So you’ve decided to become a sports media professional. It’s not an easy path to take, but it can be very rewarding if you put in the effort and manage your time effectively.
No two paths in the sports media field are the same, but there are a few select insights that underlie the foundation of most successful sports media voices. If you want to reach the mountaintop, a large part of it is staying true to the small, every-day core philosophies.
With that in mind, let’s discuss some of the broad-scale keys to expanding your reach – the amount of people who comprise your target audience and are exposed to your content – in whichever sports media niche you decide to make your home.
5 Essential Rules to Follow for Expanding Your Reach
1) You Have to Put in the Groundwork and Experiment
There’s no sugarcoating this part: The sports media path is a grind. If you’re starting from scratch, you’re going to have to put in the groundwork early on. And early on, you might not see the results you want to.
This is where self-evaluation and experimentation comes in. Even if you’re not getting the views to start, is there a silver lining? Is your audience more responsive on a certain channel? Is a certain kind of topical content working?
If something is working, spend more inputs on that, and reverse engineer your successful steps in other areas. If something isn’t working, experiment with something else. Maybe one social media channel is more tuned-in on your topic than another. Maybe a certain graphic overlay makes viewers feel more at-home on your channel.
Examples of experiments to try:
- Posting short videos on TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube to determine where demand is greatest
- Tinkering with promotion posts for articles to draw eyes to captivating details
- Supplementing news pieces with additional analysis in an attempt to attract readers seeking extra detail
It’s going to be a learning process from day one, so embrace that. Evaluate yourself, experiment, and keep your mind open to new opportunities.
2) Your Personal Brand Should Be at the Center of Everything You Do
One of the very first steps when starting your sports media career is creating your personal brand vision. Once you get the ball rolling, that brand should be at the center of everything you do. Your words, your voice, and your content are central parts of that, but it spans beyond as well.
You can enrich and make your personal brand whole with graphic, visual, and interactive elements. Use your brand as a landing spot, to communicate with your audience everything you have to offer as a voice in the sports media industry. Committing to a cohesive mission is what creates that landing spot.
It’s also important to note, however, that personal branding and company branding are different. You can maintain a personal brand while working for a company, but there will be situations where company branding bears precedence – for example, writing AP-style format in standard news and informational pieces.
3) Marketing Matters, Both Passive and Active
You might not have a marketing degree, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catalyze your expansion by dipping into the marketing realm. In fact, if a sports media professional is to survive in the contemporary field, proper marketing is absolutely necessary.
Similar to the universal brand philosophy, everything you do behind your brand imprint markets you in a certain way. There are more active marketing avenues – banners, links to the next video, to related articles, or to sponsored live streams and events – but there are more passive elements, too. Your brand presence alone is one example of passive marketing, as is the way you carry yourself.
Every interaction you have with an audience member markets yourself. If you constructively answer an audience member’s question, other users will see you as attentive, thoughtful, and a positive presence. Use those opportunities to show the value you provide.
4) You Can Use Countless Avenues for Audience Engagement
Depending on what your realm is under the sports media umbrella, some social media and video channels might be more worthwhile investments than others. However, on the journey to ultimate expansion, you can’t close your mind to any potential avenue for audience engagement.
Examples include:
- Hosting chats on live videos across YouTube, X, and Facebook
- Using interactive posts on multiple channels to source mailbag questions
- Integrating comments sections at the bottom of posts to fuel conversation
Always be on the lookout for new ways to interact with your audience, and spread to new markets. Be mindful of your time online, of course. But in line with the experimentation process, be creative with how you reach new eyes and ears.
5) The Feeling of Accomplishment Can Lead to Complacency
As you drive more engagement, build your numbers, and earn more opportunities, you might begin to feel as though you’ve “made it.” Those “made it” moments are fun, and they should be appreciated. That said, don’t revel in them for too long. The sports media industry never rests, and complacency can render you a step behind.
There are always more ways to expand and grow as a creator. Appreciate the little victories along the way, but learn to take pride in the journey and the process itself, not just the accomplishments.
