Sport1 is one of Germany’s leading free-to-air sports channels, broadcasting across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sport1 has developed a significant social media presence, with around 3.5 million followers across their 20 Facebook and Twitter pages alone.
The challenge:
- Reduce manual management of social media to free up time for content creation and strategic planning
- Keep up with constantly evolving social media platforms
The approach:
- Use Echobox to streamline workflow and cross-post to Facebook and Twitter in seconds
- Use Echobox’s data analytics to identify the most popular topics
The results:
- 115% increase in pageviews from Twitter
- 30% increase in pageviews from Facebook
- 30 hours saved per week
1: The challenge
With the growth of numerous digital platforms on which brands can engage with their audience, Sport1 benefits from a more immediate connection: “Social media is important,” says Daniel Grässle, Sport1’s Head of Social Media, “because we have direct contact with our target group, we get direct feedback and can provide users with news, videos, and more within seconds.”
There is massive competition… We always have to look at adapting our strategy decisively.
Daniel Grässle, Head of Social Media at Sport1
But this ever-expanding focus on digital also means an increasing need for more bespoke content, leaving content producers facing significant hurdles. As Grässle explains, “there is massive competition, especially in the German market. Of course, we feel that all the time. Furthermore, the social platforms are constantly evolving. We always have to look at adapting our strategy decisively.”
Ultimately, like many other social media teams, Sport1 needed to free up time from the repetitive work of managing over 20 pages across all social media accounts and put those valuable hours into longer-term planning and content creation instead.
2: The approach
Prior to 2015, Sport1 had been managing its social media content manually, but the extraordinary time requirements involved proved untenable. In an effort to streamline this process, they turned to Echobox, the AI-powered publishing automation solution chosen by leading brands around the globe. Businesses of all sizes use Echobox to achieve greater social reach and automate their social media activity.
After 6 years of relying on Echobox day-to-day, there is no going back. In Sport1’s efforts to grow their social media performance, Grässle notes that “Echobox performs a central role. For us it is one of the business’ most important tools.”
How has Sport1 boosted workflow efficiency with Echobox’s unique technology? One of the most useful functions is the Echobox Scores, a ranking system that uses complex AI to rate content on the basis of predicted social virality, making it simple for social media teams to determine what to post.
Echobox gives Sport1 easy access to all of their content for publication across multiple platforms; with just a few clicks, Sport1 can easily share or schedule posts or let Echobox choose the best content for publication at the best time. “Echobox provides us with an overview of all news that arrives via RSS feed. This saves us a huge amount of time while giving us a clear overview of article topics.”
Echobox has a very simple structure and is understood within a few hours.
Daniel Grässle, Head of Social Media at Sport1
Echobox makes social media data simple to understand, empowering businesses to make data-driven decisions. For Grässle this has proven invaluable. “We can look at which topics are performing well and focus on those and reshare them accordingly,” he says. These insights have enabled Sport1 to operate in a more targeted fashion.
By being able to easily see exactly which content is performing well, the social media team can remove the guesswork from the task of driving online traffic, allowing them to be much more responsive to the fluid demands and interests of their audience.
As Echobox was designed with simplicity in mind, Sport1 has been able to seamlessly integrate it into the day-to-day running of the business. “Echobox has a very simple structure and is understood within a few hours,” notes Grässle, citing the additional benefit of allowing closer collaboration between the social media and editorial departments.
Sport1 has been able to change the way in which it uses Echobox in line with its own evolving priorities. Each Echobox is a flexible, bespoke service, created to the unique specifications of individual companies. Adapting to the needs of any business, Echobox can be used flexibly for full automation, or to augment a human-led social media strategy.
3: The results
The results of Sport1’s use of Echobox have been dramatic. Within 6 weeks of adopting Echobox, Sport1 saw an increase of over 30% in pageviews generated from Facebook, as well as a 30% boost to Facebook engagement.
By using Echobox’s viral ranking system, posts made through Echobox outperformed those made natively on Facebook by a remarkable 249% in terms of average clicks per share.
Likewise, Sport1’s performance on Twitter has achieved impressive results, with the team seeing an incredible 115% jump in pageviews generated from Twitter during the same period.
Sport1’s main priority for managing their social media publishing was to increase efficiency, and Echobox has helped them achieve this: Grässle and his team save an average of 6 hours of manual work each day.
With this time, Grässle says, the social media team can focus more on new ways to engage with their audience and diversify their digital offering through a greater number of channels. “We focus more on creating content for Tik Tok and Instagram,” he notes.
4: The long and short of it
For Grässle, Sport1’s use of Echobox’s pioneering technology over the last half decade has proved to be a resounding success, with substantial increases in traffic and engagement, all while reducing the repetitive manual tasks that used to consume their social media staff’s time.
Sport1’s future plans involve leveraging another of Echobox’s unique features: “There will be more focus on A/B testing,” notes Grässle, to further refine the ways in which they can derive the greatest performance from their social media strategy. Would he recommend Echobox to other social media teams? The answer is unequivocal: “Yes. It has simplified our workflow and we have always been satisfied.”
