The Role of Social Media in Promoting Mega Sporting Events

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Introduction to Critical Thinking
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Executive Summary
The various digital and social media platforms have immensely contributed to the healthy
stats and numbers of the event and there were considered reminders regarding the
significance of dependability in offering digital and branding coverage. It is evident that how
important the appropriate media mix is becoming for major events like these. In this report,
“Introduction to Critical Thinking” with reference to the event “FIFA 2018 World Cup”,
the role of social media in the promotion of the specified event has been explained. The roles
of different forms of social media affect upon the promotion of the event have been
summarized in this report.
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Main Body Analysis...................................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Reference List............................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Social Media marketing is referred to as the form of digital or internet marketing that
involves the specific process of developing and exchanging content on various social media
platforms in order to promote an event or organization’s products or services and achieving
the marketing goals and branding objectives. In order to achieve the desired marketing goals,
it is important to devise a social media-marketing plan or strategy. In this report of
“Introduction to Critical Thinking” with reference to the mega event i.e. “Fifa World Cup
2018”, the purpose is to provide the learner with the understanding of the role of marketing
and social media in promoting a mega event. In this report, the analysis of traditional
methods of marketing will be done. The role of different forms of media impact upon the
promotion of the specified event will be explained in this report.
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Main Body Analysis
Sport seems to play an essential part in the life of every individual residing in all across the
globe, whether those who enthusiastically take a part in it or only spectators and supporters.
In majority of the western countries, this specific part of social life is extensively reported
and reflected by the social mass media. In the period of globalization, sports has not only
become the major source of entertainment and lifestyle but has also evolved as a solid
business in the last few years. The concepts such as marketing, social media and promotion
are considered as the most important tools and techniques in the world of sports utilized for
generating maximum amount of profits. Nowadays, Fifa World Cup has evolved as one of the
most large-scale and profitable global media event. The event focuses on the convergence of
32 nations with the hope of lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy.
Mega events such as Fifa World Cup, ICC World Cup and Cannes Film Festival are all
termed as social and the concept of social media has played the important role as a specific
vital tool in promoting almost any type of event. E-Mail is considered as the major promotion
tool utilized to reach out to the previous contacts and social media has justified its own
importance to explain its usage in the promotion of a mega-event to the new capable
attendees (Kietzmann et al., 2011). According to a worldwide survey, majority of the
marketers believe that Facebook, LinkedIn and many more are the best social media networks
when concerned with the promotion of events. Facebook is considered to have the largest
user base and the potential event sponsorers can exchange various types of content such as
descriptions, promotional videos and surveys. The social media network Twitter is mainly
famous among the attendees and promoters as because it helps to communicate the vital
messages and organize the interests of the event. In Twitter, various active users can scope
the contents of other people with approvals and proper access as it is the most public out of
all the primary networks (Couldry, 2012).
Social media marketing helps in the promotion of business as a rigorous event endorsement
drive on the specific social media network helps to grow the interests, buzz of the event, and
attract a large volume of spectators or attendees. Fifa World Cup 2018 alone was responsible
for an estimation of 10% rise and growth in ad dollars as the mega event portrays the brand
construction powers of both conventional TV and social media (Tiago et al., 2014). The
traditional types of marketing define the customary marketing methods that have been
utilized ever since the advertisements or marketing concepts were established. Some of the
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various examples of traditional methods of marketing are newspapers, pamphlets, radio,
television, and many more. It is believed that the traditional concepts and methods of
marketing have their own benefits and advantages but social media and digital marketing
have dominated the advantages of traditional marketing and have set the revolution ablaze
since their establishment (Venkatraman et al., 2015). Some of the benefits that social media
marketing provides over traditional marketing are as follows:
 Low Expenses – The traditional methods of marketing are supposed to be expensive
while the methods of social media marketing are quite cheap and affordable. This means
that there involves a greater division of the financial plan to grow and enhance the
business of the event.
 Real Time Result – Digital and social media marketing provides quick results and
outcomes and due to this, it has been able to gain a competitive edge over the traditional
methods of marketing. It is possible to view every aspects of the event including number
of attendee, rate of conversion and many more with the help of social media marketing.
 Greater Exposure – Every individual methods of traditional marketing such as
newspapers and flyers covers a certain specific area whereas an online advertisement
appeals to the widespread population of the whole world. This provides the event with a
great exposure that result in enhanced business.
Social media has evolved largely in being active as there was a greater probability of paid
social media operations and activity around the various popular matches due to the joining of
the brands in the conversation (Stanton et al., 2015). There is believed to be a tendency for
the sports fans to exchange the highlights and images with the help of social media platforms
rather than viewing the mega football event on the television or radio. For example, the
disqualification of China’s football team influenced the potential Chinese brands to benefit
from the global spectators by making antagonistic moves. The Chinese brands made some
enormous efforts around the mega football event in order to promote the event via their social
media platforms (Edosomwan et al., 2011). Some of the social media statistics regarding the
2018 World Cup are as follows:
 Within the space of one month, the hashtag of the Fifa World Cup 2018 was extensively
used in over more than 24 million posts and tweets with the majority of the posts
encrypted in English (Giulianotti, 2012).
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 The fourth game of 2018 World Cup between Portugal and Spain helped to produce over
13 million tweets in the space of little hours. This has been the highest record of
generated tweets in the 2018 World Cup.
Figure 1: Followers on Twitter regarding 2018 Fifa World Cup
(Source: Millward, 2011)
In the 15th century, printing i.e. traditional method of marketing left a effective mark in the
advertisements sector and due to this, the sponsors and brand were able to appeal to a wider
audience. During the 19th century, advertisements were evolved to newspapers. However,
social media marketing and modern methods of advertisements offered a completely new
methods of promotion and reached to attendees and audience in all across the globe. The
promotion through social media drives the acceleration of the speed in which individuals in
different parts of the world can connect and be informed about the upcoming events. FIFA’s
utilization of social media marketing and platforms such as LinkedIn and YouTube is very
intrepid and organized. FIFA’s Social Media Explosion led to the creation of a Global
Stadium in order to offer the vast audiences with a free and smooth web user experience of
the world’s greatest sporting event and these eventually lead to the development of
challenging and global World Cup spectators (Makarychev and Yatsyk, 2015).
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Conclusion
It can be concluded from the report that FIFA’s implementation of social media marketing
like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter in various campaigns and marketing process is quite
organized methodically and innovative. The convincing 2018 Fifa World Cup has drawn a
mass amount of social media spectators and something important is still happening inside the
statistics number. The purpose of the report was to explain the role of social media and its
impact in the recent mega event Fifa 2018 World Cup. In this report, a comparison has been
drawn between traditional methods of marketing and modern methods of social media
marketing. The concept of ambushing is considered to be supplemented by social media
marketing and methods. FIFA is effectively and efficiently utilizing social media platforms
and marketing in order to promote advertise and sell tickets for the mega world cup events.
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Reference List
Couldry, N., 2012. Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity.
Edosomwan, S., Prakasan, S.K., Kouame, D., Watson, J. and Seymour, T., 2011. The history
of social media and its impact on business. Journal of Applied Management and
entrepreneurship, 16(3), pp.79-91.
Giulianotti, R., 2012. Football. The Wiley‐Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization.
Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I.P. and Silvestre, B.S., 2011. Social media? Get
serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business
horizons, 54(3), pp.241-251.
Makarychev, A. and Yatsyk, A., 2015. Brands, cities and (post-) politics: A comparative
analysis of urban strategies for the Universiade 2013 and the World Football Cup 2018 in
Russia. European Urban and Regional Studies, 22(2), pp.143-160.
Millward, P., 2011. The global football league: Transnational networks, social movements
and sport in the new media age. Springer.
Stanton, L.S., Rb tv Inc, 2015. Devices, systems, and methods for aggregating, controlling,
enhancing, archiving, and analyzing social media for events. U.S. Patent 9,053,517.
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why
bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.
Venkatraman, V., Dimoka, A., Pavlou, P.A., Vo, K., Hampton, W., Bollinger, B., Hershfield,
H.E., Ishihara, M. and Winer, R.S., 2015. Predicting advertising success beyond traditional
measures: New insights from neurophysiological methods and market response
modeling. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(4), pp.436-452.
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