Catgory: Social Media

So often sports organizations don’t measure what matters in social media. And when you measure what doesn’t matter, your team will chase work that’s not very impactful to the overall business.  

But what metrics are sports teams looking at in social that don’t matter? Let me give a few examples.  

Example 1. Leagues often circulate official rankings comparing teams by total impressions, engagements and follower growth to executives — and then these reports are looked at as the gold standard. This results in teams trying to chase a higher ranking and constantly looking to one-up their peers across the league. Sports organizations attract naturally competitive people, so we should all chase that No. 1 spot, right?

Example 2. Internal marketing teams set up goals around year-over-year growth. If the social media team hit 300M impressions last season, they’ll need to grow that by 3% more in the coming season. This exercise is implemented across “key” metrics, including engagements and follower growth. 

Both of these scenarios sound reasonable. Why wouldn’t a team want to be No. 1 in the league or see a 3% YoY increase in all their metrics? These numbers and rankings are good to keep a “pulse” on, but living and breathing by these metrics and thinking they are a key indicator of good work is a miss.

Here’s why these metrics don’t matter as much as sports organizations often believe:

First, in sports, there are so many variables you cannot control, especially as the marketing team. From winning and losing to big player signings, many different things can impact the interest in your team and, therefore, the performance on social. If a team has a stellar year with many wins, they should be higher in rankings. If a team went from a winning to a losing season, can you really expect them to see an uptick YoY?

Second, team rankings and YoY numbers measured by totals are an incredibly slippery slope. Output doesn’t count the quality of work. A team can post hundreds of times to get to a total number, but it doesn’t mean it’s moving anything for your business. When you measure a number that can be influenced by volume, it holds very little value.

Output for the sake of output is one of the most detrimental things in the digital and sports space today. Marketing has never been measured by the volume of content or activations. It’s measured by the quality and effectiveness of the work. Impact > output. 

And finally, how does the team ranking or YoY increase really add impact to the business? If there’s an actual business case, then great, but too often, these metrics are tracked for ego and nothing else. 

So, if we aren’t measuring a team’s social media success by these metrics, what do we measure? There are two big keys to think about when setting goals for your social team:

First, any goal-setting initiative should start with the overall organizational goals. What is the business trying to achieve, and how can social and content support those? 

Second, how do we go beyond the standard superficial numbers to ensure our work is laddering up the overall organizational goals? Most of the time, we need to peel more layers back when setting social media goals instead of going for the low-hanging fruit of total impressions, engagement rate and follower growth.

Let’s consider what objective-setting could look like for a social and content — one that goes beyond the standard numbers and digs into the heart of what actually matters. 

If increasing revenue is a goal for the organization (which of course it is), how can the social and content team contribute? Objectives can look something like this:

– Create a digital playbook for the sponsorship team by Q1 that features sellable assets to assist sales efforts. 

– Set specific goals for partners with digital assets; the key here is if impressions are a goal for a partner, include a paid media plan in tactics to ensure the team can hit that goal. 

– Increase the overall performance of partner branded content YoY, excluding the content tied to on-field/court/ice/track performance (again, because you have zero control over that).

– Work with the performance marketing team to identify and create creative assets that drive up the ROI of individual ticket sales campaigns. One note: My assumption with this is there’s a separate team working on the individual ticket strategy but that the social & content team can and should be helping them with creative that works. 

How can the social and content team contribute if the goal is to champion the brand and increase fan affinity? Objectives can look something like this:

– Define and create [x number] of videos that help drive home the brand positioning, DNA, etc. The ideas behind the series should ladder back up to your content pillars. While you want to make these as engaging as possible, the key here is that it’s not about performance; it’s about setting an objective to develop meaningful content for the brand. 

– If your social team has content pillars that map back to the brand vision, then you can look at increasing the performance of those YoY. My assumption is that your content pillars are not tied to scores and wins, so your team has more control over making these more engaging — PLUS, you’ve identified these themes as important to the brand. The team will need a tool to tag content and get granular with content series, buckets, etc. 

– Players can play a significant role in fan affinity, so if an organization has identified a couple of franchise players who are critical to the team’s success, objectives can be around creating x number of videos that showcase who they are and increasing the engagement rate of off-the-field/court/ice/track content around them. 

– If part of driving fan affinity is growing a younger fanbase, then an objective could be doubling down on platforms like YouTube (shorts) and TikTok. While I wouldn’t recommend volume to measure across the board, with these two new platforms, I would recommend increasing posting to “x times a week” to test and learn.

These examples scratch the surface of the various ways to measure social and content more effectively. But if we’re looking at success through this lens, does that mean we’re entirely abandoning tracking impressions, engagements, engagement rate, and rankings among teams? 

No, we don’t abandon those metrics completely. Those numbers are important for social teams to track to understand the landscape, the trends and how and where they can improve. They’re a guide, not the ultimate indicator of success. 

For example, at Stewart-Haas Racing, our team creates quarterly reports where we dig into our social numbers and rankings among teams. These reports are meant to help us unearth things that worked and didn’t and make recommendations on what we should keep doing and what we shouldn’t. These reports aren’t considered our barometer for success but a tool to ensure we keep pushing and are constantly analyzing. 

So, if you want to set up your social media team for success, focus on measuring what matters. Don’t get caught up in the rat race of trying to reach x number of total impressions in a season. Anyone can play that game, but the strongest social teams play the game of achieving goals and objectives that actually map back to the business. 

Working in social media means working in an environment that is fast-paced, always-on and continually evolving. It’s easy to get caught up in the daily churn of the day-to-day without breathing and stepping away to look at the bigger picture. We “go, go, go” and “do, do, do” without even blinking.

We often use the fast-paced nature of social media as a reason not to have a firm strategy in place. If part of our job requires flexibility, why would we put a strategic plan together?

The madness without method in social media has to stop. Just because our world is continually evolving does not mean there’s no strategy involved in our work. A plan gives a POV on “the why” and “the how” of how you’ll support the business. It does not mean you can’t be agile and fluid — nor does it require you to stick to a content calendar. We shouldn’t confuse being nimble with not having a strategy, and I believe approaching it that way discredits the role social can play.

Putting a strategy to paper is not easy work. It takes time and is something that will continue to evolve. It’s important work, though, and one that all social teams should take the time to pen. Here’s why:

We’re no longer just “figuring it out”.

I started working in social media before this industry was even a thing. Early on, no one understood what social meant for the business. The channels were a real experiment. And while there will always be some level of “figuring it out” in our work, we’re a point where we understand the role social can play in business.

If you work in social media, it’s your job to map social media back to the organizational goals. And doing so requires some sort of strategy and plan in place.

If we want organizations to take social media seriously and have a seat at the table, we can’t always resort to the “this is an experiment” excuse. Yes, there are a lot of things that are an experiment in social. Yes, there will be many times when we have to pivot. But no, that does not mean we can’t have a plan for how and why we work.

We’re no longer just figuring social media out, and it’s time we own the fact that yes, we’ve learned a lot about this channel and what it can mean for business.

Social media is not just tactical.

One of the arguments against having a strategy in place is how quickly our world evolves. And as stated before, there’s always going to be some level of nimbleness required in our industry.

The need to be flexible in social media is less about strategy and more about tactics, though. There are foundational aspects of our work that does not change day-to-day — and it’s those things like goals, audience, channel purpose, etc. — that a plan should embrace.

A great social media strategy helps articulate the why and reason for being without restricting a team. It should actually empower a team to pivot, build and act quickly on the things that matter versus restricting.

Don’t use tactics as a crutch to not put in the time to do the foundational work.

A strategy gives teams focus.

Years of working in social media have taught me the power of real focus for teams. Just because social can technically “service” many areas of the business, doesn’t mean it’s moving the needle across every touchpoint.

Social isn’t everything to everyone, and that rhetoric has to stop. But changing that mentality within organizations requires education and buy-in. And those two things cannot happen without a plan.

When a social media team has a strategy in place, it articulates “the why” behind what they do. It gives clear and distinct vision on the most important work that matters, and that helps teams focus on where social and content can have an impact on business goals.

When you fly by the seats of your pants, it’s much harder to pushback on why it doesn’t make sense to just “put it up on social.” And when social because the default for everything, it takes away meaningful work from the team.

A strategy empowers teams. It enables them to do the work that matters and focus on quality over quantity. And in an industry where it’s easy to overwhelm and overburden teams, we need to make sure the work we’re doing matters.

It helps advocate for resourcing needs.

Social media used to be the job of one person. In the early days, you couldn’t share photos on Twitter, Facebook’s innovation was king and Instagram didn’t exist. The work was much less sophisticated and required a lot less resourcing.

Today, if you want to stand out in this space and drive business goals, social media requires a lot more than a one-person team. It requires strategists, community managers, creators, etc. As expectations on social increase, so do the resourcing needs.

It’s nearly impossible to advocate for more resources if people don’t understand the why, though. How can you expect an organization to invest in more talent if they don’t know how it’s going to drive back to the business?

Putting a strategy to paper helps create a vision for not just what you do and why — but what you’ll need to get it done. You can’t show “the how” if you don’t know “the why,” and you can’t ask for more resources without either of those.

It champions the team.

There are a million things you can measure in social media, and it’s easy to get caught up in a data dump. Total engagements to team rankings, what are we measuring and why?

Too often, we measure things in social media without understanding their purpose. And metrics without reason are meaningless.

A strategy helps map back the work to the business and gives a clear distinction on the metrics that matter most. When you have a clear understanding of how social impacts the organization, it’s much easier to champion the work of the team.


If we want our work in social media to be respected, we have to map it back to the business. We cannot fear having a strategy in place because we think it will prevent us from pivoting. When a social media strategy is approached the right way, it actually empowers a team to do the work that matters and allows you to be nimble.

It’s time to do the work that matters and embrace the idea of a mapped out social media strategy.


If you’ve championed a social media strategy within your organization, I would love to hear how it’s benefited your work and team. Share below!

One of the biggest challenges in social media today is content for the sake of content. Teams, brands and leagues are creating at an incredibly high quality — and volume — but often without a true understanding of why. In too many instances voice, tone and creative depends on the flavor of the day.

Social should not operate in the wild, wild west though. It’s the front door to brands today. As a result, the voice, tone, messaging and content should be connected to the brand’s DNA. It’s important to resist the pressure to resort to gimmicks for vanity metrics. In the end, social without purpose will never get its due or move the needle.

In order for social media to truly map back to organizational goals, the strategy requires building blocks. The first couple of chapters of your plan should be platform agnostic: What does our brand stand for? Who is our audience? What are our goals? Why does it matter?

Once you have the foundation in place, then you can mold the creative and tactics to each platform. This should only happen once you have defined the larger picture.

At the end of the day, you can’t have a social strategy if you don’t have a content strategy and you can’t have a content strategy if you don’t have a brand strategy.

To build out a plan that maps back to organization goals, what are the building blocks required? Here’s a high-level look:

The brand.

This the foundational work that will separate your social presence from the rest. What does your brand stand for and what values do you need to bring to life? What is the “it” factor that makes your brand unique?

Your brand foundation is more evergreen; while the content and social strategy will pivot and change (sometimes drastically over time), your brand should foundation is something that will never do a complete 180.

This is where you start with any social or digital strategy. Your brand foundation should be the North Star for everything you do. Period.

The audience.

Who are you trying to reach? If you don’t know your target audience, then how can you create content that will resonate with them?

It’s important to outline target audiences, psychographic and demographic information and understanding what they need to hear from their brand. If you define your audience and what they care about you’ll create stronger and more effective content.

The content.

Platforms will come and go, but the need to reach consumers online is here to stay. And, that’s why content comes before platforms and tactics.

This is where you start digging into your content approach. Define your approach to content, the themed buckets that map back to the brand and then the actual ideas. Once you have defined your content series, ideas, etc. then you mold the creative execution to the platform.

The distribution & tactics.

This is where you get into platform tactics and specifics. What platforms will you have a presence on, how will content be molded to each platform and how will you distribute for maximized reach?

The platform tactics should cascade off the larger brand goals and content priorities defined. A platform strategy is less about the actual content ideas and more about how to get the most exposure/reach and build a community.

A (very) rough example.

To help with the visualization of how you can start to tackle the building blocks, I’ve created a very rough draft of how to approach building them. Please note this important disclaimer on the deck below:

None of the sections are fully built out at all so I’ve included a slide at the end of each on other things that can be included in the plan. This is simply to show how you build, while starting with the brand.

I’ve used my Alma Mater Auburn because it’s a brand I’m extremely familiar with, but please keep in mind this was created quickly during a long car ride of travel. There has been little research done, no attention to detail and not a ton of thought beyond the basics (maybe I shouldn’t admit that, but this is just a side passion project).

There are major holes in this deck, not everything is going to make complete sense, it needs more big picture ideas and should have a much heavier hand in how to drive business results.

All that to say this is merely a very, very rough framework to show how and why the brand comes first.

Note, if you prefer, you can actually view this in Google Docs here.