With the 2024 Paris Olympics approaching, brands can use social media and influencer marketing to reach and engage global audiences.
With billions of sports and pop culture enthusiasts attending in person and watching the games across digital platforms, developing social media and influencer marketing campaigns will increase brand awareness and online presence.
The 2020 Olympics captivated over 3 billion viewers worldwide—a massive audience with varied interests that brands can target. With this year’s Olympics set to be the most digital games ever, a brand must harness the power of social media and influencer marketing and develop compelling narratives.
Keep reading this post to learn how to leverage influencer marketing into your Olympics social media marketing strategy.
The Paris Olympics will be the most digitally-engaged ever.
There is no doubt that social media has changed the way audiences consume sports content.
The Olympics are one of the most significant sporting events (rivaling the FIFA World Cup and Tour de France), and brand engagement opportunities are infinite because Olympic audiences span different ages, interests, and geographic locations. According to a Deloitte report, the Paris Games will serve as a future model for mega sporting events.
Before, audiences would have to wait to get game highlights, scores, or updates on their favorite athletes. Those days are long gone. Now, audiences can follow their favorite sports organizations, athletes, or influencers and receive real-time updates on social media.
According to research, most Gen Z and Millennial audiences will engage with the 2024 Olympics on social media—65% of young sports fans say the big sports moments will find them on social media. So, developing content that appeals to younger, diverse demographics is crucial for brand building and exposure.
Because the Paris Olympics will be the most digitally engaged games in sports history, brands must develop digital content, including partnerships with influencers, to reach and engage Olympic fans.
The power of influencer marketing during the Olympic Games.
With social media platforms becoming the new normal for sports fan engagement, leveraging influencer marketing provides brands with another avenue for digital advertising.
Partnering with influencers is an excellent way to drive brand promotion, directly communicate with audiences, and develop brand loyalty with consumers. Although brand sponsorships remain popular, influencer marketing gives brands a more authentic approach to connecting with consumers.
Here are four key insights brands must know about influencer marketing:
- Influencer marketing offers an incredible 11x ROI over digital ads, a fraction of the cost of television commercials.
- Social media endorsements influence 85% of Gen Z consumers to purchase products.
- 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations.
- According to Statista, the influencer marketing industry will reach $24 billion by the end of 2024.
Based on the above statistics, influencer marketing is crucial to increasing brand recognition and revenue.
Five influencer marketing strategies marketers can implement into their Olympic marketing strategy.
When researching sports influencers, professional athletes are the first kind that comes to mind. Although these influencers have massive audiences and prove valuable to sports marketing, it’s time brands went beyond professional athletes and partnered with sports personalities and content creators who are sports enthusiasts.
Because 68% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennials get the bulk of their sports info from social media, partnering with influencers of different audience sizes is crucial to reaching and targeting different demographics.
To help brands develop a successful influencer marketing strategy, here are five tips for partnering with sports influencers:
1. Identify the right influencers.
Before you can reach out to influencers, research the type of influencer you want to partner with—in other words, go beyond follower counts and celebrities.
An important aspect of partnering with influencers is choosing those who align with your brand’s values and have created interest in your products or services.
Aside from star athletes, brands can develop partnerships with micro-influencers with expertise or passion for the Olympics to focus on hyper-targeted reach.
2. Focus on authentic storytelling.
The art of storytelling is the best way to connect with your audience and build brand loyalty. Nowadays, consumers crave informative and entertaining content that doesn’t look like a traditional advertisement.
So, when working with influencers, marketers must collaborate with them to develop creative brand campaigns that use the Olympic spirit of passion and achievement to tell compelling stories.
3. Leverage video and live content.
Video marketing is a popular tool for quickly capturing audiences’ attention. With so much digital content, brands are competing for audiences, and influencers can help attract consumers to your brand.
Types of video content for influencers to produce on behalf of your brand include:
- Behind-the-scenes (BTS) videos
- Vlogs
- Instagram Live Q&As
- TikTok challenges
Allowing influencers to get creative with video content on social media is essential to developing long-lasting partnerships with them and showcasing your brand organically.
4. Amplify with paid social.
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Although it may be tempting for brands to rely on organic influencer content, it’s not enough to drive ROI. Marketers will need to amplify their online presence and retarget audiences with paid influencer social ads, branded filters/lenses, and other paid promotional content on social media.
5. Track and optimize.
As marketers, we know the importance of measuring campaign performance. Without data analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) it can become difficult to understand if your paid social media campaigns are resonating with audiences and driving engagement.
Marketers must set goals at the beginning of the influencer partnership to help track campaign performance. This will ensure that influencers know how to develop content that best achieves your brand’s goals.
Lastly, marketers must optimize and tailor their social and influencer strategies to resonate with audiences based on real-time reactions and engagement.