Sports PR: More than a Wheaties Box

People outside the public relations field usually assume that a professional working in sports PR represents a professional athlete or team. While most of us hope one day that is the case, there are plenty of other jobs in the sports PR that are more realistic.

A great example of a profession in sports PR is working for a university’s athletic department. Here at The University of Alabama and other large universities, athletic programs are nationally recognized and under scrutiny at all times. A great example of the importance of sports PR is the recent scandal dealing with Jerry Sandusky and Pennsylvania State University. 

According to an article from Pennsylvania newspaper Centre Daily Times, the cost for Penn State’s response to the Jerry Sandusky scandal fallout reached nearly $26 million. This money went to legal fees and public relations consultants. In this situation, a PR specialist has countless responsibilities and various publics to communicate with. The media was all over this case, from the initial investigation until after the trial concluded. The responsibilities for a practitioner in a crisis like this are countless. A PR practitioner is responsible for setting up interviews and communicating with the media. Another important role is assuring that the university is not taking this matter lightly and is abiding by all instructions given to them by law enforcement. It is also extremely vital to be communicating internally with the athletic department, students, alumni and the community to keep them informed of all actions and changes that are occurring. Social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter also need this information updated timely and continuously.

This scandal also had a major impact on the incoming freshman football class. Many incoming athletes decided not to honor their commitment to play at the university and decided to pursue athletic careers at other universities. It the duty of a PR professional to ensure to athletes through media outlets that the football program will rebuild itself and regain the respect and prestige it once was highly esteemed for.

Another interesting topic dealing with PR and university athletics is athletes on social media. Recently, former Alabama offensive lineman, D.J. Fluker, tweeted that he accepted money while in college. CBSSports stated that “the tweet was quickly deleted, but this is the Internet and nothing is ever really erased. Screenshots of the tweet quickly spread throughout Twitter.” Athletes are technically representatives of a university and anything tweeted that is incriminating or violates NCAA regulations will negatively impact the university. The aftermath of these types of situations are left with PR people to contain all the media scrutiny. As social media becomes more and more prevalent, it is nearly impossible to monitor all athletes’ social media posts and will continue to be a growing responsibility of PR professionals in the sports field.

Mashable investigates whether or not student athletes’ social media accounts should be regulated. This is an interesting topic for PR professionals because it could majorly impact the amount of work they endure in response to harmful posts on social media by these athletes.

Like all other areas of PR, sports PR is constantly evolving as technology continues to advance. Sports fans desire immediate news and information in regards to positive and negative situations. Therefore, a PR professional must always be interested, engaged and up-to-date about all aspects of the organization or individual that they are representing.

            

Instagram and Effective PR Use

They say “a picture is worth 1,000 words.” If this is in fact true, a picture posted on Instagram is worth far more than a 140 character tweet.  

Over the past two years Instagram has exploded in popularity with more than 100 million users and is one of the most downloaded phone apps.

Instagram borrows the hashtag concept from Twitter and aggregates content like Facebook. However, it is different from other social media because it is purely mobile. There is no such thing as “Instagram.com” and simply cannot be accessed from a laptop or desktop computer.

It seems as though with each social media app that is released, people get lazier and lazier. People no longer want to read someone’s long, dramatic Facebook status. With new apps like Instagram and Vine, zero reading is involved, just mindless entertainment.

So as technology develops and users desire information in an extremely brief but visually appealing way, it is important for PR professionals to utilize Instagram as a social media outlet to promote a specific brand, company or product.

Because people are becoming more and more visually oriented, a post on Instagram helps create a visual connection between a brand and a potential consumer.

PR Newswire offers 5 tips for PR Pros on Instagram. One of the tips I have noticed the most on my personal Instagram account is businesses hosting contests for giveaways. In fact, I even participated in a Delta Airlines promo. Delta created an Instagram account and encouraged people to follow and share its picture for a chance to win a free plane ticket to any destination.  Some sort of contest or giveaway is quick and easy (just how social media users like it) and shares visual content with existing fans, while attracting new ones.

In fact, there have been numerous successful PR campaigns thanks to Instagram and visual PR. PRNewser highlights some of these in the article 5 Great 2012 Instagram Branding Campaigns. 

Don’t just post boring photos of your products. Tell a story about the product that shows how people use them and what they can do. For example, if you’re promoting diet supplements, you could post before and after photos of people who have used the product to show how it has transformed the client. Make sure the photo is interesting, and your followers are more likely to share it. It’s all about grabbing attention to your photo and making someone stop and look further into it instead of continuing the thumb scroll.

Social media also makes people feel like they are part of something without actually being there. If a company is planning an event, Instagram allows them to share information by taking photos of the planning process. By posting photos of the invitations, venue, decorations and food, people will feel like they are part of the process because they see it from start to finish. This is advantageous to a company because it will help stir up hype for an event.

Who knows what the next big social media craze will be, but it is crucial for PR professionals to be Instagram savvy as another useful outlet to engage potential consumers.