media and using it efficiently and regularly is increasing daily. The industry is still bound to keep growing. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is keen on improving its marketing efforts to boost attendance throughout the season. Some of the sports such as wrestling desire to grow its social media followers, cultivate their brand, and increase attendance. Some of the key marketing strategies include social media. Due to the rapid social media growth, the sport needs to leverage efficient social media channels to achieve their goals and objectives ( Scott, 2015) . Not only will social media increase attendance but also improve the connection between the sport and its fans. As the assistant wrestling coach, I will propose ways of increasing stakeholder engagement through social media, ways of improving the average attendance, and how I will use social media to improve the sport’s marketing efforts.
Stakeholder Engagement through Social Media
Engagement is essential when building trust between stakeholders and the sport. Improving stakeholder relationships will not only benefit the sport during crises or uncertainties but also strengthens brand loyalty. Social media is a significant tool in encouraging stakeholder engagement. It can also be used to measure the success of the sport's marketing efforts. There are various techniques of fostering stakeholder engagement such identifying the main stakeholders, developing content to each stakeholder group, and having an active and continuous dialogue with the sport's online community. It is essential to evaluate stakeholder’s background, interests, and concerns so that the social media campaign can resonate with the audience ( Witkemper, Lim, & Waldburger, 2012) . Some of the key stakeholders include the audience, partners, athletes, government, and NCAA. The association can hire social media analytics who will evaluate the topics that various stakeholders are more likely to be engaged with.
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After evaluating the topics that are more likely to resonate with the stakeholders, the association can modify the content so that it can easily match the stakeholders’ interests, concerns, and backgrounds. Also, after using the social media platform, they should analyze the most successful content and find methods of ensuring that the social media campaign is continuously successful. The most successful posts are those that receive the highest positive comments, clicks, and likes ( Lipsman et al., 2012) . Other than the posts being interesting to the sports’ audience, it should place stakeholders’ interest at the core of the campaign. Keeping an active and continuous engagement with the online community brings awareness to the cause while promoting the wrestling brand. It also provides a first-hand listening tool to collect insights and experiences from the stakeholders. Addressing questions and concerns not only increases the mutual understanding but also proactively mitigates risks.
Traditional Strategies of Improving Attendance
In my new position as the assistant wrestling coach, I am confident that there are various traditional techniques of improving the average attendance to about 1000 over the entire season. Some of the traditional factors that affect attendance include car parking space, stadium environment, stadium location, stadium services, organization at the entrance gate, respect from other fans, and seat arrangement. The association should evaluate techniques of making the fans feel appreciated so that they can attend the games or matches. Furthermore, people desire watching sports in a lively environment that is safe. Also, they want strategies that they can use to purchase tickets easily. When seats are numbered, it ensures that the attendees can sit according to the ticket numbers thus avoiding congestion in the stadium ( Scott, 2015) . Also, when the entrance gate is well organized, fans are more likely to attend the matches be it football, baseball, swimming, or wrestling.
The other traditional technique is improving fan’s loyalty, commitment, and support to the sport. The association should ensure they are good social hosts. They should focus on factors that affect the audience directly such as access to tickets or having seat numbers. Fans desire to feel connected to the team or sport. Also, they want to be appreciated for their commitment. The more fans feel connected to the brand or sport, the more likely they will be engaged in the sports’ activities ( Witkemper, Lim, & Waldburger, 2012) . The association can also give the fans a chance to interact directly with the players during a match or event. The association can also ensure that the sports are exciting. The sport’s experience is more than just the fixture itself and focuses on why attending the match or game is better that watching it in a bar, at home, or online. The sport should be unpredictable and should involve excitement and drama.
Use of Social Media Outlets
The three key social media outlets are YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Facebook has about 1.6 billion users, and the demographics are well balanced according to socio-economic status, gender, age, and race. The key aspect of Facebook is the culture of friendship which can be used to create a relationship with fans. Twitter has fewer users than Facebook, and its demographics are different. It is mainly popular people with Hispanic/black ethnicity and young adults. Also, the number of characters per post is limited. On the other hand, YouTube is the 2 nd largest search engine ( Williams & Chinn, 2010) . The site has about 1.3 billion users, and they watch over 5 billion videos daily. Moreover, the demographics are distributed, but majority of men focus on sports. The association can use this trend to reach the intended audience.
The three social media platforms can be used individually. The association can open a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, or Twitter account for the sport. The association can publicize their presence individually in the three platforms. Also, the company can have a social icon on their official website. After creating a strong following, NCAA should post statuses or videos, or tweets regarding the sport, interviews with athletes, and other offers. However, the posts should be enticing so that the posts or videos can be shared by their online following ( Lipsman et al., 2012) . They can also use questions, quotes, or statistics regarding the sport. Twitter is an efficient technique of generating traffic in a website or sharing thoughts. NCAA can also use hashtags to ensure a particular topic is trending. The best video sharing avenue in the world is YouTube. NCAA can create and share videos through the three online platforms.
Conclusion
In my position as the assistant wrestling coach, I have proposed ways of increasing stakeholder engagement through social media, ways of improving the average attendance, and how I will use social media to improve the sport’s marketing efforts. Improving stakeholder relationships will not only benefit the sport during crises or uncertainties but also strengthens brand loyalty. The traditional methods of improving attendance include providing car parking space, stadium environment, stadium location, stadium services, organization at the entrance gate, respect from other fans, and proper seat arrangement. The three key social media outlets are YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Due to globalization and advancement in technology, social media is a key aspect of modern communication. All sports should use social media to target specific audience while building their brands through direct interactions with its online following. Most people use social media as personal network for connecting with loved ones, friends, or specific audiences. The sports’ brand should fit a similar atmosphere so that the audience can get interested ( Williams & Chinn, 2010) .
References
Lipsman, A., Mudd, G., Rich, M., & Bruich, S. (2012). The power of "like": How brands reach (and influence) fans through social media marketing: Journal of Advertising Research , 52 (1), 40-52.
Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly . John Wiley & Sons.
Williams, J., & Chinn, S. J. (2010). Meeting relationship-marketing goals through social media: A conceptual model for sports marketers. International Journal of Sports Communication , 3 (4), 422-437.
Witkemper, C., Lim, C. H., & Waldburger, A. (2012). Social media and sports marketing: Examining the motivations and constraints of Twitter users: Sports Marketing Quarterly , 21 (3), 170.
