The 1 Element that’s Negatively Impacting your Sports Content
There’s one key element that directly impacts the performance of your sports content. It’s negatively impacting your content.
And the most important part about this? It’s not something that you’re currently measuring or examining.
What data are you analyzing to measure the success of your content? Typical data that gets analyzed include:
Conversion
Leads
Conversion rate
Cost per lead
Return on investment
Traffic
Social
Reach
Frequency
Engagement/shares
Web
Visits
Bounce rates
Unique visitors
Pageviews
Time on page
Email
Open rates
Forward
CTR
Broadcast
Reach
Web views
Cost per impression
Cost per completion under budget
Branded organic search traffic
Custom code usage
Increase in followers or subscribers
So, what’s the missing element?
The energy of your internal teams and partners.
Energy Leaks and the Impact on Your Content
Are you doing regular temperature checks on your internal and external teams? Are you doing a temperature check on everyone involved in your content creation process?
Checking in on your:
Production team
Social media team
Marketing and communications team
Public relations team
Athletes and staff featured
Creative team
If you walk into a room and someone's energy is off, the majority of the time you’re going to be able to pick it up.
It’s in non-verbal energy that you pick up on cues. When you watch a postgame interview, you can see the difference between the athlete that’s happily engaging with the media and the athlete that’s only answering questions so he doesn’t get fined.
The camera doesn’t hide much which is something to consider when creating video content. The audience can tell the difference between the guy that quickly passes the videographer to get on the rink responding with “I don’t know” and the guy that takes a few minutes to stop, engages, and answers the questions.
You have 8 seconds, arguably less in some situations to catch a viewer's attention.
Energy subtly speaks to your fan or prospective fan.
Picking Up on Energy
When you pay attention, you can tell when someone’s energy is off. If there are heavy emotions, burnout, and stress, it’s going to be all over someone's body language.
Have you ever noticed how there are certain people that you gravitate towards in a room that’s packed full of people? Typically, there’s going to be something about their energy that draws you towards them. Or that repels you from them.
I recently worked at a conference. I noticed that there were speakers that the audience naturally drew towards. And there were speakers that the audience tuned out.
John Herdman, head coach of the Canadian Men’s National Soccer team, was one of the speakers. Herdman was a speaker that the audience gravitated towards.
What do I mean by that? Phones/tablets away, leaning forward in their chairs, eye contact, engagement. They ran out of time to ask questions THAT’S how engaged they were.
I believe there were a few reasons for that. For starters, he spoke to the audience and not at them. His speech was FOR them. The “so what?” was known. Second of all, his energy was incredible.
Motivating. Fired up. Positive. Engaged.
He was present. It was as if he had done a “pre-game ritual” to get his head in the game.
Energy attracts.
Energy Leaks
I’ve noticed humans, in general, aren’t very good at departmentalizing.
Didn’t sleep well the night before? People can typically tell. Starting to get sick? People can typically tell. Stressed? People can typically tell. Disengaged in your role? People can typically tell.
The energy of it shows. You might be able to try to hide it for a bit. But at a certain point, you can no longer hide it.
Everything is super interconnected in our lives.
Business - personal - professional
It’s important to check in on your people to see how they’re doing.
US Statistics
Content aside for a second, when we look at costs to an organization, we know that turnover creates a heavy price tag. We also know that there’s a lot of turnover in the sports industry.
Based on US Statistics, we know that
The national average annual turnover rate was 57.3% in 2020
Companies lose an average of 18% of their workforce per year
6/10 millennials are prone to job-hopping
Employers spend 33% of a worker's annual salary to replace them
We all have several external factors that impact our energy.
Feeling inspired? Your energy is going to be high. You’re going to be on fire with your production. And you’re going to feel great while doing it.
Feeling stressed? Your energy is going to be low and restrictive. Tasks are going to take longer to do, you might not be as “on” as you typically are.
What’s going on in your energy is going to show up in your work.
Analyzing sports content
Content is a 360 Degree View
Content provides fans and prospective fans a 306-degree view into your sports organization and your athletes.
When content is at its most impactful, it’s showing fans a behind-the-scenes view. Fans feel like they’re in the room.
What does that mean? Well, to put it bluntly, if energy is off it’s going to be hard to hide it.
Analyzing Data
I’ve spent time working as an ads manager, social media manager, and community manager. All of these roles examine data and use said data to make/implement adjustments moving forward.
That data is always based on metrics that you’re measuring based on the objectives of said campaign.
You might look into demographic information, type of creativity, and similarities in the copy on high or low-performing content. There’s one key thing that often gets overlooked.
The energy.
What was the energy of the person in the creative?
What was the energy of the person that wrote the content?
What was the energy of the person that came up with the strategy for the campaign?
What was the energy of the social media manager that’s engaging on your platform?
Analyzing Energy
How do you go about analyzing energy?
None of this is data that you can go into Facebook Ads Manager, select your date range, and pull down the category to check.
So, how can you measure it?
You take a people-first approach. You pay attention to the people that are on your team. You prioritize the workplace environment that fosters positive energy. As a manager or teammate, you support.
The Impact
When people feel like they have a voice on the team, feel stretched, feel supported, and have opportunities for open communication and growth, they’re likely going to stay at your organization longer.
Meaning, less employee turnover.
In positive environments, where employees see and feel the impact that their work makes, when they have a good working relationship, if there's balance, their production is going to be higher.
All of this shows through in your content creation process. It impacts the success of a campaign.
If you’re interested in professional development for your digital and production teams and/or for your athletes, I offer customized training and consulting. Please inquire for more.