You’ve put a lot of thought into stocking your online store with fabulous spirit wear. You don’t want it gathering dust on your virtual shelves, you want it out there in public where it can do its magic – showing off your team’s brand and helping players, families, and friends show their love. The more spirit wear you sell, the more everyone benefits. With the right social media promotion, your spirit wear will be flying off the shelves.
A playbook that goes wide and deep scores the most sales
Just a sports team uses players in multiple positions to win games, you are undoubtedly using multiple social platforms to market your school or YSO. Adding team spirit wear promotion to the mix makes perfect sense and won’t be all that difficult. You can spread the word and build excitement about your store’s offerings via:
- Your website (with navigation that goes straight to your store’s main landing page)
- Your blog
- Email messages or campaigns
- Text messages
However, social media communication is essential, whether you’re promoting spirit wear for a special event, a fundraising campaign or ongoing sales.
The best platforms depend on your audience
Most teams use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but Pinterest can be surprisingly valuable as well. Instagram and Pinterest are both visually focused, making them perfect for presenting spirit wear. If you’re like most organizations, though, you have limited time and human resources. Zeroing in on just one or two social media channels will help you get the most from your sales efforts. Pick the ones where you have the most actively engaged followers, because these are the folks most likely to share your posts.
Your Facebook page is the obvious place to start. It “speaks” to your players, staff and fans, but it’s also visible to others who may find your organization thanks to your spirit wear marketing. Who knows? They could wind up enrolling their kids in your school or league play. For fundraisers or special event spirit wear, create an event page.
You can post text announcements, as you might on Twitter or via SMS, but people want to see your stuff! So post photos or videos or links with captions. And use location check-in to invite “live action” posts – “here we are at the game, don’t we look cool in our new hoodies and caps?”
You might also consider purchasing Facebook ads (which reach a much broader audience), if you can swing the budget, especially for a limited-time fundraiser or to introduce new-season items.
Nothing sells apparel like pictures (or short video clips) of energized fans hamming it up in their spirit wear. This is true for other channels, too, but Instagram is all about visuals. Did you know this platform seriously outperforms both Facebook and Twitter when it comes to number of active users and their level of engagement?
Promote spirit wear through posts and also Instagram Stories, to keep things interesting. Use a unique hashtag for your store in the captions, and add a clickable store URL to your profile, so it’s easy to go from viewer to buyer. (When followers post their own photos, ask them to use your hashtag, too.)
All visuals, all the time, on Pinterest. The value here is that the colorful, exciting photos you “pin” will be shared by other users, pointing viewers to your store. Be sure to include a link (plus a hashtag or two) and keep your description to about 200 characters so it doesn’t steal limelight from your image.
There’s no better way to announce new apparel or new decoration designs than via Twitter, just be sure to include links to your store so they can see for themselves. Keep folks updated on fundraising progress or which new items are best-sellers.
Best practices for any social media platform
- Get the ball rolling by posting your own photos, but encourage engagement – likes, sharing and general conversation – by soliciting photo posts from your fans and followers. You can just put out the word, or hold a photo contest and then ask followers to vote on their favorites. Make it goofy and fun – after all, we’re talking spirit here!
- Boldly request sharing, re-tweets, etc.
- Shout out a big thank-you to show you appreciate your spirited supporters.
- Use witty or inspirational quotes in your captions.
- Ask people to vote for their favorite new design option, or the official color of your new fundraising campaign’s apparel, or the most creative spirit wear photo submitted by fans. Facebook has an internal polling feature, but it’s easy to create simple polls on Instagram and Twitter, too.
Social media promotion can increase awareness of your online store and the tantalizing spirit wear to be found there. By sharing your store, you will not only sell more apparel and gear (= more fundraising for those who use it!), you’ll also strengthen the relationship between your team and the families and fans who support you.
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