Earlier, I wrote about what
non-profit communicators could learn from the world of professional wrestling. Here’s
another lesson from the world of sports (if that’s what wrestling could be
called), this time from ESPN.
In an article in by Derek Thompson in
Atlantic, he notes that ESPN has built its brand on sports news. But on social
media, straight sports news isn’t a hot or appealing commodity.
"What is least shareable is the
final score, or how many points each team has,” says Nate Ravitz of ESPN.
What people want to read and share,
he says, are the stories that make athletes relatable or exceptional.
"It’s stuff that is outside of
the day-to-day construct of sports,” he says “It’s Rob Gronkowski’s cat. It’s a
coach dancing in the locker room. It’s the moments we have conversations about,
and we want to tell it the way you would tell your friend at the bar."
What does this mean for non-profit
communicators? While it is tempting to share the “score”—how many people are made
hungry in a drought, the size of the hurricane, or the number of people who
will be afflicted by a disease—that’s not what garners attention on social
media.
What people want to hear, and what
they will share, are the stories of people who are hungry, who lost their
homes, or who are dealing with the disease.
Thompson also goes on in the articles
to note that ESPN is also seeing mobile as its future.
Although sports on the big screen is
a staple of networks like ESPN, most people are not near a TV when a sports
story breaks. They do have their phones with them, though.
But even there they are trying to
avoid just giving the score.
Things that grab people’s attention
on social media are what Thompson calls “news-like” news. Again, this would be
the stories behind the news, stories about the athletes in the news.
No comments:
Post a Comment