This past week Pro Skills Basketball had the opportunity to attend the Digital Summit in Charlotte, NC. This is a digital marketing conference that travels across the nation giving insight into the current state of digital marketing and offers content to help businesses grow through the digital age. Here are our 4 Takeaways from the Digital Summit for Youth Basketball!
#1 Use Social Media to Engage with your Audience
Often we see businesses use social media simply as a platform to sell their products in an attempt to make more money and be a better business. We see that businesses are too focused on the “media” aspect and forget about the
“social” aspects. After all, it is called “social” media.
Social media was created in an attempt to allow us as a community to have a voice and share it with others. It is a platform to build a community and give a voice to the voiceless.
At PSB our parents and players push our organization forward with their feedback. As one of the nation’s leaders in youth basketball development, we understand that our players and parents have a voice. We know that without them we have no organization.
Learning how to engage with your audience through social media and create conversations with them will give you direct insight into what your customer wants from you as a business. There is no more valuable data that directly hearing from one of your customers how they feel about your organization and what you can fix to create a better experience for them.
#2 The Power of Podcasts
Podcasts have been around for many years now and are currently one of the top methods used to consume media.
We live in a fast-paced, non-stop society. It can be hard to ask a consumer to sit down and read an entire blog post. Podcasts are a way to give your audience great and informative content that they can consume on the move.
Podcasts allow you to have genuine and authentic conversations with people and share them with your audience. In turn, this allows your audience to begin to build a true connection to your organization.
This platform also allows you to connect with different experts in your field and gain insight into what makes them successful. It also allows you to share that valuable information will your audience.
#3 The Value of Strong Employee Advocacy
There is no better influencer to promote your brand or organization than the people who work for it.
Your employees have the ability to push forward the voice of your organization. Each of them has their own audience on social media that they can deliver messages to.
The employees of the organization are the boots on the ground working day in and day out on the business. No one knows the business better than the ones who have their hands on it every day.
Social media is largely driven by influencers. Often Youth Basketball Organizations can get caught up thinking that they have to have Steph Curry or Lebron James as an influencer for them in order to grow the awareness of their brand.
This does not have to be the case. Sure, Lebron would help any organization if he were to get behind it. However, do not underestimate the power of your employees and the influence that they have with their personal audiences. They are your best influencers.
#4 Create Content the Benefits the Consumer 
Content does not always have to sell.
Think about it this way, when you are on Instagram or Facebook, do you enjoy having ads thrown at you while you are trying to enjoy good content? Most likely the answer is no.
The best social media accounts do not try to sell you with their content. They make quality content that entertains and informs their consumers.
If your brand, organization, or business is of good quality then consumers will buy from you. Use your content to benefit your consumer, not just to benefit your business.
Here is a great tip, use the V.E.N.T. method as you are creating content. Is it Valuable? Is it Engaging? Is it Necessary? Is it True? If you can answer yes to these four, then you have created quality content that your consumer will be happy to consume.