Unlike high-budget movie stars, a lot of sports celebrities are open to communication with their fans. Of course, a lot will depend on the person, but often, you will have a chance to reach out, no matter if you want to make a specific offer, ask for a photograph, or simply express your appreciation. Below, we will discuss the top channels that can get you in touch with sports celebrities and offer some actionable tips on how to boost your chances of getting a response.
Top Social Media Channels
Everyone uses social media these days, especially celebrities. Often, social media channels are managed by other people (publicists, agents, etc.), but sometimes, sports stars take care of their social media coverage themselves. Here are the top sites to get started.
As one of the largest social media sites that support both personal accounts and public pages, Facebook is the top choice to start. Often, celebrity personal pages are private, but there is always a chance that the person you are looking for has a public page. That is the best — even if not a direct — way to interact with your favorite star. You can, of course, try your luck and send a direct message, but commenting on public posts is often a more effective strategy. Yes, this may take time, but if you regularly interact with celebrity posts, Facebook will mark you as a top fan, and this little badge will give your comments/messages more value.
Even though Instagram now belongs to Facebook, getting the celebrities’ attention here may be trickier. Still, the same logic applies — follow the people you want to contact and start by building a meaningful relationship through comments and feedback. Try not to overdo it, though. Remember, no one loves a stalker. So, always stay to the point and be polite.
Even though a tweet has a very short lifespan, you can still see all of them on the celebrities’ accounts. Respond to any Twitter update you like and try to convey your message. You can also try direct messaging on Twitter, but if the person you are trying to contact is leading a busy lifestyle or allocates social media management to someone else, this will usually be useless. So, the same logic applies — stay persistent (without being creepy) and try to build a meaningful online connection.
Reach Out Via Official Websites
Not every sports celebrity will have an official website, but if the person you are looking for has one, you can try using an online form or emailing to an address in the contact section. Sure, this suggestion has the same downside as reaching out via social media — corporate websites are often managed by someone else. If your message really stands out, there is a chance that the manager will forward it to a celebrity. If it doesn’t, it will usually get lost among tons of other messages. And that leads us to the next point — contacting celebrities directly.
Send a Direct Mail
Today, very little information is truly private, and there is always a chance to lay your hands on celebrities’ contact details. The downside of this method is that effective contact finders usually run on paid subscriptions, so it’s better to use them when you have something very important to say. Not that they are too expensive (some even have free trials), but reaching out to someone you do not know personally (especially a celebrity) may come off as a violation of privacy. So, you should only resort to this if your message is truly meaningful and cannot wait.
If that is your case, we suggest you start searching with SignalHire. This tool has an online database that supports individual search by name and an online plugin that works with social media. The plugin could even be more convenient. For example, when looking at Kelvin Beachum’s Facebook profile, click on the SH browser extension to get Kelvin’s full contact info, including phone number, email, links to social media accounts, etc.
Of course, no database, no matter how large, can have contact info on everyone. If you cannot find a celebrity you are looking for in SignalHire’s 400+ million database, you can try a different approach. Following our example of reaching out to Mr. Beachum, you can try bulk searching for everyone in the Arizona Cardinals Football Club. The search will redirect you to popular email templates used in the club. From there, you can try several combinations — one of them will definitely work.
Making Sure Your Message Is Well-Received
As you can see, there is always a way to drop a line to a celebrity. Still, finding contact info and sending a message is only half of the deal. The most important part is to make sure your message does not end up in trash or spam. Here are some suggestions that should help with that:
- Write only if you have something meaningful to say. After all, reading through someone’s random ramblings can be annoying.
- Always remain polite. Keep in mind that you are contacting a stranger and act accordingly. Keep your tone reasonably informal and try to stay neutral.
- Don’t bury the lead. If you have something specific to say, do it quickly because most sports celebrities are pressed for time. When writing an email, try to make use of the subject line and an email snippet — those are the first things any recipient sees before even opening an email. More importantly, those are the main factors that define if an email even gets opened. Try to make those brief, informative, and personal.
- Appeal to emotion. Speaking of personal, appealing to emotions is the best attention hook. Here, the point is not to praise the celebrity but to explain why you are reaching out to them and what exactly do you want. If your offer or suggestion is in line with the recipients’ personality, your message will have higher odds of coming across. And if you are not sure what exactly can appeal to your celebrity’s personal side, get back to your first suggestion — follow your star sports person on social media and try to get some insight into their personality before reaching out directly.
Finally, do not despair if you do not get a reply straight away. Do not forget that famous people get a lot of attention and not all of them are equally excited about it — especially sports celebrities. Often, they are pro athletes who care more about their professional achievements than worldwide popularity. Still, if your message has a point and appeals to basic human emotion, there is a chance it will be noticed.