“Welcome on Curling Swamp” Launch by Curling Associations on YouTube Gains Positive Feedback!
Dramatic Victory Leaves Official Account “Too Shaky to Tweet Well
Following the PyeongChang Olympics, the Japanese women’s curling team, Rocco Solare, has been fighting hard at the Beijing Olympics. Their success has rekindled the curling fever in Japan, with the topic of curling being covered in the news every day and trending on social networking sites, creating more excitement than ever before.
With the success of the Loko Solare, the activities of the Japan Curling Association have been attracting a lot of attention from fans.
Many of you may have seen the news about the official account’s tweet “My hands are shaking a little ……” after the dramatic victory over Denmark. The Japan Curling Association’s official SNS account and official YouTube channel have been steadily increasing the number of followers and subscribers as curling gains momentum.
The Japan Curling Association is now setting up a “curling swamp. The term “curling swamp” is one of the measures taken by the Japan Curling Association, and is a hot topic on the official YouTube channel of the JCA. Welcome to the Curling Swamp! Under the title of “Welcome to the Curling Swamp!”, the channel provides a live feed of the unknown roles and attractions of each curling position, such as “skip” and “lead,” as well as a recap of Japan’s matches during the Olympics, with the participation of the current top players.
In addition to Sayaka Yoshimura, Kaho Onodera, Anna Omiya, and Yumie Funayama of Fortius, the rival team that competed with Loco Solare for Japan’s national title in September 2021, the program will also feature Takeshi Yamaguchi and Kosuke Morozumi of the PyeongChang Olympics men’s national team, as well as the current men’s national team, Consadole. Shinya Abe, Yasuma Tanida, and Tetsuro Shimizu of Consadole, Mao Ishigaki of Fujikyu, Mari Motohashi, the bronze medalist at the PyeongChang Olympics who launched Rocco Solare, and Miyo Ichikawa, who is currently active as a commentator.
Their commentaries, which are easy to understand and polite even for beginners, but also include maniacal points of view, have become popular.
Naoki Iwanaga, a member of the marketing committee of the Japan Curling Association and a three-time runner-up in the Japan Curling Championship, is the man behind the “curling swamp,” serving as the host and facilitator of the program, and is also in charge of the official SNS.
We asked Mr. Iwanaga, who has been busy promoting curling through social networking and YouTube, about the excitement of curling this year and the response of the curling swamp.
Rival teams that competed with Rocco Solare for the national team until the end also actively participate in the live streaming.
YouTube s “Welcome to the Curling Swamp! is a live-streaming channel, and chat comments are also available, so to be honest, I was a bit worried. But when we started the live streaming, we received so many positive feeds from the fans.
It made me happy, of course, but it was also very motivating for the players on the show.
The Fortius players in particular are looking forward to 2021. September 2021 In particular, the Fortius players are rivals with Loco Solare for the Japanese national team in September 2021, but now that Loco Solare has become the national team, they support each player of the Japanese national team to the fullest extent and actively participate in the post-game review.
They empathize with the value of promoting the sport of curling in Japan, enjoy it, have a sense of mission, and are very sincere and positive about it.
It seems that they want to see the current athletes, including themselves, as well as the younger generation, be able to play in a better environment.
Mr. Iwanaga is the one who organized “Curling Swamp,” but he also asks for the cooperation of Takeshi Yamaguchi and Anna Omiya, who have experience in the Olympics and are also members of the Japan Curling Association’s athlete committee, in the themes and content of each event.
Aside from the content of the program, another important point is that the guest appearances by the current top athletes are more spectacular, and the core fans are delighted whenever the guests are announced.
It is thanks to the efforts of Yamaguchi and Omiya that three or four top players from different teams are able to appear on the show each time, and this circle of players spreads among themselves, creating a virtuous cycle that attracts even more players. By inviting a variety of guests each time, there is a synergistic effect not only on the fans but also on the players.
I feel that the horizontal ties between the players have become very strong. The core of the team is Yamaguchi-kun and Omiya-san, but other players are also willing to help out when asked, and above all, it seems to be very refreshing to have players from different teams talking about a common theme in the same broadcast.
The key to “getting rid of the four The key to the “four-year break” is the fans who spread the information.
While the athletes and the JCA are working together as an “all-Japan” team to promote curling, Iwanaga feels that there is a big difference between the excitement in Pyeongchang and Beijing. He feels that there is a big difference between the excitement in Pyeongchang and Beijing.
In the past, the association has only posted information on its website and through the media. In the past, the Association’s main PR activities were to post information on its website, hold press conferences through the media, and send out press releases.
Most of the fans were enjoying curling individually, but after the PyeongChang Olympics, we created an official SNS account, and the fans started to communicate with each other. But after the PyeongChang Olympics, we created an official SNS account and prepared a “curling swamp,” and I realized that people started to feel “excited together” with us.
When I tweeted the results of a game, people retweeted it with their own comments and impressions, or left chat comments on YouTube. Not only the fans, but also the association and the players are getting excited with a sense of unity.
In this way, as fans get excited together and various information spreads from fan to fan, questions from novice fans are answered by core fans, and advanced shots are praised repeatedly.
As a result, the media began to focus less on “Sodane” and “Mogumogu Time” and more on the essential aspects of the sport.
YouTube The number of views on YouTube has been increasing, and I feel that people are becoming more interested in the content of the competition. The number of YouTube views is increasing, and I feel that people are becoming more interested in what’s going on in the competition. We alone are limited in our ability to communicate the depth of the competition, but as the number of core fans who understand the competition increases, the essential appeal of the competition is spreading to the fans.
One message from the association One message from the association can be spread 100 times or 1,000 times by the fans. times or 1,000 times. Of course, I have high expectations for the media as well. Of course, I have high expectations for the media, but it’s really encouraging that the fans are spreading the appeal of the sport even more than that.
While Japan’s national team is playing every day, Mr. Iwanaga is active on all fronts, including Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube video streaming, but his main job is as a company employee at the American branch of a Japanese company.
His main job is as an office worker at a Japanese company’s U.S. branch office. He does live streaming for Japanese fans from 8 to 10 p.m., which is 4 to 7 a.m. local time, and he also broadcasts the results of tournaments in real time. What is the driving force behind Mr. Iwanaga?
As a competitor, I was selected as a designated athlete and had the opportunity to participate in training camps overseas, but I haven’t left any achievements as a representative of Japan. I owe much more to curling than I have contributed to it.
When I thought about what I could do to help the development of curling, I had experience as a company employee, and I have more experience than an athlete in how to manage an organization. I thought I might be able to find a place where I could play an active role and leave something behind. It’s my way of giving back to curling.
Curling used to be called a “once-in-four-years sport” despite the excitement it generated every time the Olympics were held, but now its popularity is finally taking hold. I have a feeling that the Beijing Olympics will lead to a surge in the number of fans who are immersed in the curling swamp.
For the official YouTubechannel of the Japan Curling Association, click here.
Interviewed and written by: Daisuke Takahashi