How can you take advantage of the Rugby World Cup coming to Exeter?

You might be aware by now that Sandy Park in Exeter will play host to three Rugby World Cup games later this year as part of the event which is taking place nationwide. A whole host of smaller rugby world cup-related events will take place all over Exeter, but if you and your organisation aren’t particularly interested in or related to rugby, How do you take best advantage of it to raise your profile.

Know your subject

One of the first things you need to do to try and take advantage or larger events coming to somewhere near you , is to know your subject well. After all you don’t want a simple question about the topic to catch you out if all of your responses are written down. For example, a useful piece of research to do for this project in particular is to know which games are based in Exeter and therefore which teams will be playing there.

Tue 29^th September - Tonga VS Namibia
Wed 7^th October - Namibia VS Georgia
Sun 11^th October - Italy VS Romania

Create a listening strategy

You don’t have to upload pictures at every turn to be good at social media; a good listening strategy can be just as advantageous as getting involved in the action. Follow the right accounts, create lists to organise the new follows and checkl them regularly for useful information and updates.

Here’s some examples of accounts and lists you could follow for the Rugby World Cup:

Famous retired players

Teams in exeter

Another key part of the listening strategy is making sure you follow the right hashtags and use hashflags where possible. To find out more about hashflags, take a look at our blog about how they were last used on Twitter during the General Election back in May. We’ve also put together this list of hashtags as a starting point for you to keep an eye on;

#rugby2015
#rwc2015
#england2015
#rugbypassion
#rose
#england15
#homeofsport

Another way that you can ‘listen’ online doesn’t use Twitter but instead collates content from all over the place for your consumption. The service is called Feedly and is free to use with lots of features before the paid version kicks in. It allows you to bring together articles from lots of blogs and news updates around a subject. You can search for feeds from within Feedly or add them manually. Some good blogs to follow could be;

You could also setup Pinterest boards around the subject to collate key information and pictures/articles you could share.

Create a broadcasting strategy (Content Marketing)

Broadcasting can be just as important as listening especially if you want to raise awareness of your organisation. Hospitality sector businesses are best placed to do this for the Rugby World Cup but there are many ways others can get involved. This is called ‘content marketing’ and involves raising awareness and creating trust with your brand without giving people the hard-sell.

Some ideas of content you could create and post;

Rugby-themed competitions – prizes – sports kit, BBQ kit, TV?
Dress up your office
Sponsor a local rugby match
Play a game of rugby yourself
Create Infographic (Canva is a great tool to do this with easily)
Share facts about rugby
Comment and watch Events on in Exeter
Comment on match results
Create Thought leadership blogs

Blog examples

‘impact of travelling on staff’
‘Lessons leaders can learn from the Rugby World Cup’
‘Importance of Social media in the Rugby World Cup’

For a high visual impact;

Rugby balls in different places
Dress up, team dress up
Dress your venue
Host rugby parties
Behind the scenes
Exeter street life
Great PR opportunities

If you’re really stuck for ideas, you could use a week-long content idea generator like Hubspot’s blog topic generator.

And don’t forget, you can also join in with and share other organisations campaigns. Some to watch could be;

Visit Exeter
Accommodation providers plan
Arts and culture events in Exeter
Screens in Exeter
Nationality based campaigns (think rugby-visitors from those nations)

Plus, don’t forget to use ready-made official content (as long as you credit the owners!) to enrich the content your sending to your audience with a good dose of context. Here’s some websites to get you started!

Run a competition

Take a look at our blog about running competitions for events to get some insight into the practicalities of running a competition and then let your imagination run wild! Here are some good examples we’ve seen so far;

Rugby ball treasure hunt
Quiz – Can you name these rugby teams from their logo’s?
Prize Draw – Win rugby themed items?
Virtual games – Find rugby balls located around your website,
Spot the ball – Spot the rugby ball in rugby themed images?
Group together – for bigger ideas

Know your audience

YouGov Profiles is a fantastic way to delve down into your target audience, who they are and what they like to see. The tool users data contributed by hundreds of users of their web service and if you have a moment you can even contribute yourself.

Know your influencers

You might have heard of a Klout score but you don’t need this to determine who your most influential people are on a topic. They are the ones with the most followers, the most engagement and the most expertise on a subject. Some examples in this case could be;

Prior planning prevents poor performance

Do you remember this being shouted around the classroom at school? We hate to see it but it’s very true, especially in the content marketing world. Here at Cosmic we have a physical white board in the office with our content for the next six weeks all planned out with various boxes to tick at different stages of the writing, publishing and scheduling process. You should have 70% of the content planned prior to the event allowing you to fill this up with 30% of ad-hoc content which can live in the moment. Here are some great management tools that will help you with this;

And if you’re stuck for content, use some of the tools we’ve mentioned already or sit down away from your desk somewhere and have a good old fashioned brain-storm. Often one thought leads to another and before you know it you have a content plan in front of you ready to put into action.