Are you managing social media? Whether you’re running a local club, national federation, or professional league’s social media, your social strategy is key to driving fan engagement, attracting sponsorship, and expanding your brand reach.
At Content Stadium, we’ve supported over 170 sports organizations—including rugby clubs, federations, and leagues—in creating and automating social media content. Based on what we’ve seen work (and what definitely doesn’t), here are 10 rugby social media content ideas and best practices that will boost your KPIs and drive real results.
Rugby social media strategies: Table of content
- Go all-in on posting your victories to maximize engagement
- Share real-time matchday content
- Create short-form over long-form videos to increase reach by 2.5x
- Combine carousels with video to tell full stories and increase time-on-post
- Customize content for each social media channel
- Build a stronger community with interactive content
- Automate your content to free up creative time
- Turn every post into a revenue opportunity
- Turn your players into content goldmines to double your reach
- Think global with your scheduling to grow your international fanbase
#1 Go all-in on posting your victories to maximize engagement
When you win, all the content you post on social media turns to gold. Even if it’s repetitive or lower-quality content than usual. Rugby fans are hungry for it. So capture every moment and every angle of every win, and post post post. This can be anything like team celebrations, individual reactions, coach quotes, or any game scene, just make sure to share as much content as you can.
Based on our experience, we’ve seen that victory content consistently drives the highest engagement. Whether you’re a small or medium team, don’t be shy about it and get inspired by what big teams do. With content ceation tools like Content Stadium, you can easily produce high-quality content just as good and at the speed every sport team needs.
Want to see a few victory content examples of rugby clubs and rugby leagues like Leicester Tigers or France Rugby Women? See below:
#2 Share real-time matchday content
Matchday content in real-time is pure engagement gold. But most clubs struggle to combine live action with proper branding and sponsor elements, and even more during major events like the Rugby League World Cup or the Championscup.
Social media tip: Plan your entire content schedule ahead of matchday and mix it with real-time content, from your game line-up, trainings, to player arrivals, goal celebrations, and final result posts. Make sure to use branded elements like fonts, custom frames, player stickers, and sponsor logos to make every story and post aligned with your brand.
Union Bordeaux Bègles has mastered this approach, creating engaging live rugby content that keeps fans glued to their feeds and stories during games:
#3 Create short-form over long-form videos to increase reach by 2.5x
Short-form videos get 2.5x more engagement than long-form content. If you’re not doing Instagram Reels, Stories, YouTube Shorts or even TikTok, you’re missing out big time.
The Spanish Rugby 7s team introduced their players with a fun “Meet the Team” TikTok that went viral. Leicester Tigers did the same with their “Kit Room Questions” series. These casual, authentic UGC videos help fans connect emotionally with your team:
@svnsseries Meet the Spanish Rugby 7s team 🔥 #hsbcsvns #hsbcsvnsdxb #rugbyboys ♬ original sound – HSBC SVNS
No editing expertise? No problem. Tools like Content Stadium‘s video editor let you create branded clips in seconds through one single platform, allowing you to add intro’s and outro’s, automated captions and branding elements without editing skills.
#4 Combine carousels with video to tell full stories and increase time-on-post
Why choose between images and video when you can have both? Carousels aren’t just for photos. Carousel posts that mix branded graphics with video clips tell fuller stories and grab more attention and boost time-on-post.
Content idea: Bristol Bears nailed this with a throwback carousel combining branded templates with match footage from 2018. Simple but powerful #TBT content that reconnected fans with the club’s history. Or see how the Spanish Rugby Federation shared a joint carousel post about the player Antón Leborguru for being the nominee for the best try from the SVN Series 2025:
#5 Customize content for each social media channel
Instagram isn’t X. Youtube isn’t TikTok. Stop posting the same content everywhere. What works on one social media channel, may flop on another one.
As the Fédération Française de Rugby (FFR) puts it: “Each platform has its own codes and its own demographic. You don’t talk to everyone in the same way, and everyone has different interests. We adapt to the codes and the audiences.” France Rugby, for instance, regularly publishes social media posts in both French and English to connect with their local and global fanbase.
Meanwhile, the Australian Football League (AFL) has grown its TikTok presence to over 600K followers by sharing bite-sized live rugby highlights, fan or celebrity moments, press conferences, and behind-the-scenes content tailored to Gen Z. Like this post featuring Katy Perry meeting AFL, that got a total of 5M views, or memorable live highlights that resonate with younger audiences.
@afl @Katy Perry in her AFL element 😍 #afl #katyperry #football #grandfinal #celebrity @Telstra ♬ original sound – afl
@afl Who remembers AFLX? 😮💨🔥 #afl #footy #aflx ♬ original sound – afl
Not all platforms—or fans—are the same. Different platforms attract different demographics: age groups, interests, and engagement styles. And each social media channel has its own specific content sizes. To maximise visibility and engagement, every rugby club, league, or federation needs to tailor their social media srategy to the tone, format, and expectations of each channel.
Did you know that with Content Stadium you can easily create any kind of content for your social media channels for any size? For example for your YouTube thumbnails, perfect for sharing your rugby full matches replay, or Youtube Community posts:
Create rugby content faster with Content Stadium
Ready to level up your rugby social media game? These strategies work, but only if you have the right tools to execute them quickly and consistently. That’s where Content Stadium comes in—helping you create professional, on-brand content at the speed of a sport like rugby.
With Content Stadium solutions like Smart templates, PSD templates, AI & content automation, rugby live content app, and video editor, content creation is now possible for everyone in your rugby organization—from social media managers to graphic designers, partners, and more!
Book your demo to discover how Content Stadium helps rugby clubs, leagues & federations with content creation and benefit from our all-in-one platform.
#6 Build a stronger community with interactive content
Community beats followers every time. The best way to build that community? Interactive content that makes fans feel like they’re part of the action.
Try Q&A sessions with players, fan polls, match predictions, or creative quizzes, run user-generated content campaigns during major tournaments and use Instagram question stickers and X polls to boost interaction.
Here’s a social media post example of New Zealand Rugby using a Carousel to showcase the answers of their fans. Another way to build a strong community with interactive content is by driving traffic to your website and make users interact with your content directly there, like Transfermarkt did by using a poll widget from Content Stadium:
#7 Automate your content to free up creative time
Matchdays are chaos. Fans expect instant, professional content during Champions Cup games or Rugby League World Cup matches. But creating quality posts in real-time shouldn’t eat up all your time.
The solution? Smart automation. Automation ensures consistency and branding while freeing your team to create more unique and creative content for specific campaigns.
Rugby Nationale used Content Stadium automation to share their full J29 matchweek programme on X in seconds—no manual work, just one click. How? With Content Stadium smart templates, matchday info like game dates, line-ups, rankings and more are automatically pulled into Content Stadium templates, saving social media teams time for content creation.
Another content example is the composition post shared on LinkedIn by Union Bordeaux Bègles, who revealed their 23-player squad for their Top 14 clash by using one of their smart Content Stadium templates.
Curious to see it in real-time? Watch the video below or book a demo today to see how your team can benefit too:
You can always be creative and think about other ways to repurpose your social media posts as Union Bordeaux Bègles did. They repurposed their composition social media post into a carousel for Instagram:
#8 Turn every post into a revenue opportunity
We’ve seen Content Stadium clients increase matchday revenue by 15% through better sponsor integration and live matchday campaigns.
Stop thinking of social media as just “engagement”—think of it as a revenue driver, as every social mmedia post is a chance to make money. Learn how to integrate sponsors naturally into your content, partner with brands for exclusive giveaways and behind-the-scenes content or use your channels to drive ticket sales with engaging visuals and strategic posting. Need inspiration? Check these social media content examples from France Rugby and tickets sales content from Bath Rugby on Instagram.
With Content Stadium, rugby clubs, leagues and federations can also get ready-to-publish sponsored content for all their social media channels. Easy, fast, and ready to publish in seconds:
#9 Turn your players into content goldmines to double your reach
Every rugby player is a walking content opportunity. Fans don’t just want to see the team—they want to know the individual personalities behind the jersey. So spotlight your players relentlessly. Gen Z fans especially care more about individual athletes than entire teams. When you highlight players, you’re not just building emotional connections—you’re creating content that gets reshared by the players themselves, doubling your reach instantly.
Bath Rugby nailed this when they congratulated Finn Russell for being top performer while tagging sponsor Champagne Pol Roger. Smart move—celebrating the player AND the partner in one post. Crusaders Rugby did it even better with Noah Hotham’s contract extension. They created a joint post that hit both their audience and his. Double the engagement, double the reach.
Pro tip: Feature international players, not just local stars. Your global audience will love it.
#10 Think global with your scheduling to grow your international fanbase
Rugby is a global sport. Your fans are everywhere, so act like it. Post rugby matchday times in multiple time zones like The Federación Española de Rugby did by creating a clear two-slide carousel with full schedules for both men’s and women’s matches. France Rugby instead, used a world map to show global kickoff times:
This simple tactic makes it easier for international fans to follow your games and shows you care about your global audience.
More sports social media ideas
- Get inspired by 15 football content ideas and strategies.
- Discover how SPORT1 creates 5 times more graphics per day with Content Stadium, compared to Photoshop.
- Read our interviews with football clubs PSV Eindhoven and FC St.Gallen 1879 on their social media strategies and what works best for their clubs.
