STRATEGIC

COMMUNICATION PLAN
Applying Bourdieus capital theory to Montluon
Triathlon

Felix Duchampt duchamptf@queens.edu

Queens University Of Charlotte

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Montluon Triathlon is a French triathlon team. It was created in 1986. It is open to

anyone who has a desire to start practicing and/or competing. For 28 years, the team has
encountered ups and downs. It has definitely the best results in the French state of Auvergne.
Many of its athletes have been selected to represent France in international events in junior,
under 23 and elite categories. In 1999, the team won the division 2 French national championships,
which sent it straight to division 1. At this point, mostly French people were competing, and
Montluon Triathlon was able to stay in the division 1 until 2013, with a team composed by a few
international athletes and young guns from the area. Even better, the team even ended on the
podium twice, getting third.
However, in 2013, after some internal problems that lead the elite coach and international
athletes to leave, the team had a rough year and eventually finished sixteenth in division 1,
which was synonym of going down to division 2. The team finished at a decent seventh place for its
first year at this level of competition. However, only the top three teams are allowed to go up to
division 1. The goal of the team for 2015 is to be part of those three best teams, to be able to go
back up and show the world of triathlon that it still deserves to be seen as one of the best French
triathlon teams ever.
Since 2013, the team struggles to attract great foreign athletes. However, other teams
competing for the French national title, which consists of being the best out of five stages from May
to September every year, has increased their numbers of foreigners, creating very high-quality
races. Many people refer it as the second world cup series. Indeed, in 2013, 18 out of the 20
best triathletes in the world were competing in the French national championship series. Montluon
Triathlon wants to be successful, but has not been able to provide good enough arguments to bring
foreigners to the team. The goal of this plan is to understand why it has not been working, and
eventually find a way to get fast foreigners to compete for the team.
It has been noticed that the team does not use social media skillfully. However, they have
become such an important part of everyone's life. Countless number of platforms exist, and it is up
to the user to decide which ones fit best. Specifically here, we are going to use Bourdieu's capital
analysis to help the team use Facebook and Twitter adequately to catch world-class foreigners'
attention, and eventually make them commit to the team.

Table of contents:
1/ Purpose
2/ Rationale
3/ Analysis
4/ Market Impacts
5/ Suggested Strategies
6/ Conclusion
7/ References list

PURPOSE

The purpose of this plan is to help the French triathlon team of Montluon Triathlon to
use social media efficiently in order to recruit foreign athletes who have already proven to be
excellent during international triathlon events. They would help the team to go back to division 1
after a tough year and keep it up in the ranking for several years.

ANALYSIS

Missions
To race at the highest level of competition in triathlon.
To represent the state of Auvergne and the city of Montluon in sports.
To enhance athletes' practices.
To provide a supportive, motivational and instructive environment for athletes.
To satisfy the needs of all members of the team.
To give a chance to everyone to train and compete.
To increase youth involvement in triathlon.
To develop kids' physiological, physical, technical and tactical capacities.
To have fun while doing triathlon.
Vision
To remain the best team in the state of Auvergne in triathlon.
To be in the top five in the nation.
To be one of the best teams in the state of Auvergne (all sports included).
To have more than 200 people in the team.
To offer great facilities and a great coaching staff.
Values
To be respectful, loyal and fair.
To be trusted.
To give people individual responsibility.
To have passion
To provide a welcoming and safe environment for learning and improvement.
To embrace diversity.
To have a good team spirit and work in collaboration.
To be innovative.
To strive for excellence.
To have a winning culture. `
In this strategic plan, we focus on how to improve the team's national ranking. In order
to follow its mission, vision, and values, which clearly show that Montluon Triathlon wants to be
at the top of the French hierarchy, it needs to recruit world-class foreigners to challenge other
teams that have already attracted some. Indeed, all the good French athletes already have teams and
most of them are not willing to transfer. Thus, greatness in triathlon has to come from somewhere
else.
Social media seem to be a great way to contact those athletes. Almost everyone on the
planet uses Facebook and/or Twitter. Without using them, it would be really hard to connect with
those world-class athletes. Other solutions would include traveling to world cup races or foreigners'
hometown and talk to them. That would be expensive though, and the language barrier could be
harder to overcome in face-to-face interactions. It appears to be easier, faster, and cheaper to create
well-structured Facebook and Twitter pages and use them efficiently to appeal triathletes from all
around the globe.

ANALYSIS

According to Bourdieu's capital analysis, there are five categories of resources in a

communication scenario. Those are institutionalization, economic capital, knowledge capital, social
capital, and symbolic capital.
Institutionalization
Institutionalization looks at an organization's human resources. Montluon Triathlon has a
few employees. There is one president, one secretary, one person looking at the budget, and two
full-time coaches, one for the kids and one for the elite team. In addition to that, many parents do
not hesitate to volunteer. Counting athletes, there is approximately 80 people in the club.
Concerning social media and recruiting, they do not have any specialist. Whenever someone from
the team meets a good athlete, he/she talks to him. In rare occasions, the team receives e-mails from
foreigners who are willing to compete for the team. But usually, if they ask, it means that they are
not that good. Three or four people have access to the Twitter and Facebook pages of the team, and
whoever has time can post on them, but it is clearly visible that posts, tweets and messages are not
professionally crafted.
Economic Capital
Economic capital looks at how much the team has invested and how much it is willing to
invest in the future. As I previously said, the team has not seen the need to hire a social media
specialist, or at least someone in the public relations area. The president is ready to pay foreigners
who will compete for the team, however, he still has not found any interesting one. The team has
sponsors, but sponsors want results. It is a vicious circle. The team has money, but it needs to use
it carefully to reach its goals. Plus, public relations do not have to be expensive to be effective.
Knowledge Capital
Knowledge capital is seen here as cultural capital. For example, it may be professional
knowledge, verbal facility, or general cultural awareness (Ihlen, 2009). People with a good
education and diplomas have knowledge capital. Since I know the people in the team, I can say
that most of them have great knowledge resources. All of them went to college and got highereducation degrees. One of the coaches even went to graduate school. They all know triathlon quite
well, but they do not know how to show and share their knowledge, especially on social media.
They are older people and were not educated to use those platforms.
Social Capital
Social capital is used to describe the resources and the degree of shared values and
trust within the community (Ihlen, 2009). The team has connections. The president knows a lot
of other teams' presidents. Even though they like each other, they will not send their athletes to
Montluon Triathlon. However, on Facebook and Twitter, the team does lack connections. It only
has 222 fans on their Facebook page, when other teams have more than 10,000. It almost never
sends friend requests. On Twitter, people from Montluon Triathlon do not follow athletes that
they do not know. But then, they will never know them. And obviously, foreigners do not know
about the possibility to join the team as it does not brand itself and is not visible at all, so they do
not follow it either.

Symbolic Capital
Symbolic capital can be defined as a reputation for competence and an image for
respectability and honourability (Ilhen, 2009). The team used to have a good reputation, as
they stayed in division 1 for 13 years straight. People outside of the team do not really know what
happened and why they went down to division 2 after such a good streak. The team has great
coaches owning the highest coaching diplomas available in France, but no one shows it off.
They have also had athletes competing at the international level. Some of them have already
been to the Olympic Games and on the podium of international events. But it was several years ago,
and people from the outside tend to forget about it.

MARKET IMPACTS

This section discusses and describes competing communication in the communication arena.
Specifically, we are going to try to understand how other teams in the French national league
have been efficient to attract foreigners through social media.
I spent some time to analyze how other team were doing. I was able to identify trends.
Some things have to be done in order to recruit foreigners. Others have to be avoided.
What should be done?
Post high number of pictures taken at races, training camps or practices.
Post high quality pictures.
Send a lot of friend requests.
Follow a lot of people.
Post on Facebook every week, and on Twitter every day.
Post about everything that has an impact on the team.
Post about everyone on the team.
Engage your fan-base with questions, polls and suggestions.
Inform your audience.
Entertain your audience.
Have a great About page on Facebook with as much information as possible.
Create your own hashtags on Twitter.
What should not be done?
Post only a few times a year.
Post only when the results are good.
Wait for people to ask you to connect on social media.
Only have text in your posts.
Only post about the elite team (unless you have a specific page for it).
Be boring and neutral in every post.
In the next part of the plan, we are going to try to apply those to Montluon Triathlon, so the
team is going to be more efficient to recruit athletes.

SUGGESTED STRATEGIES

Strategies to Leverage Institutionalization

In order to improve Montluon Triathlon's use of social networks, we can suggest a few
strategies for each category of resources in a communication scenario. As we said previously,
institutionalization focuses on human resources. Montluon Triathlon does not need a secretary.
Instead, it should hire someone to take good care of public relations. This person would take care
of social media, as well as the team's website and communication in general. Moreover, a
photographer would not hurt. Posting high quality pictures demonstrates professionalism, and can
attract people. They should bring this person to races, so professional foreign athletes could have
pictures from the race to post on their own websites or send to their sponsors. The team has
drastically changed since 2013. However, they should hire people for several years. Stability is
important for an organization to work efficiently and have success. According to Bourdieu,
organizations benefit from stability (Ilhen, 2009). By hiring a social media specialist and a
photographer, the team would bring specialization to their social media accounts (only those two
persons should know the passwords) and routinization (posting texts and pictures on twitter every
day, and on Facebook every week or after every race).
Strategies to Leverage Economic Capital
Economic capital is involved too. Montluon Triathlon should be willing to create two jobs
(let's say, a full time social media professional job and a part-time photographer job) to make the
strategic communication plan work. Even though it does not look that much, it is a lot of money for
an organization that only has 5 people working. However, it would be rewarded eventually. The
team would also need to pay foreign athletes. Even if the president decides not to give them too
much money, he has to do it. Otherwise, why would they come to compete for Montluon? They
cannot come only for beautiful pictures. Shortly, the team would go back up to division 1 and find
new sponsors. The city itself as well as the state would also help the team financially if it was
competing at the highest level of competition. With all of these, the team would be able to survive,
get better, make younger people from the team dream, and eventually remain one of the best teams
in the nation.
Strategies to Leverage Knowledge Capital
Knowledge capital could also be used on social media to attract great athletes. Even though
the team was not doing a bad job, it should incorporate few things on Facebook and Twitter.
One thing that comes to my mind is the language. Having social media accounts in French does not
make sense, as only French people speak it. Facebook and Twitter should be in English, a language
that the social media professional should be fluent in. The about page should clearly describe
the team. Things like staff members' names, rosters, schedules, missions, values, visions, awards
and records, home races information should be included and clearly stated. Foreigners could learn
a little bit more about the team and commit to it because of its professionalism.

Strategies to Leverage Social Capital

Social capital is definitely not a part where Montluon Triathlon excels. Using social media
efficiently would almost instantaneously increase the team's interest. Not only people within the
team could get to know each other better, but people from the outside could learn about it. In
my opinion, Montlucon Triathlon should use the international triathlon federation website, select
athletes ranking, and send out friend requests to the 100 first men. They only need three to six
men, so 100 seem to be a lot. However, more than half of them probably already have a French
team. Others prefer to focus on international races. Some of them would simply not be interested.
At the end, only a few possibilities will be remaining. Moreover, the team should follow those
men on Twitter too. On both platforms, it should go to the suggestion pages and find others.
Others coaches, teams, or triathlon-related people are also good to follow, as they will start to
talk. Quickly, the team will expand its boundaries from being well-known regionally to being wellknown internationally. It will have many friends and people will start to follow back the team.
Messages, tweets, posts and information will begin to be exchanged, and the team's reputation
and trust will increase. Other people in the world of triathlon will believe in the team and its
possibilities to be back to the top of the hierarchy. What people see and how they feel is really
important. The social media professional would take care of crafting messages. He would be able to
engage the community and give timely answers. He would optimize, maintain, monitor and
lead the platforms. He would report what works and what does not, and adapt his messages.
Eventually, a fan-base would be built and foreigners would be willing and proud to race for this
team.
Strategies to Leverage Symbolic Capital
Finally, several strategies could help to develop symbolic capital. Writing down coaches'
names and mentioning that they own the highest coaching-certificate degree in triathlon is
really important. Even if long-distance relationship is harder in sports too, foreigners could gain
knowledge from the two coaches' experience and expertise. All the current and former athletes of
the team should be mentioned on the pages every now and then, giving readers their
performances, including world, european or national titles, and a link to their own social media
pages. It would give prestige to the team as they are part of it, and help athletes too. One day, for
example Wednesday, should be devoted to introduce an athlete from the team. Every week, the
audience could get to know a professional athlete from the team. It would both give insights and
prestige to the team. Finally, the team's results over the past 15 years should be written at some
point on its social media pages. Before 2013, the team has always been ranked between third and
eleventh in the nation. Even though the last two years were different, it shows the team's winning
culture everyone would like to be part of.

CONCLUSION

A capital analysis can reveal the variety of capital present and the areas of need for an
organization, in hopes that directed, focused effort can build capital (McArthur, 2014). Using
Bourdieu's theory, we have proven that Montluon Triathlon is able to be back to the top of the
French hierarchy.
The team lacks a few world-class foreigners willing to come to France to race in some of
the toughest races on the planet to prepare for international events. Montluon Triathlon has great
resources, but has not been able, for the past few years, to use them efficiently. The team has a lot
of economic, knowledge, and symbolic capital. The team has money. People in it have had higher
education degrees and great results in sports.
However, it has not be displayed on social media to boast the team's recruitment.
Moreover, institutionalization and social capital has not been fully exploited. By hiring the right
people in the organization and growing its network and amount of social interactions, the team
would have all the tools in hands to attract athletes and succeed.
Using social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, seems to be a good way to achieve
the team's recruitment goals. Indeed, almost every athlete uses those platforms to interact with
their fan-bases. Thus, Montluon could easily connect with them and display values of
professionalism, expertise, respect, trust, passion, responsibility, or excellence. It would hook the
targeted audience and eventually help the team to become a threat to the current best French
teams.
Future researches could focus on how to improve the team's website, since a lot of people
have a look at it. Advertising on some of the best triathlon's websites could also be a great solution
for outsiders to get to know the team. Moreover, other strategic plans could focus on other missions
of the team, such as kids' capacities development, or adult amateurs' improvement.

REFERENCES LIST

Ihlen, O. (2009). On Bourdieu, public relations in field struggles.

In Ihlen, O., Van Ruler, B., & Fredriksson, M. (2009). Public relations and social theory:
McArthur, J.A. (2014). Planning Strategic Communication: A workbook for applying social
theory to professional practice.