Social media is nothing new, but how the sports tourism industry uses these tools to elevate events can impact how destinations are perceived by both sports and event travelers and planners. Destinations are leveraging social media to springboard brand unveilings, announce major event series and tell culturally rich stories to custom, target audiences.
From the Pennsylvania Valley to the Louisiana Bayou, sports tourism offices are pushing social media marketing boundaries to promote events, plug initiatives and pivot strategies to up their promotional ante.
Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania
Paid social media campaigns are often sound solutions for generating awareness and driving website traffic for attendance-based events like races. Discover Lehigh Valley took this approach with two events – the May 2024 Easton Twilight Criterium, a closed-circuit cycling race and the November 2023 Lehigh Valley RaceFest, that included a marathon, marathon relay and a half-marathon run/walk.
“To effectively market the Easton Twilight Criterium and St. Luke’s RaceFest events in Lehigh Valley, a dynamic social media strategy was deployed,” said Holly Jones, director of social and content at Discover Lehigh Valley. “This strategy included creating engaging content that highlighted the unique aspects of each event, such as behind-the-scenes looks, participant stories and teaser videos. Updates and reminders about event details, ticket information and safety protocols ensured attendees were well informed and enthusiastic.”
The tourism office leveraged Facebook, Instagram and X to reach diverse audiences, used hashtags to enhance visibility and collaborated with community groups through joint posts to help amplify reach and generate buzz.
Madison, Wisconsin
Destination Madison and the Madison Area Sports Commission rely on social media for a full-circle approach to connecting sports event attendees to the community and connecting the community back to the event.
When The CrossFit Games were held in Madison from 2017-2023, the CVB and sports commission worked to help local hospitality businesses benefit from the influx of visitors from around the globe. Several social campaigns promoted “check-in” contests, chalk art displays and “adopt-a-country” initiatives. They also encouraged locals to support the competitors and fans by attending events that highlighted the difficulties of the competition as well as the uniqueness of the city.
“Social media drops Destination Madison into the digital dialogue surrounding sports events we bring to our community,” said Rob Gard, director of communications at Destination Madison.
Indianapolis, Indiana
In Indianapolis, the tourism bureau took advantage of social media to sell tickets and gain viral attention for its transformation of an NFL stadium into Olympic pools for the US Swimming Olympic Trials.
“With Indy as the host city for the US Swimming Olympic Trials and the city’s goal to make it the largest swim meet ever held, it was imperative to use social media as a marketing source to sell tickets,” said Morgan Snyder, senior director of public relations and film at Visit Indy. “That came to fruition, breaking the world record on day one of the nine-day trials with over 20,000 spectators.”
“What has proven even more successful has been the opportunity to virally share an unprecedented move in turning our NFL Stadium into Olympic size swimming pools with two million gallons of water. The visual of this build-out, from timelapses to distinctive marketing tactics like having our NFL Colts mascot, Blue, jumping into the water or having blow-up IndyCar floats racing each other, has been best distributed through social media platforms. Its reach and engagement have been some of the most successful in Indy’s history of hosting sporting events, thanks to the work of Indiana Sports Corp.”
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
The South is known for its love of college football, but Hattiesburg, Mississippi, or “Baseburg” as it is now known thanks to social media, is fascinated with America’s favorite pastime.
“In Hattiesburg, baseball isn’t just a sport, it’s an obsession,” said Marlo Dorsey, CEO of VisitHATTIESBURG. “The ‘Baseburg’ campaign showcases our true love of the game. We have invested in multiple digital platforms and social media to amplify this message to sports enthusiasts, event planners and potential visitors in several key markets.”
Through the Baseburg campaign in 2023, VisitHATTIESBURG shaped a conversation about the city as a dynamic, year-round destination for sports tourism. These efforts brought over 500,000 visitors to the city, investing more than $30 million into the Hattiesburg economy over 12 months.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Since 2016, the Savannah Bananas bonanza baseball team has kept spectators entertained, and the demand continues to grow for more “Banana Ball” road games. The team added Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to its schedule in March 2024, marking the first time the Bananas would play in a college stadium.
When Visit Baton Rouge received the official confirmation that the Bananas were heading its way, VBR decided to announce the news on social media in a fun way to mirror the team’s zany antics. Two team members dressed in banana costumes and were filmed around the city to highlight the area beyond baseball. The video not only received 21.1K views and 200 shares on Instagram, but the excitement also garnered 140,000 ticket requests for the 30,000 tickets available. The video went on to win a statewide public relations award.
“Hosting the Savannah Bananas in Baton Rouge was an exciting experience, and we knew we had to capture that enthusiasm on social media in a fun and creative way from start to finish,” said Tamaria Williams, communications manager at Visit Baton Rouge.
To keep the social momentum going, the tourism office teamed up with Baton Rouge native Taj Porter, a player on the opposing team, the Savannah Party Animals, to test his teammate on how to pronounce Louisiana words like “boudin” and “couyon,” hilariously resulting in 30K views and 200 shares on Instagram.
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Targeted storytelling is a dynamic mechanism when the destination creates relevant content to promote and celebrate its successes. Visit Lake Charles took its owned media up a notch by developing the “Where Champions Are Crowned” blog in January 2024, showcasing the destination as a premier locale for athletic events. Promoted through social media via paid and organic means, this initiative has achieved remarkable results with an average reach of 22K per post.
“The performance of this campaign is a testament to the power of targeted storytelling, and our precise targeting ensures each blog post connects deeply with the intended audience, fostering a sense of community and shared excitement,” said Matt Young, director of public relations at Visit Lake Charles.
Each month, the organization crafts custom audiences for Meta ads that resonate with the blog content. By focusing on its drive market (especially Louisiana and the Beaumont DMA) and selecting interests closely aligned with the blog’s themes, it effectively reaches sports enthusiasts.
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama
Taking it back to the basics, Gulf Shores | Orange Beach Sports & Events has switched up its social strategies in 2024 in favor of engagement, integrating more targeted boosting, geofencing similar events, implementing ad campaigns to lookalike audiences on Meta and creating a fun mix of TikToks and Reels. The adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” was not cutting it; it was time for change.
“We found that while we had a wealth of engaging content to tell our story, we were not taking full advantage of our social channels to elevate our market in a way that was resonating with our core audiences,” said Michelle Russ, vice president of sales, sports and events at GSOB Sports & Events. “We worked with our new social media company to bring us back to home base to best promote sports and event tourism on and beyond the beach to sports travelers and planners.”
As a result, the beach bureau has seen tremendous growth in fans, followers and engagement across all social channels, most notably a 48 percent engagement increase on Facebook, 87 percent engagement increase on Instagram and a 657 percent increase in website conversions from January to June.
Summing It Up
Whether a destination has a major Olympic Trials event to push or takes advantage of owned media to tell its story, harnessing social media to elevate sports and event tourism success is vital. Social media at its core enables users to create and share content as well as network with others. Destinations have the power to use these platforms to communicate with, cultivate and captivate sports and event fans…for life. SDM
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