The changing role of social media in motorsports

In years gone by, following one’s favourite team on Twitter largely amounted to enjoying the gentle joshing with pitlane rivals.

The banterous back-and-forth raised smiles but these days social media content is seen as a way of raising profiles, engagement, awareness and – ultimately – money.

Autosport spoke to key personnel from across different areas of motorsport to determined just how crucial a role social media now plays.

Team – “You can’t go quiet”

As alluded to above, in the past Formula 1 teams would largely post on social media in reply or retort to their rivals – often pithy, sometimes funny but almost solely engaging internally within the sport.

That is not a hard and fast rule, of course, but now the changing demographic of F1 support has led to substantial changes.

Seeing an influx of younger viewers, engaging with them, attracting them to support your team and drivers over others is now key, as Steve Nash, digital media producer at Haas, explains.

“Due to things like the growing of Drive to Survive, there’s more eyeballs on the sport than ever,” he told Autosport Business. “There are more storylines than ever, probably more personalities, and I think even with a younger demographic of driver who are much more social media savvy, who have grown up in a social media era, they’re all over it so you can’t go quiet, even between races.

“There’s also a breed of fans that follow the sport purely through social media. I’ve met people who that’s all they do, they don’t actually watch a race, they just watch the narrative.

“They watch highlights on YouTube, which is unusual, but it’s a thing. So how do we continue to tell that story to someone who might not have watched a race?”

Driving up engagement metrics to appeal to a burgeoning fanbase is fine – but social media is now an important aspect of negotiations with sponsors and prospective partners, all of whom are squabbling for space in a bustling marketplace.

“Something you’ve seen across social media and sport and more in F1 now is branded posts,” adds Nash. “You might have them sponsor your FP1 result or other similar things. It’s always front of your mind; it has to be. We have to think how we are giving good balance to all the partners.”

Nash believes there is a fine line between including partners in social media output organically and creating content that is “obviously forced” and has the opposite effect on users.

“We have measuring tools for partners. You can put any of our partners in, and it will say what their monetary value is or what they’ve got back across our post, whether it’s directly mentioned or indirectly,” he said.

“Partners have a certain number of posts written into their contracts, how many posts they get a year, that we have to actually post about them or their piece of content.

Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing celebrates with Lewis Hamilton’s phone on the podium

Photo by: Sutton Images

“It’s almost like a selling tool for partners as well. If you have good socials, they can see what you’re doing for other businesses, they want a piece of that pie. So it’s constant.

“That’s the thing, social media always just used to be about people posting what they were up to, and now it is a platform to build a brand, grow a brand, promote a brand, grow a team, drive fan engagement, create new fans.”

Driver – “If you ignore social media, then forget it”

Lewis Hamilton has over 47.5million followers combined across his social media accounts, a number that increased by 51,000 on his first official day as a Ferrari driver.

The first picture of him decked in the red of the Scuderia quickly became the most-liked F1 post in Instagram history having amassed 4.3million likes.

Such numbers proved in an instant what Hamilton brings away from the track, as well as his seven world championships on it.

Not all drivers are as open to posting on social media, with former Ferrari man Sebastian Vettel much more private than Hamilton.

There is no right or wrong way to approach social media but in the current climate it is, according to Jacques Heckstall-Smith – manager of Alex Albon – a “non-negotiable”.

“You can’t ignore social media now. If you ignore social media, then forget it,” he tells Autosport. “It is non-negotiable. You have to embrace it. You don’t have a choice. It’s an integral part of communicating now, not only with your fanbase and media and partners but also it’s an integral part of communicating on behalf of your own team.

Alex Albon, Williams Racing, takes a selfie with a fan

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“Your team and their partners have an expectation on you to be taking social media seriously and delivering good content and delivering interesting, engaging content.

“The traditional and digital media landscape is constantly evolving, and Formula 1’s audience is constantly evolving, we are seeing that the most valuable communication tool, or one of, is social media.”

Having that online presence for the team and partners dovetails nicely with the recent boom in fans wanting to engage with their favourite drivers away from a race weekend.

The F1 fan culture has developed in such a way that drivers can interact with it as much or as little as they please.

“I think historically, the access to drivers has been quite restricted, and fans have never seen what the drivers do between events or even at the team’s factory,” adds Heckstall-Smith.

“The only insight to their life, their profession is when they’re at the racetrack through the traditional broadcasters whereas now, the demographic, the audience of Formula 1 is not 50-60-year-old men.

“It’s female teenagers that crave that lifestyle and they want to know what it is like to live that high life, that celebrity life, that fame and stardom. That’s where the demand is to know what do the drivers do? What do they eat? Where do they live? What do they wear? What places do they go to socialise? Who do they hang out with?

“You can’t deliver that kind of access through any other means than your own personal social media. Some drivers are highly engaged with that, and they are happy to tell that side of their life, and they don’t find it too intrusive, and they actually enjoy it, Others are a little bit more reserved and, don’t want that invasion.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1, and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes AMG F1, look at their phones

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Series – “An always-on, two-way conversation”

Just like with teams, series face the challenge of retaining social media engagement between race weekends.

Formula E, for example, hosts 16 E-Prix over the course of a season, which spans from December through to the London finale in July.

The biggest gap between rounds is 56 days with the Miami ePrix on April 12 next up on the calendar following round four in Jeddah on February 15.

“Historically social media was very much used almost as a broadcast information channel and the way that I think we are thinking about it from a marketing perspective is very much allowing us to talk to our fans much more, 24/7, 365 days a year,” Ellie Norman, chief marketing officer for Formula E told Autosport.

“We obviously only have 16 races in the calendar and those races are typically 45 minutes long, so what social media allows us to do is really talk to our fans outside of those 16 races, outside of that 45 minutes and actually have more of a dialogue with them.

“With motorsport there’s always so many storylines that extend beyond the racetrack and I think we’ve certainly seen in recent years the appetite and the interest that fans have in terms of those storylines so that is one element of how we continue to engage with our fans outside of the races.

“We think about it as essentially an always-on, two-way conversation and the ability that when we’re working with influencers and any talent that we’re partnering with that we are again using their social channels in order to take Formula E in a relevant, authentic voice to their audiences.”

Jake Dennis, Andretti Global, takes a selfie with a fan

Photo by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Images

Bringing in new fans is key for the long-term success of any series and Norman believes the social media drive is a fine way of tracking progress in that area – and one that also proves useful when seeking new commercial opportunities.

“Social is a brilliant indicator of health in terms of the championship and so the more that people are aware of the championship, the more likely they are to follow us and essentially it provides that visibility factor of being easily found and easily available,” she said.

“It does really help to reach new fans and to deepen that engagement with existing and new fans throughout the year – so fundamentally more fans and more affinity typically will lead to more opportunities to grow revenue for the sport, so it’s a really important element to how we grow the championship and clearly the overall enterprise value for the sort of sport as well.

“Historically, if you were to think about how social media was used for partners it was almost seen as fulfilling a contract and now what we do with our commercial partners is sit down with them to understand what role social and content could play for them, who is the audience that we’re talking to.”

Broadcaster – “A huge part of our strategy to grow fandom”

Sky Sports F1 has been the home of the series in the UK and Ireland since 2012 and its award-winning coverage is now taken in other markets, such is the output and quality of its shoulder programming.

It too, though, has to have a presence online, not only engaging its core audience of subscribers but also as a marketing tool to drive potential new customers towards the more traditional, paid-for content.

“It plays a really crucial role in that it serves as both a content distribution channel and a way to engage fans and enhance our live offering,” Andy Gill, head of social media and audience development at Sky Sports, told Autosport.

Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal and General Manager, Scuderia Ferrari, dons a McLaren cap for an iinterview with Ted Kravitz, Sky Sports F1, after the race

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“It also helps drive viewership to our live broadcasts by keeping fans connected to the sport between races and we’re able to generate excitement by not only keeping fans updated, but by making sure we’re telling the stories and pushing the race narratives forward in a social-first way.

“Social is also a huge part of our strategy to grow fandom among younger audiences. Under-35 and female fans are increasingly engaging with F1, with these fans being attracted as much to the personalities and human stories behind F1 as what is happening on the track.

“We use our channels to tap into this audience, which in turn we believe helps convince them on the value of watching live F1 on Sky Sports, driving future business growth.”

Engaging a new fan demographic to pull in viewers for live content is a key factor in Sky maintaining a social media presence among F1 fans.

Gill and his team must be striking the right balance, given the growth on Facebook and Instagram – with over 350million combined views – as well as a new, dedicated Sky Sports F1 TikTok channel.

But there are other ways in which accounts such as the @SkySportsF1 profile on X, formerly Twitter, help to bring in money.

“From a business perspective, social media is also a revenue driver,” explains Gill. “We can monetise through ad placements, sponsored content, and brand partnerships, but it’s important to strike the right balance between organic engagement and monetised content, without compromising the quality of output.”