ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Sports

https://theparcferme.com/espn-release-2018-f1-season-tv-schedule/ 

All over the social media landscape there are numerous sports reporting accounts, none being more prominent than the "worldwide leader in sports", ESPN. Created in 1979, they wanted to accomplish one goal, cover all major sports in the U.S. with hopes of covering major sports and sporting events worldwide. The growth of social media and its multiple platforms has made it easier than ever for ESPN to cover sports worldwide. In the past, reporting on major games or sporting events could not be done until the next day on the ESPN television channel. Now, reporting is done instantly. Scores are reported seconds after games or matches conclude. Reporters are never far away from their respective studios to go in and have a monologue about specific events and news happening at the moment. Within the sporting world there are always games or matches going on, all over the world, and ESPN is there to report on it. ESPN is most relevant on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube amassing over 47 million followers/subscribers alone just on those sites alone. Twitter is the most followed with 33.6 million followers, and they use that to their advantage on a daily basis. These three sites in particular (excluding Facebook) are the biggest names in social media sports reporting given the capacity of users and the ability to report almost instantly. ESPN has a grip on the sporting world and I do not see that changing anytime soon thanks to social media.

ESPN has found the sites they believe will give them the most exposure in the social media world and those sites are (as mentioned before) are Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. Although twitter has the most followers/subscribers, the Youtube videos posted an average of over a million views per episode. With that being said, a subscriber only has to open the video and let it play for one second for it to count as a view. Regardless, averaging over a million views per video is impressive. Most of the videos posted are clips from the sports shows aired on the ESPN television channel, but it is what the people want to see, other than watching an entire episode on television, and ESPN knows and understands that. ESPN understands that on Youtube interactions are not as common as sites like Twitter or Instagram. For example, a video posted by ESPN titled "Charles Barkley on if Lebron James joined the Rockets" has over 3 million views, but only has 15 thousand interactions ('likes', 'dislikes'). So, it is clear that ESPN is more focused on the amount of views they have rather than interactions and at the moment they are putting out content that is getting a large amount of views.

https://twitter.com

Twitter and Instagram are beginning to become the most popular social media sites around the world. ESPN has recognized this and is capitalizing on it greatly. Twitter has allowed ESPN to give real live updates on supporting events, not just final scores or halftime scores. ESPN has numerous amounts of twitter accounts aside from their main 'ESPN' account: ESPN CollegeFootball, NFL on ESPN, NBA on ESPN, ESPN FC, Mundo ESPN, and ESPN Stats & Info. In total, ESPN and ESPN affiliated accounts have a combined total of 49.1 million followers. ESPN has tweeted over 96 thousand times. The main ESPN account averages around one thousand retweets and five thousand favorites on any given tweet. However, after scrolling through their account multiple times I have noticed tweets with media (pictures, videos, gifs) have many more interactions than tweets with just words. ESPN also does a great job with engaging with the audience by posting a poll every couple of days in which anyone can vote on whatever the poll is about. Instagram, on the other hand has a different approach to polls, only allowing users to post polls on their "story" mode, which ESPN also takes advantage of. Unlike twitter though, Instagram only allows two options for a poll, while twitter allows four. Instagram is much more media oriented. ESPN's main account on Instagram has 23 million less followers on Instagram than on Twitter, yet average over a million views on videos and over 100 thousand likes per picture. Why is this? Within the social media sports world it seems users would rather see graphics and videos rather than plain text, on any social media platform. ESPN needs to post more tweets with media on Twitter, whether it is pictures, gifs, or videos, it is clear that it is what their followers want. Also, ESPN should post at least one poll a day. Right now it is once every couple of days or even once a week.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Instagram_logo_2016.svg

ESPN, in my opinion, does a great job on social media. They have plenty of followers/subscribers on main websites which is key. If ESPN was posting poor or not up to date content their follower/subscriber account would be much lower on the three sites I mentioned. I say amount of followers/subscribers is most important because on any of the sites I mentioned any follower/subscriber can see a post, acknowledge a post, but not interact with that post (I do this often). In terms of interactions, however, ESPN is still doing a great job with how many people interact with their posts. One recommendation I would have is to post more media related tweets on Twitter, and post more poll related posts on both Twitter and instagram. These ideas would help with follower interaction. Overall, ESPN simply needs to maintain their current social media status with maybe a few critiques and they will continue to dominate the sports world on social media.

Sources

https://twitter.com/espn 

https://www.instagram.com/espn/ 

https://www.youtube.com/user/ESPN