Curling and Social Media: A Deep Dive
Connecting with the Curling Community — The Team Bottcher Experience
“Commenting on someone’s video [or social post] is like tossing a ball to a fan in crowd” — A.J. Curry, the NFL’s senior manager of social content
*UPDATE COMING IN 2022*
If you’ve seen a post or tweeted @TeamBottcher over the last number of years, we’ve chatted before. Hi, I’m Nevin, and I’m excited to share this deep dive into how the Team Bottcher account came to be. Because curling fans are the best fans in the sporting world, I trust you’ll keep my involvement with this @TeamBottcher Twitter account a secret (you’ll see why later in the article).
This article will interest you if:
1) You’re interested in what goes into running team/brand social media. OR
2 ) You’re asking, ‘what the heck is with the train GIFs and emojis?!’ 🚂
Ok, let’s roll.
A brief history/background:
- I began managing @TeamBottcher the year before their 1st Brier appearance (2016/2017 season).
- I’m a Social Media Manager (long story how I got there) and also a HUGE weather nerd (Prairie Storm Chasers).
- I’m a curler/fan. I played a year of juniors with Brendan and many more against him.
- I’ve always loved the way players in sports engaged on Twitter with fans. My own experiences with this in 2013/14 with Brad Jacobs stands out. My first memory is getting Russ Howard's autograph in the hotel lobby at Brier in Calgary in 2002. Curlers are approachable and authentic. As a kid, I looked up to players like Guy Hemmings and his ability to inject humour into a sport that can be ‘too traditional’, exclusive, and rigid.
Part 1: Researching Curling Twitter
When I’m given the privilege to run a new account, I research and strategize the brand we wish to convey before jumping into posts.
I searched for answers to the following questions:
- How do fans engage with this brand or account? Or the online community?
- How are these teams or brands interacting with the people who follow them? (i.e. It sounds like if Joey from Friends had Twitter)
- What are the most common types of posts on curling Twitter?
I use the answers to these questions to map out the makeup of the community. Not everyone can be the Wendy’s of Twitter, but I wanted to make sure Team Bottcher shared unique and unexpected things.
Find your voice: try this template.
Part 2: Set the Goal
The first 10, 50, 100, 500 followers are the hardest to get — if you’re there, celebrate it! I was fortunate that the Team already had nearly 1K (9.2K now). Growth was a goal, but not the main one. Experimenting and seeing what works is part of social media. Part of it is seeing what kind of posts do well. If the post didn’t do well, it could be for various reasons, don’t get too caught up in those. Other times, followers will let you know very quickly what they don’t like 😅.
Here are (loosely) the goals:
- Be deeply authentic. Don’t post during games. Embrace 2nd place, 2nd place, and 2nd place. You can have fun even when you lose.
- Make sure everyone is invited and welcome. That means accepting fans that get off the train from time to time to cheer for other teams.
- Be clever and fun. You don’t get to see this on the ice very often, but it’s there. @TeamBottcher’s social media is for the fans first and foremost. See how I said not sponsors.
Most of all, we wanted the #Rollin & #StillRollin Bottcher Express to be accessible. To me, that means making others feel included in the journey. Train GIFs and hashtags from the community really did achieve this. It was special to see Team Bottcher continue to roll from a newcomer on the circuit into everyone’s 2nd favourite curling team (usually second to their region’s rep).
The Trains
It’s hard to stop a train once it gets up to speed. Train emojis and GIFs seemed like a nerdy way to have some fun on Twitter dot com. So we tried it, paired it with a community chosen hashtag #StillRollin (thanks @patrickbpenguin), and the rest is history.
We’re so serious about trains that the Team was asked to participate in the very popular Men of Curling Calendar. Naturally, they chose the Alberta Railway Museum as the location for the photoshoot.
“Brands[Teams] don’t tweet — people do.”
- Adapted from Twitter Business Resources
Social Media is a phenomenal place to connect with fans, players, friends, and people getting into the sport. It’s the BEST way to meet and talk to people who would never get to see you play live or at an event meet and greet — that’s special!
Part 3: StillRollin Strategy
Here are some things I discovered through my research that I wanted to try and stay away from:
- Score/game updates. I tried this once and didn’t like it. There are so many websites and even other accounts that share this, so I figured I’d let the traffic go there.
- Sponsor heavy posts. Someone once said, “companies that sponsor curling teams sponsor all curling fans.” I agree, but Team Bottcher’s social media puts fans first and in the end that creates stronger relationships, which is what your sponsors want to be a part of (hopefully).
- Ignoring mentions/messages. If someone took the time to tweet or DM the Team, I’m going to make an effort to read it and acknowledge them. I pass most of these onto the Team. It goes back to the lead-off quote in this article.
- To be too serious. I see many brand social media posts in my day job, and I know what I don’t like — boring posts that don’t give the reader or follower anything.
We designed TeamBottcher on Twitter to post as the team. To do that, I would like to stay anonymous. I trust you’ll keep this secret and help keep it a bit of a mystery.
Team Bottcher’s Twitter Strategy Highlights
Respect and Sportsmanship. You’ve seen how they interact on the ice and off — the same goes for Twitter.
Trains — Win, lose, or second place, we try to post 🚂 GIFs after each game. Why? Because trains are our spirit animal and GIFs are a fun and accessible way for other fans to participate in the ups & downs of a season. You don’t need fancy graphics or videos to show if you won or lost if you have the perfect train for the situation (I try really hard at this, so please lemme know when I post a good one).
Post less often but respond more. Timing is far more important than the number of posts you do. This goes back to wanting the account to be authentic. Posting 10x a day during games is a sure way to let everyone know you’re not the Team; that’s not what we’re trying to achieve. If I see a really great tweet (there are so many 😭), I’ll save it and respond later.
Share stories from behind the scenes — By now, you’ve likely read about Barbara’s socks.
Especially in a year with no one in the stands, it was important to make you feel like you were physically on the #StillRollin train — celebrating, laughing, and crying along the way.
Sheldon Cooper-ish clever humour — this is self-explanatory, right? Having fun with the community during an event or even the off-season is the best part. The curling conversation is always ongoing; that’s so cool.
Now the above strategy might not always stay this way. That’s the beauty of it. Just stay on the train (or hop on and off), so you can be a part of it!
The Results:
Are you asking “show me the metrics” and prove to me this strategy works? I hear you, and although I have a complicated relationship with metrics (another blog topic for another day), here’s some:
Important to know metrics aren’t everything. Context and conversations are so important.
Barbara’s socks note (the 4th tweet) was one of the top engaged with posts. Winning the Brier was #1 for obvious reasons, but the socks' story really resonated with people. It was a REAL unprompted feel-good story.
The other stuff
Dealing with negative comments or bullying is a drain, and I don’t have any patience for it. Let me be clear; a fair critique is not a negative comment. Sports Twitter has moments where people are upset at a team or outcome and I’ll allow that. My advice: if you’re planning on running a sports account (or any account really) is to set boundaries or come up with a response matrix (even if it’s informal).
TeamBottcher’s mentions are so overwhelmingly thoughtful and positive that I almost don’t see the negative ones. For the most part, I will not engage with Trolls, Haters, or Know-it-alls (THKs). In my experience, they want that — I will not give it to them.
Of course, I’ll always make an exception for Koe…
I’m writing this during The World Women's Curling Championship (#WWCC2021). They had some positive test results within the broadcast team and have resorted to linescores and live-Tweeting the game updates.
Some members of Team Germany also tested positive upon arrival and are in isolation. Curling fans, some of the most empathetic fans in sport, activated on Twitter and sent flowers, snacks, cards, chocolate and beer.
Final Thoughts
I do hope this deep dive was helpful to you on some level. Whether it’s navigating online conversations, managing a brand account, or just being part of the greatest group of fans in sport — curling fans! Social media often comes with a negative connotation now; however, y’all bring me to the brink of tears with all the notes and posts. I’m so privileged to post on behalf of such a phenomenal group of guys and the extraordinary curling fans on Twitter.
The train continues to roll, and I hope you’ll stay on board! 🚂#StillRollin
And if you want to unlock these powerful conversations on social media, let’s connect 📧 nevin.demilliano@gmail.com.