X/Twitter Spaces is an audio-centric chatroom allowing users to form and be involved in live conversations, similar to Facebook & Instagram Live, without video. Considering that X is a microblogging social platform, having an audio-orientated feature offers its users another way of engaging with their community. In the fight game, there’s plenty of value for fighters, combat sports brands and promotions to gain from utilising this feature.
Reaching a wider audience
According to highperformr, there are over 200 million daily active accounts on X, which expresses the volume of diverse industries and backgrounds on the platform. Considering that the fight business is driven via entertainment first before its sporting prowess, it adds more string to your bow to ensure audio-centred content plays a part in your marketing strategy. Long story short, occasionally hosting an X space via your brand will make you more likely to reach a higher audience volume than a traditional X post.
Build a community rather than just a following
From personal experience, I’m a big fan of voice notes on WhatsApp for many reasons. It’s easier than texting, it’s helped with my communication, and it’s simpler to interpret the tone of voice for the person you’re sending a voice note to. This applies similarly to X spaces; when on X, it’s very easy to scroll through our feeds mindlessly when just seeing a choco-block load of text. Instead, you’ll be more likely to stop scrolling and engage if you spot an engaging graphic, bite-size video or audio clip. Then, once that user stops scrolling, that increases the chance of gaining a follower/having another user join your community.
Be the brand to trust
Considering the leverage you’re likely to gain with the X algorithm favouring X spaces over traditional X posts alongside the impact that audio-orientated content has, this can rank your content higher to make yourself more visible. Regarding being the brand to trust, ensure the content you share via the feature is on point regarding what will bring in new followers, community members, subscribers etc.
Therefore, if you’re a brand in the fight game, here are some ways to utilise X spaces to grow your visibility.
- Q&A session: Host a questions and answers session with your audience either live via the chat room or to boost engagement and reach, perhaps asking your demographic in advance to create X posts, accumulate them together and spend the session using them as the topic of discussion.
- Prize giveaways: A commonly themed trend that’s proven successful in building a community. Whether that’s a discount for an upcoming event or a chance to meet a fighter under your promotion, it’s likely to bring traction towards your brand, gaining a stronger community.
- Industry conversations: Away from the UFC for a change, history was made in women’s MMA last weekend. Professional Fighters League athlete Claressa Shields beat Kelsey De Santis in Saudi Arabia. This is a chance for brands representing Women’s MMA, female fighter communities, female sports brands, etc. To endorse this to the core about the positivity this brings towards female sport, particularly in MMA, where it’s come a long way.
- Re-purpose across other platforms: X spaces has an option where you can save the audio recording. You can use this as a fighter, fight brand or combat sports promotion to share across your other content feeds. For example, editing a simple graphic on Instagram and sharing it via the audio feature, sharing a video via YouTube while including the audio etc.
That’s a wrap! For further details regarding optimising X spaces, get in touch for a marketing consultation.
Ash Sports Media 