FIG experienced significant fan growth on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. What was key to this success?

When the world was hit hard by the pandemic in March 2020, we had just started our ‘Road to Tokyo’ campaign. Rather than putting everything on hold, we decided to redirect our efforts to continue promoting our sports online. Inevitably, we had to re-evaluate our approach during these unprecedented times and developed an ‘alternative’ content strategy to overcome the challenges and maintain our presence on social networks throughout the year.

Our approach was to divert our energy into devising a content strategy which focused on historical events, athlete interviews and explanatory pieces on the evolution of Gymnastics in the absence of live events. We are in a fortunate position to have a good database of existing content and footage from previous FIG events, and the fact that we have 8 disciplines has been a great help to us.

The key for us was to be proactive during a time of high uncertainty. There were many unanswered question marks in 2020 and we had to devise various scenarios led by ‘what ifs?’. The pandemic is a test of agility and how quickly an organisation can adapt to challenging situations. I believe our team at FIG has demonstrated this in our digital communication efforts, and will continue to do so.

What does FIG have planned in the build-up to Tokyo 2020?

Tokyo 2020 is an important date for us in our calendar and there is huge interest around Gymnastics events. Inevitably, we will have to adapt our strategy to make the most out of this ‘new-norm’ during the pandemic and ensure we provide good content to our fans and followers around the world while highlighting the important milestones on the Road to Toyko.

Stay tuned and follow us on our FIG Digital Channels to find out more.

In one word, describe the past 12 months …

Great team work, despite the work from home being the new reality.