Pursuing Gen Z, sports marketers turn to new social media frontier

Unable to watch the live events they crave, sports fans around the country have turned to unconventional replacements.

When they aren’t settling for classic games or marble racing, it seems many younger fans have increasingly turned to social media, with one platform of preference: Tiktok.

The New York Times reports that, while ESPN’S website has experienced a 40.2% decrease in daily traffic, Tiktok has enjoyed a 15.4% uptick.

The platform, created and operated by Bytedance, a Chinese company, allows users to post short videos — less than one minute long, though many stay under 15 seconds.

Tiktok relies heavily on music, with songs serving as the backdrop to most videos. Creators use the music to record dances

or craft punchlines around song lyrics.

It’s a platform used by an overwhelmingly younger crowd. Marketing agencies estimate more than 40% of Tiktok users are between 16 and 24.

That’s a demographic sports brands primarily target via social media.

“We’re trying to reach kids who are 16, 17, 18 years old,” said Shawn Davis, Missouri’s assistant athletic director of digital media strategy. “They’re all on Tiktok.”

Appealing as that audience may be, a new social media platform presents several challenges for brands, including whether or not to build a presence at all.

“The priority is knowing who your audience is,” said Joe Favorito, a New York-based sports marketing and publicity consultant. “If you’re golf, Tiktok falls pretty far down on your list … not every platform is for everybody.”

But for a college athletic department, Tiktok’s audience is a crucial one to reach.

“The biggest thing that we’re told from our upper administration is that we have to figure out a way to continually reach our fanbase,” Davis said. “So when we come with an idea like Tiktok, it’s really easy to say this is the goal: “We’re trying to reach this (younger) part of our fanbase.”

MU’S athletic department has worked with a collegiate representative at Tiktok to secure accounts for all of its sports teams, Davis said. Those accounts aren’t fully up-and-running yet — only a handful have posted at all.

“We were probably one of the first handful of schools to reach out (to Tiktok),” Davis said. “But we haven’t exactly poured our resources into turning it into what I think it can be. That’s going to be the big point of emphasis for us this summer as we transition into next year.”

Though a 2020 college football season isn’t a guarantee, Davis expects first-year football coach Eliah Drinkwitz’s embrace of social media to make content creation easier.

Just what that content looks like, though, is up in the air. Tiktok’s norms and unique presentation will require a changed approach.

“What’s good on Facebook isn’t necessarily what’s good on Twitter, and what’s good on Twitter isn’t always good on Instagram,” Davis said. “Now we’re adding Tiktok. How do we continue to make content that can fit all four of those platforms?”

Many sports teams deploy videos of players doing dances that are popular on the app or post highlights. Whichever route they choose — but especially if humor is involved — it’s “not easy to do,” Favorito says.

“It’s fun. That’s what it is,” he said. “(But) if it’s if it’s forced or contrived, it doesn’t work.”

And extra caution is required of teams who use humor.

“I still believe the rule from when this all started,” Favorito said. “If you can’t show it to your grandmother or your sibling, don’t do it … You can ruin everything that you’ve done by trying to do something that you think it funny but isn’t funny to a lot of other people.”

So far, Missouri has generally stayed away from humor on Tiktok, sticking to game highlights and behind-the-scenes video of players, and mostly avoiding songs with explicit lyrics.

For Davis, caution has to be the name of MU’S Tiktok game.

“We are a major brand,” he said. “So if something goes wrong on Tiktok, all of a sudden, it’s a national headline. We do have to be careful.”

Official team accounts aren’t the only accounts representing Missouri on Tiktok.

Several athletes post videos, ranging from offthe-field looks into their personal lives to imitations of viral trends. The most popular are softball pitcher Eli Daniel, with 8,000 followers on the app, and transfer quarterback Jack Samsel, who has more than 100,000.

“When the kids come in, we like to have an audience with them and let them understand the power of what social media is,” Davis said. “And I think the second that they become studentathletes, they have to understand that you’re representing more than yourself. Now you’re representing a major brand and a major institution.

“What’s funny to one person might be offensive to another person. It’s (about) staying away from those things that could be deemed controversial.”

There are other concerns that can arise from a platform like Tiktok with a young audience.

Five of the six most popular Tiktok personalities were born in 2000 or later, and the platform’s largest following belongs to a 15-year-old Connecticut dancer. With underage celebrities comes another cause for caution.

“There’s lots of rules about engaging people under the age of 18 that you have to watch very, very carefully,” Favorito said.

Favorito also expressed concern over Tiktok’s demographic and potential links to the Chinese government.

“When you have uncontrolled data flowing to any place that’s collecting it, you always have to be concerned,” he said. “Especially when you’re dealing with people under the age of 18. If you’re a parent or guardian, or an athletic director, or a college or high school athlete, it’s something I would be concerned about.”

The other challenge with pursuing Generation Z can simply be keeping pace.

“The problem with a younger audience is they migrate to new platforms pretty quickly,” Favorito said.

While it might be onto another app soon, Tiktok’s audience is staying home for now, pending more time on the app and other social media.

That’s an opportunity for brands like Missouri to capitalize through expansion to a new platform – though Davis will be cautious with that, too.

“It’s going to put a pressure on social media to continue to improve,” he said. “(But) there are people are out there that are burdened by this disease, dying from this disease, so you don’t want to seem too contrived in your efforts with what you’re doing on social media.”