When it comes to fan engagement, Missy Franklin is unsurprisingly second to none.
With her bubbly and charismatic personality, Franklin shares her love of hot tea, the Denver Broncos and Bobby Flay’s cooking shows with her thousands of followers on social media. With a little more than four months until the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, Franklin is inviting her fans along on a different platform.
Franklin has signed with GoPro for a series called Finding Missy, which the company is scheduled to announce Monday.
“I just loved it; it was so fun and such a great way to capture everything I was doing, with all the traveling,” she says of filming with a GoPro, which she has done since her senior year in high school.
When talks with GoPro started last year, she was able to show them video she had shot with their product, such as a concert of Christian artists performing at Red Rocks Amphitheater.
One of the breakout stars of the 2012 Olympics, Franklin has announced a series of high-profile sponsorships in the last few months after turning pro in March 2015. She also signed with Wheaties and Visa recently.
For her path to a second Olympics after winning four gold medals at age 17 in London, Franklin says she loves sharing the experience with her fans. “It adds a whole other level with being able to interact with them,” she says.
Fan engagement is something she does well. She has 360,000 followers on Twitter and 263,000 on Instagram. Nearly 160,000 people like her page on Facebook.
The message she’d like to share in Finding Missy: “Be as authentic as possible,” she says. “There’s no point in going through life unless you are going through it as yourself.”
She hasn’t decided how she’ll handle her social media accounts during the Rio Games in August, she says. First she’s focused on Olympic trials in Omaha beginning in late June and before that an Arena Pro Swim Series meet in Mesa, Ariz., next month.
Finding Missy is a two-part series that debuts April 11.
GoPro will spotlight several Olympic athletes during their paths to Rio in the coming months. The company has introduced another series called Two Roads featuring nine Rio Olympic hopefuls and a gymnastics coach. The nine athletes represent a variety of sports, including fencing (Miles Chamley Watson), diving (Kristian Ipsen), beach volleyball (Casey Patterson), and track and field/pole vaulting (Allison Stokke) among others.
The IOC has changed its rules about sponsorships and the Olympics, allowing athletes to appear in generic or non-Olympic advertising during the Games. Companies that aren’t Olympic or Paralympic sponsors have to submit campaigns to the USOC for approval several months in advance.
Todd Ballard, vice president of Global Sports Entertainment Marketing at GoPro, says the company’s relationship with Franklin developed organically because she was already using the camera “just living every day. It made the decision that much easier,” he says of the partnership.
Ballard adds that it’s been exciting to work with athletes in sports that don’t normally have a platform to showcase their craft.
“For us to be able to bring them into the limelight, we think it’s great for athletes, great for sport and great for the Olympics,” he says.
Franklin posted a three-minute video of her travels to Beijing and Sri Lanka on Facebook.
“I love being able to share these experiences and show people things behind the scenes, something they wouldn’t see,” says Franklin, who turns 21 in May. “I feel so supported by my fans. It’s all a part of the journey. There’s so much they don’t see.”
She acknowledges her sport doesn’t get much attention outside Olympic years.
“If I can include them in this journey and show them it’s just not every four years for us. It’s every single day.”
