Best Marketing
see nominees below...
LI-Kick Social Team. The LI-Kick Social Team is a mix of part time staff and dedicated players who direct, act and produce fun short form videos displaying the joys of social sports. In 2025, Social Team members produced 123 videos which were posted on LI-Kick's Instagram feed, Instagram reels, Instagram stories, TikTok feed, Facebook page and Facebook Groups. This user generated content far outproduced the work any professional agency could. These videos display the personality of the league, while featuring members community.
Examples of videos produced by the Social Team;
Overview
This year, SSC launched a jersey design contest that invited players to create and submit their own jersey designs for league play. Rather than relying on traditional promotional giveaways, the campaign was built around creativity, participation, and community pride — turning players from passive followers into active contributors to the SSC brand.
The objective was to increase engagement, strengthen emotional connection to SSC, and create organic, player-driven content that would resonate across our social media platforms.
Creative Concept & Execution
Players were invited to design their own jerseys and submit them as contest entries, with the chance to win and see their design featured. The campaign was promoted across social media and directly to league participants, encouraging both submissions and voting-style engagement as players shared their designs with teammates and friends.
By putting creative control in the hands of players, SSC made the campaign feel personal, fun, and highly shareable. Each submission became a mini story — teams rallied around designs, friends tagged each other, and the community organically amplified the campaign without paid advertising.
Results & Impact
The jersey contest became SSC’s highest-engagement social media campaign to date. It generated:
- Record levels of social media interaction
- Significant increases in likes, comments, shares, and saves
- Strong peer-to-peer sharing as players promoted their own designs
- Increased visibility of the SSC brand beyond our existing participant base
More importantly, the campaign strengthened the sense of belonging and ownership players feel toward SSC. Participants weren’t just playing in leagues — they were helping shape the look and identity of the community. A total of 8 winners were announced, one for each city SSC clubs has across Canada.
Why This Campaign Matters
What made this campaign successful was not just the numbers, but the mindset behind it. SSC’s brand is built on connection, play, and community, and this campaign reflected those values by celebrating creativity and participation instead of traditional marketing tactics.
The jersey contest showed that meaningful engagement doesn’t require large budgets — it requires understanding your audience and giving them a reason to be part of the story. By turning a uniform into a creative platform, SSC transformed a simple giveaway into a shared community experience.
This campaign is a strong example of how sport and social clubs can use authentic, participant-driven marketing to grow engagement, strengthen loyalty, and build vibrant, connected communities.
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"Coaches Quick Tips" is a dynamic social media video series that spotlights the heart of our programs—our coaches. Each short video delivers actionable volleyball advice, while showcasing the personality and passion that define our club. More than just a training tool, this series has become a powerful brand asset that is authentic, informative, and uniquely ours. By blending expert instruction with a personal touch, "Coaches Quick Tips" has increased community engagement, boosted social media shares, and set us apart from the competition. It's innovative not just in format, but in its impact—deepening player connections, building trust in our coaching, and driving home what makes our volleyball programs truly exceptional.
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Between the Seams Big City Volleyball Podcast on Spotify. In each episode, BCV sit down with coaches, referees, players and other influential figures at Big City Volleyball, unraveling their personal stories, triumphs, and challenges.
It’s always a challenge to strike the right balance between straight selling and soft marketing. This year, we made a deliberate effort to grow a larger, more engaged social audience—so that when we do sell, we’re speaking to people who already know us, like us, and want to be part of what we do.
We also wanted to create content for people in Houston who aren’t already players. What we realized pretty quickly is that the best approach was simply to be ourselves: fun, sporty, competitive, social, and always down for a good laugh. We began integrating fun reels and trending media into our social channels to test the waters—and the response has been incredible.
Instead of selling, we started posting as if we were a friend. The goal wasn’t just engagement, but connection. We wanted to humanize our brand, give people a laugh, and show the personality behind Houston Sports & Social. By involving our own employees in content, we were able to add a personal, relatable touch that made our brand feel more approachable and real.
In a world increasingly driven by AI and automation, we’ve made it a priority to lean into authenticity. We want our players—and our community—to feel that personal connection. Being genuine, having fun, and staying true to who we are has become the foundation of our marketing strategy. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s something our entire team is involved in and excited about.
The first was our Elmo reel, which capitalized on a trending moment at exactly the right time. Houston was buzzing about an incoming freeze (and as Houstonians, we tend to overreact). Historically, bad weather negatively impacts registrations, so instead of fighting it, we leaned into humor. The reel playfully called out players for skipping games because it was “too cold,” and it struck a chord. Players shared it widely, tagged their “whimpy” friends, and we ultimately sold out our Mix & Match that night (with thanks to SportsLink and Club Sport for helping us get that off the ground). It was all done in good taste and with humor our community appreciated.
The second post featured one of our own team members, Pedro Garcia, using a trend to spread holiday cheer. Pedro is usually behind the scenes—calling and texting captains and free agents—so showcasing him helped reinforce the “small club feel” we strive for, even as one of the largest social sports organizations in Houston.
The third post highlighted our commitment to being timely and local. During the annual Houston Marathon, we shared a photo of a funny sign spotted along the race route that read “Diddy is behind you.” The post sparked laughs online while also congratulating runners on their accomplishment. It resonated because it was funny, timely, and community-driven.
Together, these posts reflect how we use social media not just to market, but to build relationships, show personality, and create a sense of belonging. By leaning into humor, trends, real people, and local moments, we’ve been able to connect with both our existing players and the broader Houston community in a way that feels genuine—and fun. Here are the links to these posts:
JAM Sports - Indoor Softball "concept car" test. After having Ron Tite (a prior SSIA speaker) speak our our JAMboree company conference in October, we were excited by the idea of testing different initiatives and thinking of them as "concept cars". So on the backs of the Toronto Blue Jays success getting through to the World Series - we decided to test an Indoor Softball program, and see if it would help us fill unutilized Friday evening time at our indoor turf venue. We ran "Test Sessions" that were free and allowing players to try out different formats, rules, balls etc. These test sessions proved how much fun it was, and had customers excited to sign up for programs quickly. We created this piece of content from the test sessions, which got hundreds of thousands of views, big engagement and ended up selling out over 40 teams on a Friday evening timeslot through the winter without needing to spend a dollar on marketing. And now this program will be recurring as an indoor offering in fall and winter.