For many schools, promoting their sports programs and creating buzz around upcoming games can be a challenge. That’s why a sports media day can be a powerful tool to generate interest and excitement among students, faculty, and the community. 

Taylor Siebert sat down with Lance Smith, Activities and Athletic Director at Millard West High School, for a  live training session to teach interested schools how to create a successful sports media day at their school.

In this blog post, we will recap the key takeaways from the training and provide tips for anyone looking to organize their own sports media day.

Key Takeaways from the Live Training with Lance Smith

• Utilize a Content Calendar

A content calendar is a tool that schools can use to organize the different posts that they are planning on sharing throughout the school year. 

This calendar will identify which piece of content is getting shared, what social media sites it is being shared to, when it is being shared, the caption that is included, and what hashtags to use. 

In the live training video, Lance shows the content calendar that he has created for Millard West High School and explains how he uses it to stay organized and effective. 

(If you want to learn even more about content calendars, make sure to read this blog!)

• Have Media Days for Other Activities

Even though it can seem like a tough task to do media days for every sports team at your school, it is important that you have media days for other activities. 

You never know what photos or videos you may need for a social media post down the road, when you have media days for all activities, you make sure that you will have everything you need. 

• How to Gauge if Your Sports Media is Successful

There are plenty of expensive softwares that provide analytics and data for how your social media content is performing. But Lance has discovered other ways to do this that are completely free and incredibly easy. 

Look to see if your student-athletes are reposting the pictures and videos that are posted on the school’s social media to their personal accounts. As well as look to see if they use the pictures you have taken for their profile picture. 

Even though this doesn’t provide analytics and data, this is a great way to determine if the content your school is making resonates with your students. 

• Think of Social Media As a Business

Since Lance is an athletic director and not a teacher, he believes that he has a different approach and outlook on his school’s social media than other schools. 

He thinks of it as a business, he sees the different social media outlets as a way to shed more light and garnish more attention to the sports programs at his school.

As a teacher, you need to obtain the skills and knowledge necessary to create engaging social media content. Even if you have multiple students who are fantastic in photography and photo editing, eventually they are going to graduate. 

Teachers need to learn these skills to ensure that the quality of your school’s social media content never declines and improves year after year. 

Watch the Full Live Training Video with Taylor Siebert and Lance Smith

With the right planning and execution, a sports media day can be a successful event that boosts school spirit and helps to promote your school’s athletic teams. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create a sports media day at your school, we encourage you to watch the entire live training video which you can gain access to and much more with Striv Education. Sign up today!