Twitter for Sports Organizations

Note: if you're looking for best practices on using Twitter as an athlete, click here.

The roar of the crowd

Twitter and sports fit together because sports are live, immediate, suspenseful, and fun—and these are qualities Twitter mirrors and enhances in real-time. People use Twitter to follow their favorite players, sports writers, and teams, but most importantly: they use Twitter to talk about games as they happen.

With every touchdown, goal, or home run, you can literally see the spikes in Twitter activity. Here's how a World Series game looks on Twitter:

That's a huge real-time conversation, and by using a few simple best practices, you can make it even bigger. Here's a look at how the @SFGiants did just that in 2010:

Here's your playbook:




Live-tweet events

Deliver the goods by live-tweeting meaningful events as they happen. On Twitter, you provide both the color commentary and the play-by-play:

Of course, some moments just scream out to be tweeted:

You can also chime in on other live events, even if your team isn't participating directly:




Share pictures

Pictures add color and concreteness to your Tweets, whether they show a freshly-mowed baseball field or a star player under the spotlight:

Pictures also make the best promos, building your followers' anticipation for big events:

And snapshots from behind the scenes can become iconic images:




Break news

With your Twitter account, you decide when to break news. A Tweet is a miniature press release that goes instantly to the press and the public alike:




Give followers special access

With Twitter, you can talk directly to the fans who care most about the details—the part of your audience that really is interested in inside baseball, or inside basketball, or inside golf:

And you can share a perspective that fans simply can't get anywhere else:




Talk to your followers and ask questions

Twitter is a quick way to engage in support and keep your international fans interested:

By asking questions yourself, you can poll your fan base directly or engage them with trivia:




Mention other teams, athletes, and high-profile sports figures

Mentioning related sports accounts connects you to a larger conversation:

It's also a great way to organically promote your players' accounts:

And once you've identified a group of related accounts, you can make a Warm Sign-up List which will provide a seamless experience for your newest followers.




Run a contest

Contests can spur engagement and creativity from your followers:

And @MLS does a great job at turning their contests into content on their website. Just remember to check out our guidelines before starting your contest.

You can also use your Twitter presence to support your organization's altruistic work. In October 2010, the @LAKings and the @Avalanche participated in a "Hashtag Battle" that raised over $43,000 for charity.




Twitter in action: avoiding a blackout

The @chargers were playing the @realpatriots on October 20, 2010, but the game was due to be blacked out on television. So both teams tweeted to their followers:

A few hours later, the tickets were gone and the blackout threat was ended. The Chargers sold the remaining tickets and their fans got to see the game on TV—a win-win for everyone involved.




Follow these simple best practices and you'll see your fans' Twitter engagement increase rapidly. Really rock them out, and you'll gather even more fans—and sell even more tickets.

See you at the game!