It doesn’t matter whether you are an athlete yourself or a devoted fan of sports – sports blogs are the ones that gather one of the biggest audiences on Instagram. You will welcome the fans of the sport you write about, the aspiring sports stars, and, maybe, even sports brands that might want to make you their ambassador. Usually, a sports blog is the road to success – either for you as an athlete or you as a blogger. Or even both. Let’s see what you shall do to make your sports blog on Instagram skyrocket!
Don’t be too shy
It’s absolutely understandable that you may feel uncomfortable showing random people your own training routine and your way to the shining peaks of sports success. There are two common ways of dealing with it. The first one is to make a blog about sports in general, telling something interesting about sports history, competitions, biographies of sportspeople and other general stuff. It will give you the initial confidence to start adding your own experience and achievements to the mix.
The second way is to treat your own videos not as showing off but as being an ambassador of the sport. You are promoting what you like and show how much fun and excitement it can bring to people’s lives. Think of it while uploading your videos onto Instagram and be proud of yourself!
Tell a great story
Storytelling is a thing that makes good blogs great. It isn’t enough to simply publish the facts about athletes or your daily routine online. Your training is your story about your becoming stronger, faster, more able, against all the odds. You may prepare for the competition or get along well with your body – it doesn’t matter. People see the story, they want to follow it, and they start following you literally, on Instagram.
If you aren’t personal in your blog, telling a good story may be a bit more difficult. But you still can make a good plot, combining a story of your favourite sports, the brightest personalities and competition into a single storyline. Just imagine you are writing a book about the history of your sport, make some notes to outline a structure and then fill this structure with facts, images and, of course, your own unique narrative style.
Share insides
Lots of videos you’ll share (if they aren’t personal) have been online for a long time. All the competitions except the smallest ones have already been filmed and broadcasted somewhere. So, to make your blog truly unique, you have to either look at these videos from unexpected angles or share something very unique such as backstage shots from the competitions, training tips and inner secrets for the beginners – or even for the experienced athletes. Show your training routine and explain why you have chosen it. Also, you should create your own promotional video or post (it should be unique and useful too) to get more exposure on the Internet. Services like offer services to bring you the bigger audience to help you to get started.
People will love the examples combined with explanations and encouragement. Tell them about your diet and healthy eating, make an unexpected cooking class, surprising your audience and bringing something new to your storyline. Train in amazing places, tell them about the lessons you learned from sport, quote your teachers and trainers and have fun. Make your blog full of different content, use these ideas one by one and then repeat, and your audience will never get bored!
Get familiar with your audience
People love being engaged. Give them an amazing feeling of connection and conversation by introducing into your sports blog. Answer your direct messages (maybe, not every one of them, if you have a huge and active audience, but hope to get an answer from a blog star once in a while keeps them motivated). Ask people to share their routines and encourage them to continue. Be careful with advice, don’t take responsibility for their health conditions you don’t know, but if you are sure that your words will do no harm – feel free to give them some tips. Think about some competitions among your fans: the best photo of the training, the coolest video, the funniest meme made of your photo (if you have enough self-confidence). Don’t make interactive posts too often; they need some extra management work from you, but if you can handle them at least once in a month, the people will absolutely adore your blog, and you won’t get too tired of social media management.
If you have the budget to set some small prizes, it may bring you an extra audience and make your core audience even more motivated. It doesn’t have to be something expensive: a t-shirt, a baseball cap, your signature training course will work just fine. If you have a really tight budget, you may use digital prizes. Train together with the winner via Skype or Whatsapp. Tell your audience that he or she is cool. The feeling of being renowned is the greatest prize, sometimes.
Sports blogs are a very special type that needs a very special attitude. But a sports blog set right will bring you a great audience really fast. We hope that these tips will be helpful on your way to Instagram stardom!