Today, I wanted to gain further insight into Lacrosse in social media. Lacrosse is something I am very passionate about but in terms of the sport’s history, it has been very challenging for it to rise in popularity and relevance. 

To get a better idea of why that may be, what I wanted to do first was generally compare “Lacrosse” as a keyword to the other major sports. The primary thing this revealed is that in terms of social media relevance, there really is no offseason for the major sports. Of Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and soccer, there was a slight rise for all during the primary season the sport is played. The same is true about lacrosse, however, the other sports do NOT see a significant decrease in the off-season months while there is a significant drop in the volume of lacrosse tweets during the off-season. From May to August, the volume of “lacrosse” on twitter drops from 190,000 to 33,000. This makes sense because lacrosse is played in the spring with the championship games at the high school and college levels being in May/June. However, if the goal of the community is to one day be at the level of prominence of the other major sports, this dip should not be occurring. 

This reveals that there is a clear space in the lacrosse market for off-season content and news. Lacrosse fans certainly do not forget about the sport in the off-season, but there are not enough meaningful ways for people to stay engaged with the community, which is why there is a drop-off in how much it is talked about on Twitter. The other sports tell us that fans are willing and even desire to stay engaged on social media in the off-season months.

 A significant element of a cohesive social media plan for a lacrosse-based account should include an increase in off-season content. This would be efficient because the data tells us that not many accounts are talking about lacrosse in the off-season, so becoming the most prominent account during those periods would be a feasible goal, and be more consistent with the media coverage of the major sports. 

Taking a look at more specific keywords to the sport, I believe it reveals the purpose/use of Twitter for lacrosse accounts. Twitter is commonly used to report game updates and final scores, with the largest volume of teams being high school. This is why there is a much more significant amount of “High School Lacrosse” tweets during the months of the season. However, because there are larger fan bases of the college teams, in the off-season months the “College Lacrosse” volume on Twitter becomes more relevant than high school ones. 

Lacrosse is not unique in the sense that it is an entertaining sport to play and spectate. However, examining other sports, it is clear that playing does not translate to viewership of the sport. To create a stronger link between playing and viewership, the sport has to gain more social prominence. A great way to achieve that is to try and maximize the amount of dynamic text that is being posted online. The only way to do that is through an increase of content and storytelling that is provocative or incites conversation. Currently, there is a deficiency in the volume that lacrosse is talked about on Twitter. The most reasonable explanation for that is that there is nothing worth talking about. As someone who loves the game I do not believe that to be true, but it certainly does reveal that the current way information is presented online does not insight engagement.