Sport has the extraordinary power to unite millions of people worldwide, regardless of their origins, beliefs, or socio-professional categories. On social media, accounts dedicated to the sports sector are flourishing every day. This is how sports, fitness, and wellness influencers have quickly emerged on these platforms. Here’s how social networks such as YouTube or Instagram give new momentum to brands and become the preferred media for sports brands to launch successful influence campaigns and promote their products.
Social Networks, Influencers, and Sport
Thanks to the omnipotence of social networks, influence marketing is more than ever essential to any brand’s digital marketing strategy. The sports domain is no exception! Social networks constitute a natural reference point for all actors in the field.
For several years now, the health domain – which includes sports, wellness, and nutrition – has become a genuine societal topic at the heart of consumers’ priorities. This is why these themes have naturally invaded social networks, particularly YouTube and Instagram.
In the sports sector, we now find an incalculable number of social media accounts dedicated to sports and wellness, across all disciplines (running, fitness, motorsports, yoga, etc.), whether the influencers are sports professionals or passionate amateurs.
Every day, a large number of videos and posts about sports are shared by influencers with growing fan communities on social networks (across all platforms).
Now, for millions of consumers worldwide, sports, wellness, and lifestyle influencers are a source of inspiration who:
- Provide advice, tips, and daily encouragement to fans wishing to invest in a specific sport and generally take care of themselves;
- Embody the ultimate accomplishment for these target audiences;
- Act as drivers of personal achievement.
Thus, sports brands seeking virality, visibility development, and increased sales are numerous in having sensed the enormous potential of social networks, influencers, and influence marketing.
Athletes Become Influencers Coveted by Brands
Sport is one of the most consumed content on social networks, especially on Instagram and YouTube.
Major sports brands such as Adidas, Nike, or Salomon have immediately turned to famous athletes to boost their communication campaigns (product launches, event campaigns, etc.).
Thus, more and more athletes are becoming real influencers and promoting accessories, clothing, or sports equipment to their fan community on social networks.
Football players, like Cristiano Ronaldo, with his 158 million fans on Instagram, generate enormous media impact for brands that call upon them. When the famous athlete collaborates with a sports brand, he reaches an immense fan community in a single post or video.
Launching influence campaigns with these macro-influencers with large fan communities is therefore very attractive for sports brands.
Sometimes, to broaden their audience and reach other communities, sports brands choose to collaborate with macro-influencers in fields other than sports, such as for the launch of a sports clothing collection or accessories with a beauty influencer, for example.
Of course, for their influence marketing strategy to work, these carefully selected macro-influencers advocate a certain sports and dietary lifestyle, in line with the brand’s values.
A perfect compatibility between the brand, its image, its products, and the athlete is the key success factor of any influence marketing campaign on social networks.
However, even if the aura and number of fans on these athlete macro-influencers’ platforms are significant criteria for a brand, that’s not everything…
Moreover, to continue surprising and seducing their consumers, sports brands must demonstrate originality and innovation.
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Trustt is a digital marketing solution that allows you to create a virtuous circle between your brand and your consumers.The Major Influence of Micro-Influencers in the Sports Field
To succeed in their influencer campaign on social networks, sports brands also choose to call upon more discreet personalities than athletes.
Indeed, to choose the influencer who will represent their brand and products, it is important to ensure that they are selected based on their accessibility, authenticity, values, reach, and relevance.
Influencer marketing is no longer evaluated simply on the number of fans, but more on the quality of engagement of the influencer’s fan community.
In fact, one of the basic principles of influencer marketing is that generally, the larger the number of fans in a community, the lower the engagement rate.
Also, it is sometimes more interesting for a sports brand to target micro-influencers with smaller fan communities, but whose engagement is more significant to promote their products and develop their sales.
A brand’s message will have more value in the eyes of the amateur athlete’s community fans, due to the proximity they maintain with their fans and because they seem more authentic, more sincere, and therefore more credible. The consumer community will then be much more receptive to the highlighted product.
As you can understand, the number of fans is not the only criterion to consider when selecting the best influencer profiles. Other indicators such as engagement rate, the influencer’s audience, or even the affinity with your products should be taken into account to identify the best profiles.
Poor targeting of ambassadors to promote your sports brand can be a wasted effort…
Trustt assists you in implementing your influencer marketing campaigns in the sports field. Thanks to its unique machine learning technology, the SophIA® algorithm, the software identifies for you the best micro-influencer profiles that precisely match your products and your brand values.
The SophIA® algorithm takes into account:
- The influencer’s areas of expertise,
- The quality of their posts and content (videos, photos, blog articles…),
- Their affinity with your brand or product,
- Their engagement,
- Their authenticity,
- The relevance of their fan community.
