Last week I talked about my favorite series of car racing, the Tudor
United Sportscar Championship. This past weekend happened to be the final race
of the season and while most people were focused completely on the UGA vs.
Alabama game, I was splitting my time evenly between the race and the football
game.
While I was walking around the track Saturday morning, I
couldn’t help but observe all of the different ways social media was being used
to connect with fans. When I first arrived at the track, the announcer was
talking about the International Motorsports Association (IMSA) application that
users can download to get live streaming, live scoring, driver and team
information, and much more. He was announcing that if you show him the
downloaded IMSA app you could get a free hat. I thought this was a great way to
encourage fans to get more involved in the race.
It is always interesting to get on Twitter during the race.
There are live tweets from IMSA Racing, the Tudor United Sportscar
Championship, Road Atlanta, and individual race teams. This is extremely
helpful when something like a wreck happens because Twitter is constantly being
updated so you can figure out what’s going on quickly.
Social media is a great way for individual race teams to
interact with their fans. Many fans attend these races with a favorite team
they are rooting for. Social media allows them to be constantly updated on
their specific team by allowing them to see updated posts about placement, good
or bad news related to the team, occasional pictures and videos, and anything
else the team feels like sharing with fans. When fans feel like they are connected
with the race teams, it encourages them to have loyalty to the sport, which in
this case is the brand. Social media plays a huge role in the automotive racing
industry and fans would not be as involved or engaged in the sport if it
weren’t for applications and platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Although the weather was terrible and the football game was a
huge disappointment, Saturday was an eventful day to say the least.
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