Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 8, 2020: In a bid to help players boost their social media profile around the world, the Badminton World Federation partnered with one of the world’s leading digital and social consultancy agencies, Seven League, to deliver its Star Creation Programme.
The Star Creation Programme is designed to help grow both the global popularity of badminton players and of badminton as a sport.
Over the past six months leading athletes Kim Astrup (DEN), Mia Blichfeldt (DEN), Ashwini Ponnappa (IND), Sapsiree Taerattanachai (THA) and Beiwen Zhang (USA) participated in a practical social media tutoring course with the goal to:
*Enhance their social media skills and understanding
*Grow their social media followers
*Generate better engagement with their fans
*Build their personal brand
*Inspire the next generation of players and fans
*Increase their brand value
In April 2020, the five players graduated from phase one of the pilot programme taking away with them a number of social media best practices.
“The programme was great,” said Ponnappa. “I loved the creative ideas that were shared. I have definitely enjoyed posting and being more open about sharing things.”
BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund said he hoped each Star Creation athlete would encourage their peers to consider joining the programme.
“Hopefully, this will inspire all our players to become even more active on social media to create even more attention on themselves as stars and badminton in general,” he said.
The next step is to commence advanced interview and media training tips to help prepare athletes for major tournaments like the Olympic Games.