Social media automation for sports publishers is no longer a choice—it’s the fastest route to growth! For Planet Sport Group (PlanetF1.com, Football365, TEAMtalk), maximizing the reach of their content to over 25 million monthly users meant fixing a manual, time-sucking distribution pipeline.
Historically, they used social media purely for referral traffic, but their lean team of rockstar journalists lacked the time and data to truly optimize their posting. This severely limited the efficiency of their social media automation for sports publishers. They needed a specialized solution to win big.
😩 The pain point: When ‘posting and praying’ blocked efficiency
The main hurdle was the heavy workload on their journalists, who were responsible for both creating content and managing a growing number of social channels.
As Mark Holmes, Planet Sport Group’s Head of Publishing, explains: “The journalists who populate our websites with content each day, also manage all our social media channels.”
This time crunch meant zero time for optimization. “The guys would publish an article, grab the link and then post it to social, often without optimizing the share messages,” said Holmes. They were leaving clicks and engagement on the table!
They lacked the resource to check data, tailor schedules, or space out posts strategically, which was totally hamstringing their success with social media automation for sports publishers.
🧠 The game-changer: Trusting AI for smarter distribution optimization
Planet Sport Group turned to Echobox to implement industry-leading social media automation designed specifically for publishers who need a reliable win.
The appeal was clear: “It was a huge appeal to know that Echobox could do all of that hard work for us.” The AI uses machine learning and performance predictions to know which content will perform best and when to post it, solving the core challenge of effective social media automation for sports publishers.
Initial hesitation quickly vanished. Holmes noted: “We weren’t at 100% in week one… But as performance on social improved, so too did the trust to allow Echobox to choose when content should be posted.”
This trust was reinforced by the Customer Success team, who provided insights—like adjusting share message lengths—that caused their Tennis365 channel to jump to being a top performer! Learn more about the smart tech behind this success at echobox.com/social.
🥳 The big win: 50% traffic boost with less effort
The implementation of Echobox’s smart automation brought immediate, definitive wins, proving the power of effective social media automation for sports publishers:
| Key Performance Metric | The Improvement |
| Facebook Referral Traffic | An incredible increase of up to 50% |
| Journalist Time | Reduced (less time spent on posting/scheduling) |
The massive traffic boost was achieved despite journalists spending less time on the platform. Holmes sums it up: “It’s taking up less of people’s time now to manage our social channels, not more, yet performance has improved.”
He credits the AI’s data-driven decisions: “Allowing Echobox to choose what to post and when has unquestionably been the biggest driver behind the good performance.” The result is a system that delivers phenomenal results while freeing up journalists to focus on what they do best: creating great content.
🌟 Ready to ditch the guesswork and implement social media automation for sports publishers?
If your editorial team is manually managing social channels and struggling to maximize traffic, Planet Sport Group’s story proves that intelligent automation is the key to achieving incredible growth.
