Social media has an extreme impact on the sports industry. From engagement with fans to sharing important information, social media is vital in the sports community. The article, “Sport, Public Relations and Social Media,” written by Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes, discusses social media’s importance in the modern sports era. The authors include information about how “the English Football Association’s Women’s Super League developed a digital ambassador programme to provide an insight into the lives of leading players and encourage more girls and women to engage in the sport” (Boyle and Haynes, 2014, p.14). Social media assists in support for women to become more interactive within the sports community.

 We can compare this to Sport England’s “This Girl Can” campaign, first launched in early 2015. This Girl Can was put in motion to take hold of the gender gap in sports participation between men and women in the UK. Their main goal was to “tell the real story of women who play sport by using images that are the complete opposite of the idealized and stylized images of women we are now used to seeing.” Along with Instagram and Twitter, This Girl Can has a website to promote its purpose and connect with the girls a part of the movement. The campaign was a complete success. One key aspect of this campaign’s achievement was that an online community was created for a group of individuals who are typically ignored when it comes to sports. A concept like this is a big deal for women in sports and all women in general. After learning about the This Girl Can organization, I immediately found their Instagram and shared it with my friends, highlighting the impact the organization had on me. Between their advertising on social media and their overall message, this organization has become very large. @thisgirlcanuk has 121K followers on Instagram with 2.3M posts using the hashtag #ThisGirlCan and almost 128K followers on Twitter.

Gender inequality is a massive ongoing issue within sports, so it is essential to promote women’s empowerment as often as possible. Seeing active women working towards their physical goals can inspire other women and, more importantly, younger girls. If you find yourself often lying-in bed scrolling on social media and seeing women active, then it may motivate you to become involved as well. Whether that means going to the gym or participating in a sport, both options are sufficient. That specific section of the article and the campaign are relatable because not only am I a girl, but I am also a girl trying to become more active. We always hear the terms, “you throw like a girl,” or the stereotype that all men are stronger than women, which can be very undermining, but campaigns such as This Girl Can and the program developed by the FA WSL work to help us ignore those negative influences.

I have included a link to the This Girl Can website if you wanted to check it out.

This Girl Can