8 Ways a Professional Athlete Can Successfully Utilize Social Media

Professional Athletes use of Social Media, most notably Facebook and Twitter, has legitimized social media, social networking, and social marketing in the sports industry. Here are 8 great ways a professional athlete can successfully utilize social media:

1. Become Active
Go out to where your fans already are (300+ Million on Facebook, 100+ Million on Twitter) and become active. Create a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter Account. Start posting and don’t stop – any content is good content.

2. Share Non-Sports Related Info

Fans love to get close to their favorite athletes. Whether its wearing their jersey, decorating their house with memorabilia, or tattooing their favorite player’s face on their arm, fans love feeling like they are connected to the athlete. Tweet about family, hobbies, favorite foods, etc – all of this “off the field stuff” will generate as much interest with your fans as sport related updates. This goes a long way in creating a loyal fan base.

3. Interact with fans one-on-one
Did I mention that fans love getting close to their favorite athletes? Fans rarely get the chance to interact with their favorite athletes one-on-one. Social Media presents the unique opportunity to interact with fans in their environment. A simple response to a fan question or comment can go a long way in building an athlete’s reputation as a fan favorite.

4. Monetize
With a large community of highly interested and loyal fans, athletes can effectively monetize their social media efforts. Mark Sanchez did a great job of this when he extended his Toyota endorsement deal onto his Twitter Page. With over 57,000 followers, a call to action to click over to the Toyota microsite is a great way to add value to a sponsorship deal. Generate revenue by sponsoring events, selling ad space, giving sponsored endorsed updates or tweets, or selling a title sponsorship of the entire social network page (think Mark Sanchez on Twitter presented by Toyota).

5. Run A Contest
The always popular Twitter Contest. Contests are a great way to generate fan interest and create a viral buzz about an athlete’s social media efforts. Some athletes have done some extremely creative contests, like Lamar Odom’s Photo Scavenger Hunt for 20 tickets to his Lakers Suite.

6. Voice Message
Social Media provides athletes a platform to voice their message. NFL stars Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocino, and Chris Johnson have done a great job in utilizing Social Media to deliver their own messages directly to their fan bases. For athletes that love to platform their thoughts and views, social media is the perfect arena.

7. Push Fans to Personal Website
If you want increase visitors and views to your website, social media is a must. Links spread at light speed on Facebook and Twitter. By getting in the habit of including a link back to their official website, athletes can increase traffic to their official site which brings us to #8…

8. Promote Items to Sell or Other Revenue Streams
With the increase in traffic and ability to directly promote the personal website, Social Media provides a great opportunity to promote items in an athlete’s personal store or other revenue generating items. Chad Ochocino makes the list again for using Twitter to promote his custom OchoCinco T-Shirts. Cener Social Media did something similar for Aaron Peirsol’s Race For The Oceans. The official website, AaronPeirsol.com featured information on booking Aaron for promotional appearances like clinics, autograph sessions, and speaking engagements. A link to his site accompanied updated and was pushed to fans to increase traffic and spread the word of Aaron’s availability.

“8 Ways…” brought to you by my favorite #8 of all time – Mark Brunell.