Sports Social Media Marketing with Cheval John @chevd80 #VCBuzz

Post on by VC Bee

Sports Social Media Marketing with Cheval John @chevd80We talk about niche marketing from time to time and today we’ll chat about sports niche.

It’s one of the most exciting industries to be in! Let’s see how easy it is to market to sports audience!

***Add #VCBuzz chats to your calendar here.

***Please sign in here to follow the chat -> twchat.com/hashtag/vcbuzz

About Cheval

Cheval John is author, What’s The Word podcast host, founder of VallanoMedia.

Connect to Cheval on Linkedin

Questions we discussed

Q1 When and how did you become a social media marketing consultant? What’s your career story?

I became a social media consultant when I transitioned my company, Vallano Media to a consultancy earlier this year.

I spent over two years as a freelance sports journalist for the @huntsvilleitem in Huntsville Texas covering @samhoustonstate

Ironically, I wanted for my company, Vallano Media, which I founded in 2012 to be like the Huffington Post.

Because of great advice from @tamaramccleary, who was my coach, I pivoted my company to a social media agency this year.

Also, I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish and I “accidentally” became a sports journalist and entrepreneur

Q2 Why sports? How did you pick your niche to specialize in?

Because I love covering sports and I felt that sports marketing was a natural fit for me. I wanted to differentiate myself from other social media consultants and I knew that sports was the best fit for me.

If you want to succeed in your business, you must choose a niche market that no else is in.

Q3 How does sports niche social media marketing different? Any niche social media networks there?

Sports social media marketing is not all different because you are providing the same value to sports professionals.

I would suggest following Kristi Dosh @sportbizmiss because she has built her career and business from the ground up. Also, there are podcasts on @blogtalkradio that are focused on sports and also collegiate sports.

Because podcasts have a much smaller competition than blogs and there are over 1 billion subscribers on @itunes.

Yes, I cover sports too, Janette. I still cover sports for my social media company, Vallano Media.

Q4 How does influencer marketing look like in sports niche? Do you get to connect to actual players? Sports reporters? Both? How do you go about that?

You have to build the trust and friendships with sports reporters in the same way that people build trust with influencers. In a lot of ways, public relations professionals who work in sports organizations are the ones who build trusts with reporters.

It will take years for that friendship with sports reporters to materialize. And you can build that friendship with sports reporters on social media. Twitter is my favorite social media platform.

You can interact with sports professionals on social media, but nine times out of ten, they will not respond back.  These same sports professionals are so scrutinized that they have to be careful of what they say on social media.

I will recommend following @texanscheer because they are interacting with their audience on all social media platforms. And most of the sports reporters are on Twitter because they are keeping their audience informed about their sports teams.

Q5 Please list your favorite social media marketing tools and how they can help build your online business!

I would recommend @buffer and @hootsuite because their social media platform is so easy to use in building your business. But for me, I really love using @buffer because I can schedule my tweets to go out on Twitter at the exact time.

The most important thing to understand is to choose the correct social media marketing platforms that will fit your business. You should not feel the pressure to be on a certain social media platform just because someone recommend it. You should take every recommendation from people including mine with a grain of salt.

You should take every recommendation from people including mine with a grain of salt.

I would not abandon a social media platform that does not have widespread traction because it means you have niche audience. You must be on the social media platform that you feel comfortable using and is correct for you and your business.

Example, I feel comfortable using Twitter because I know that I can interact with people in “real time”. And I discovered that my exact audience is on Twitter.

And somehow I knew that I had needed to be on Instagram for my business, so I started using Instagram in late 2015. And over time, most of my audience from Twitter has followed me over on Instagram

And thanks to @krisgillentine, who started #chatsnap, I have been active on snapchat and now instagram stories came out.

Our previous social media marketing chats:

VC Bee

Viral Content Bee is the free platform for social media sharing helping you get more shares for your high-quality content

More Posts

Leave a Reply