Promoting High School Athletics Through Partnerships, Social Media

Having coached and worked in athletic administration in a variety of regions and different types of cities and towns, one of the unique aspects of each school and region is the extent to which high school athletics needs to be promoted in different communities, in order to achieve the best possible experience for our student- athletes.

That first coaching experience came in a large city, coaching football at a somewhat successful program in San Francisco, where public high school athletics can be an afterthought with so much else going on. Since then, stops have included rural towns in Ohio where businesses shut down during games and attendance exceeds local population, and now with the current role as an athletic director in a growing suburb community.

Since taking over as athletic director, one of my annual goals has been to increase visibility for our programs along with the presence of our local community businesses. And since navigating the pitfalls of COVID shutdowns, we have also shifted our focus to more two-way relationships with local businesses, as opposed to having our hand out for large donations. We stress community partnerships, reduced our sponsorship amounts across the board and have focused on building those partnerships. These relationships serve multiple functions for our department.

Promoting Athletics Through Partnerships
One of our big goals when partnering with local businesses is simply to get more people talking about our athletic programs, and also to get more people who show up to our events to recognize those local businesses. We utilize these relationships in multiple ways. Local businesses display our schedules in their storefront windows, repost our social media across their own social media channels, show up at our events, and, of course, also serve as additional financial support.

When it comes to financial support, we were quick to recognize that local businesses also had to rebuild budgets over the last few years, so we lowered amounts for sponsorships in order to reach a wider array of community support. In some cases, in order to create more buy-in with our student-athletes, we eliminated direct financial offerings altogether in exchange for support within our recognition programs.

Utilizing Social Media
Our growth with community partnerships has also gone hand-in-hand with our social media presence. In the last three years, we have grown our Twitter following by 50 percent, established an Instagram page with more than 2,000 followers, and done the same with a dedicated Facebook page. We make sure to create special graphics for our community partners, graphics which go directly on our social media pages, but also on our digital scorer’s table in the gym.

At Heritage High School, we have also allowed community partners to become direct sponsors of individual teams in our program, which has been a big piece of connection when we have local businesses owned by parents of athletes in those programs. Their logos go on all of the social media graphics for their selected programs. And as referenced above, we have connected local businesses directly with our student-athletes, as multiple community partners sponsor award programs in our department with vouchers redeemable for specific items at their businesses, such as a free large frozen yogurt or individual pizza.

Branding with Professional Media
One of the biggest challenges with these growth targets is consistency and follow-up. In order to continue growing our social media presence, which is a big piece of our community partner recognition, we have had to dedicate time and resources to these channels. We utilize a media company to assist with quick graphic creation, and we make a concerted effort to recognize all of our teams across our social media platforms.

Posting final scores and weekly schedules in graphics format are mainstays of our regular presence, but so are recognition programs such as Athlete of the Week, All-Sportsmanship, All-Academic and All-League selections. We have special recognition templates for new school records or other outstanding achievements, and those typically get the largest response from our followers based on the unique nature of those posts. Due to the large response from our followers for those types of posts, they are also valuable ways to get more exposure for our community partners, who are often grateful when we connect them with those recognition graphics.

One concern or warning when discussing these topics, however, is how easy it is to get lost in the day-to-day maintenance of social media presence. For that reason, athletic directors should reflect on why it has become important. The answer for me is recognition and promotion of high school athletics. We have seen attendance grow at events when the events are promoted across our social media channels, and extra people in the seats are a positive for our student-athletes.

We have seen more media outlets recognize our student-athletes when we make sure to almost force-feed the information through our social media channels. So, while it certainly takes extra effort, the end result often falls in line with our goals, as long as we remember to reflect back and ensure that our daily focus in this aspect of athletic administration falls in line with why it is important.