Brett Gosper
All business sectors are facing the challenges of competing in a context of high-velocity technological change. That change is disrupting both access to and the attention of consumers, whose loyalty we seek to acquire. Added to this is the need in such a rapidly evolving landscape to make quality decisions at high speed.
In sport, as in all industries, it is no longer what you know but how fast you learn. Engaging and interacting on social media is critical to learning about and understanding your target audience in real time.
In the case of World Rugby, rugby union’s governing body, there are two specific challenges:
Firstly, we are not dealing with the ‘usual’ consumer. This is not a person walking the aisles of a supermarket or browsing online, where choices between brands can often boil down to a question of familiarity or apathy. The core consumer of rugby – as with any sport – is truly emotional. They are opinionated, passionate and fiercely loyal to the point of being possessive. They can also be tribal in their obsessive love of a team or the sport itself. They are more than consumers – they are fans. It is this high-octane, emotional connection between fan and sport that requires understanding, empathy and careful management.
Secondly, the world of sports federations has a complex stakeholder dimension that adds the political to the managerial. An international federation is an elected board that is representative of each country’s aspirations that make up its membership. Added to this is an appointed CEO and management team that partner with the elected membership to ensure strategic and executional momentum.
Conventional business sectors operate with a professional management team that answers to shareholders and are bottom line- and market share-driven. This difference does not necessarily make sports federations less effective, but it does bring a dimension of political complexity that can challenge unity and clarity of purpose if not well managed by the unique partnership.
Given these two specific differences, it is clear to me that social media can not only work to counter some of the potential challenges in these areas, but also be a potent tool to leverage these specific areas of stakeholder difference.
As opposed to the consumer, the fan demands involvement in the leadership of their sport. They want to know who is taking care of it, how we are making it safer and healthier, how we are enhancing their experience at home and in stadia, what we are doing to ensure the sport grows around the world, how we simplify and improve laws and how we eradicate foul play and doping – among many other concerns.
These are the preoccupations of a fan as opposed to the more indifferent demands of a consumer. In this context, social media interaction provides a unique opportunity to talk directly with fans in a way that is unfiltered and unhindered by traditional media and marketing channels. More importantly, it is a two-way communication where ‘receiving’ is every bit as important as transmitting. Used in the right way, social media can be the ultimate real-time focus group – often personally brutal but always a source of high-speed enlightenment.
One of the hardest questions for any business to answer is what they wish to stand for in the minds of their audience. When you are a sports federation with multiple stakeholders and members – often with their own national agendas – a focused, single-minded answer to that question is not easy to establish and communicate.
Once again, social media can not only provide the platform to project a clear voice to the world but also offer a galvanizing direction and clarity to diverse internal stakeholders, guiding them and reminding them of their own mission and role in furthering the federation’s purpose.
At World Rugby we are obsessed with growing our global fan base and participation. In recent years this has meant moving the needle more clearly from the emphasis on regulation to that of inspiration. The changing of our brand from the obscure (for those not inside the sport) International Rugby Board (IRB) to the outward facing ‘World Rugby’ clearly provided us with the opportunity to position the federation as the global voice of ‘brand rugby’.
This is a statement of leadership that relies heavily on the intelligent and creative use of social media if we are to successfully transition our brand towards the ‘platinum’ status of being a global movement. An annual global survey by Red Torch in 2017 placed World Rugby number one out of thirty-five Olympic-recognized international sports federations in social media usage. This is testament to our efforts to prioritize this area.
The CEO stepping up
Social media is now critical to all businesses, and few would question its power in shaping market perceptions. More controversial is the personal use of social media by CEOs.
When I arrived at the then International Rugby Board in 2012, I was struck by how aloof the IRB was as an organization. We were not listed in the phone directory until the mid-1990s, there was no name or branding outside our building in Dublin and there were few displays of corporate personality and public empathy. Our communication was efficient and authoritative, as was the habit of many governing bodies, and there did seem to be a view that the media and public were to be engaged only in a formal way. At the time I felt that this formality was often interpreted with suspicion by the media and public.
While I was aware of the risks and dangers of using social media, I was convinced that my personal use of it would be a clear and dramatic way to help shift perceptions from us as a guarded and even secretive organization to a more open and engaging one. My theory being that a listening organization that was better understood and more human was one that could significantly create more positive momentum.
Any communication vacuum is filled with interpretation, almost always in a negative way. Personal use of social media provided me with the means to attempt to drive a media and public reappraisal of the then IRB while also listening to opinion and perceptions.
I did this by immediately following and connecting with every influential rugby and sports journalist and influencer on Twitter. They would follow me back. It meant I was accessible to all and able to fill some of that vacuum and personalize the leadership of the organization. This one-to-one connection seemed to create more empathy with the media, who were able to question and discuss World Rugby’s personalized views in full view of the public or via Direc t Messaging if they wished.
While it never guaranteed agreement, I feel it created some respect for what we were trying to do. While the novelty of a CEO on Twitter has long passed, I do think empathy and respect for that non-stop direct connection continue. The proximity enabled better explanations and understanding for media and fans. This was around complex and controversial issues such as concussion scrum engagement protocols, injury rates, law changes, referee/disciplinary decisions (always the most emotive) as well as clarifying our views and ambitions around the Rugby World Cup, the Olympics, Sevens and club rugby. Some of these areas required real-time engagement to ensure full understanding by media and fans – something a press release can’t always satisfy.
I have definitely made mistakes along the way and have learned from those mistakes. In the beginning I sometimes gave a view or an opinion on Twitter that, due to my focus on fans and the media, flew in the face of the usual World Rugby communication channels. It was usually in the area of player discipline, and it created a lot of negative reaction from our member unions; I was even ticked off several times by the Executive Committee for influencing or circumventing the judiciary. There was a move to ban my use of Twitter but I was able to argue the overwhelming benefits for the organization, and common sense prevailed.
While a good bit of public controversy is always healthy for boosting your Twitter following, a negative public storm can be unnecessarily stressful to many, and I have learned from this.
Examples include asking that a player be punished to the full extent of the law for defying rugby’s hard-earned values by spitting on another international player. This was a tweet during the game and well before it went to a judicial hearing, which could have prejudiced the hearing. On another occasion, I tweeted that we would appeal an over-lenient sanction (by our own judiciary) for a foot to head incident in an international game.
These tweets created great friction with the federations involved, as I had not managed internal communications before going public. This is an easy mistake to make on Twitter as one is reacting to public outrage, and the temptation to move fast is immense.
Even with careful thought and following a career in advertising, where I was in the business of understanding consumer reactions, I couldn’t always accurately predict a public reaction. I once created public outrage in Wales by commenting when England’s cricket team did not get out of the pool phase at Cricket World Cup. It is always good news for the success of an international tournament that the host progresses well in their own tournament. I tweeted that ‘it wasn’t something we want to see in England 2015’. The Welsh fans interpreted this as a potential bias from World Rugby, as they were in the same pool as England and some implied we might work to influence the match officials in that way. This was ludicrous in my mind at the time, but the perception is always more understandable with hindsight.
Since those early days, experience has helped me to avoid unnecessary controversy, but I am always aware that one tweet can spark a forest fire of controversy.
Now it is not just the CEO of World Rugby who tweets, but also the Chairman Bill Beaumont and Vice-Chairman Agustin Pichot, who manages a lively Twitter account with a significant following. Several of our executive committees and a large number of our staff are also now very active on Twitter and Instagram. All this adds up to a weight of positive, authentic information flow for World Rugby and the sport of rugby in general. It also increases the risk of communication mishaps, so we ensure we train our staff in social media usage as we do also for referees and players who venture into the space.
Twitter has become the natural habitat of the ‘stars’, including musicians, television personalities, artists, actors and sports celebrities. These people also tend to be dealing with a passionate fan base rather than just a consumer audience. In more recent times politicians have taken to Twitter. Again, this sits well with the medium, as people want to get to know the personality of their politicians and the politicians themselves are attempting to build a larger following or movement.
One might argue therefore that social media is no place for a serious corporate-minded CEO.
The difference is that CEOs should not use social media to promote themselves, but to further the connection between their organization and their audience. If that audience is fan-based, that’s perfect. If you are trying to turn your brand into a movement, even better. If that audience is made up of passionate consumers, then that will also work.
If you are the CEO of a low-interest consumer sector, then usage is not out of the question, but returns on time investment are likely to be modest. It depends on message shaping. Even the CEO of a tyre company can become an evangelist for the environment or work conditions. The public will ultimately decide if you are interesting to ‘listen’ to – and gathering enough of them will help shape the perceptions of your company or brand.
Here are my five tips for other CEOs in the sports sector.
1 Be yourself. Followers know when a social media account is managed by the PR department or someone else. Followers aren’t just seeking information – they are seeking understanding. Twitter is a personal medium, so an absence of personality means followers will turn off.
2 Your view is the organization’s view. It is impossible to say that ‘this is just my view’ or ‘all views my own’. As a CEO your view on social media will be seen as the organization’s view, so be very aware (and be sure) that you are conveying the view of an entire organization.
3 Don’t react too fast. The provocative tweets fired at you are designed to get a reaction. It is tempting to react quickly in order to land a winning counter punch or embarrass the aggressor. The most aggressive tweets usually come from those with the fewest followers. If you reply you are giving that person your readership, a coverage they do not deserve. If it is important to react, then take the time to calm down or show a reactive draft tweet to your PR head or an advisor. If you are tired, jetlagged or have been drinking, never tweet.
4 Get your facts right. As a CEO you will not be forgiven for sloppiness if you get your numbers, spellings, names and dates wrong – and it will reflect on your organization. Media loves to pick up on these errors and amplify them to the public.
5 Demand content. While a CEO often believes that his or her words are enthralling, sharing interesting visuals, infographics, videos or other compelling content will be far more interesting for your followers. Put pressure on your organization to provide these for you. And don’t just send out the corporate content as is – give more meaning and context to it from a leadership perspective.
The final point I would make is that, if you are going to spend the extra hours managing a personal/public social media account (I spend at least one hour a day on Twitter, and often two), you have to enjoy doing it. You need to enjoy crafting words and jousting with followers and be genuinely interested in people’s views and passionate about providing answers and guidance.
Getting started is the hard part. I suggest that you begin your social media life as a follower, watching and learning how other role models use it. Then, when you feel ready … ‘hello world’.