Making a Splash at the U.S. Olympic Swim Team Trials

by Gabby Crays | Jul 25, 2024 | Public Relations, Social Media

June was a historic month for both Indianapolis and Dittoe PR. Our social media and PR team members played a pivotal role in the development, planning and execution of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials. From media relations to social media management and strategic planning, let’s dive into some of the work we made a splash with.

Media Relations

A year before the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, our client Indiana Sports Corp requested two Dittoe PR members to be a part of their Local Organizing Committee (LOC) to support the Media and Communications team. Vice President, Strategic Initiatives Greta Snell joined the Impact committee as their PR Liaison, while PR Specialist Matt Waweru joined the Stakeholders Relations Group.

In Greta’s role, she helped brainstorm and coordinate storytelling opportunities relating to the impact efforts for the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials. Check out one of the stories Greta secured! During the event, she was a media operations volunteer, working directly with media in a variety of ways, but primarily acted as a photo marshall on the pool deck to check appropriate credentials and access and make sure no photos were taken behind the blocks or during starts.

Matt led the charge on finding speaking opportunities with community groups to discuss the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, the various ways individuals or groups can get involved through volunteer shifts and to promote ticket sales. During the event, he was a media operations volunteer alongside Greta and oversaw the onsite media and photographers, helped with check-in, assisted with press conferences and even had his hand in helping get social media content for Dittoe PR and Indiana Sports Corp!

Social Media

Social media planning began over a year before the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials. We worked closely with our client Indiana Sports Corp and their partners to understand their overall business and social media goals and how we could best position them through our initiatives. Through these conversations, we created a high-level strategy to ensure our content aligned with their objectives. Our pre-promotional efforts included drafting ticket promotions, sharing volunteer opportunities, launching paid ads to boost organic content, and attending press conferences to share real-time updates through Instagram Reels and Instagram Story takeovers.

A month leading up to the event, we received the run of show that detailed a timeline of events. From this, our team created a comprehensive strategy that broke down content plans for the 10 days Dittoe PR would be onsite. This social media strategy acted as our master sheet for Dittoe PR, Indiana Sports Corp and outside organizations, including Butler University, that were assisting with execution support. Strategic plans outlined what we’d be sharing on different social media platforms, the type of medium and caption ideas.

As a team, we conducted trend research for video content to ensure we were capturing content relevant to the audience and the event itself and would support the overall business goals. During the planning phase, we held several meetings with Indiana Sports Corp to ensure both teams were aligned. We communicated edits and merged our social media content ideas achieving optimal collaboration into a 23-page social media campaign brief – the most extensive strategic build to date.

After years and months of anticipation, June 14 finally arrived and we dove head first into 10 straight days of swimming excitement! We kicked off the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials with their USA Swimming Live Block Party and marked the beginning of a historic event with the lighting of the Eiffel Tower replica on Georiga Street.

Gabby + Mia at the Eiffel Tower replica.

Over 10 days, our team created 34 original Instagram Reels, receiving an average of 15K+ views each and garnering 1.1M+ in total video views. We collaborated with accounts including USA Swimming, Visit Indy, MySwimPro and more to tap into their audience for additional amplification. These efforts helped us gain over 2.6K followers across the event cycle and achieve a follower milestone of 6,000+ followers on Instagram. Check out some of the fun video content our team created!

Dittoe PR’s social media team has worked with Indiana Sports Corp since 2021, teaming up on events such as NCAA March Madness, NCAA Final Four, Big Ten Football Championship, College Football Playoffs and more, but the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials might just take the cake!

Looking for expert guidance on social media strategy? Need event assistance? Get in touch!