CrossFit across Three Platforms: Using Social Media to Navigate Niche Sport Challenges

Niche sports have limited opportunities to promote their sport offerings via traditional communication channels and may rely upon alternatives such as social media to accomplish their marketing goals (Puchan, 2004). Williams and Chinn (2010) developed a relationship marketing conceptual framework to examine social media usage and marketing within a sports context. This study used the framework with the burgeoning sport of CrossFit and examined three primary organizational relationship-marketing activities: (a) Information, (b) Interaction, and (c) Promotion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of social media by key members of the CrossFit community. The study addressed the following research questions: RQ1. What are the usage categories similarities and differences observed across the social media platforms? RQ2. What are the group usage similarities and differences observed across the social media platforms? and RQ3. What are the group usage similarities and differences observed across the usage categories? A content analysis of 5,565 Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube messages was used to explore these activities. The CrossFit social media users—CrossFit Games, regions, boxes, athletes, and sponsors—used the platforms primarily to provide information about the sport and interact with the community, while promotion was employed less frequently. CrossFit and other niche sports can use social media to provide information and build community within their sports, before attempting to create online communities and promote their products.