How Austria’s snowboard alpine athletes use social media
Feb 10, 2023·Alpine Snowboard
A drone captures a pair of slaloming snowboarders rhythmically swerving left, right, left, right, carving lines on a white canvas snowscape.
The Instagram-perfect post shows World Cup alpine snowboarders and friends Arvid Auner and Benny Karl. The latter’s caption reads:
“Thx bru @arvid_auner. Always fun riding with you.”
A solo rider snakes down the slope in a stunning mountain vista, a hazy mauve sky darkening towards the day’s end.
“Just epic vibes here,” posts Auner with a smattering of heart and fire emojis. “It’s not work, it’s passion,” he continues, before thanking Karl for “sharing this passion every day”.
Instagram was made for this kind of content. The Austrian teammates share joy and passion for their sport, posting from some of the most beautiful places on Earth. But authenticity is also key to being successful on social media as an athlete, Auner told FIS ahead of the 2022/23 season in a message exchange about the importance of showing the ‘real side’ of life as a professional snowboarder.
“At the end of the day you are like a product and Instagram is a platform to promote it like you want,” the 26-year-old says. “For me I want to show myself as Arvid Auner. No artist version of myself, just a nice guy with good vibes in my mind and a lot of love to spread to the world. I want that they see my progress over years, in my sports career, but also personally I want to show my best version of myself, day by day.”
Karl, the five-time world champion and current parallel giant slalom Olympic champion, agrees: “My way is to do the best job there what I can do; being authentic and let the people feel what kind of human I am!”
The last bit is key. With riders swaddled in jackets, helmets and goggles, it can be difficult for fans to get to know the people behind the masks, so posting behind-the-scenes content or training videos showcases their personalities, not only for themselves but also for potential commercial gain.
“I put a lot of work into social media,” says Karl, whose lengthy career – which began with his first World Cup race in 2004 – has coincided with the social media boom. The 37-year-old now embraces platforms as additional income generators. “It’s my own media platform. I can tell the people what’s important for me. I often plan what themes I would post and what it should say to the people. Every post is a little message to the people how I feel and what I do.”
Posting can be time consuming, he concedes, but concludes: “It‘s part of the game and part of my job. It’s already a thing I earn money with.”
Social mobility
Others have a more haphazard approach. Austria’s Olympic silver medallist, Daniela Ulbing, is a little more reticent about putting herself out there and only posts “when I feel like it”, she says. “For me it‘s neither time-consuming nor do I put time aside,” but she agrees that whatever she posts, authenticity is key.
“In my opinion, everyone has to find his/her individual path how to work on and use social media. For me, I like to snowboard but not necessarily put myself in the limelight.”
Auner doesn’t have a social media schedule but posts regularly. He does, however, restrict himself to a limit of 90 minutes on Instagram per day so he “does not spend hours” on the platform.
“I don’t have a schedule for my social media,” he says. “I should have but in real life I am posting like crazy and it’s coming out of my feelings. If I feel that I have to share this, then I do it. It could be in the morning, at night, whatever, but the nice thing about it is, that I am standing up for my content and it’s my very own choice what I am posting.”
Two-time Olympian and fellow Austrian Alex Payer is similar. “I try to put away some time each day but mostly it happens instead cause you never know before what will happen next.... But content for and with partners I plan in front.”
The 33-year-old also agrees that posting can be an additional revenue stream. “It definitely takes a lot of time but on the other hand it opens a new chance for partners and sponsors, so without this opportunity, sport would not be easy to finance.”
Maintaining a balance between posting content and keeping up with the actual day job can be challenging, says Auner. “For sure it takes a lot more time to manage it. I want to stay in touch with so many people especially when they are interested in my life and in my sport.
“Sometimes I don’t reply for a long period. That’s not because I don’t want to but there is some other stuff to do, for example training to get better, making the content greater, keeping the ideas for social media up to date.”
“I think Instagram is awesome to show what our sports are all about,” Payer says, “but you need to keep the focus in sport too – not just living your life on the Gram.”
As representatives of their sport, athletes need to be a little careful with their content and, as such, Auner has a very special editor he turns to: his grandma. “You have to be gentle with your content, because there are thousands of people looking at it from another view.
“Often when I want to explain something very important on social media, I explain it first to my grandmother, my mother, siblings, friends and some friends which are in my sport. So I get feedback from them and then I can make a very good text to explain my thoughts about a topic simple and structured.”
If a post gets past grandma, Auner should be safe.
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The next event for the snowboard alpine ski season is the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships taking place in Bakuriani, Georgia from 19 February to 5 March. The snowboard alpine races take place 19 February (PGS), 21 February (PSL), and conclude with mixed parallel slalom on 22 February.
Returning to the World Cup tour, Livigno (ITA) hosts both disciplines on 11-12 March. Races in Rogla (SLO) on 15 March, and Berchtesgaden (GER) on 18-19 March, round out the season.
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