Which Australian athlete do you follow on social media that consistently delivers great content that’s right up your alley? Who do you follow to be entertained, engaged, inspired, motivated, and educated, or to simply pass the time?

Having taken feedback on-board from a recent workshop attendee who requested more local (Non-US or overseas) examples of athletes and sporting organisations using social media well, I decided to reach out to some of my most engaged sports and social media followers online to ask them for their thoughts.

The hope was that those engaged enough to respond would help provide a variety of ‘go-to’ examples that Hook Media could pass along to individuals and organisations, looking for shining lights, role-models, and positive examples from different sporting backgrounds to either learn from themselves, or advise their staff, players, coaches or athletes to see what could, and was currently being achieved.

I didn’t specify ‘current or former’ athlete, ‘male or female’, or a specific sport or social media platform on which they shine brightest, but since the question was not simply asked at random, there are themes that developed, sometimes influenced by my relationship with the person, and their interest and backgrounds in general.

A number of respondents mentioned that it was a particularly tough question to answer, or couldn’t think of any off the top of their heads, which actually boosted my interest in raising awareness of those that were doing it well.

This is not the definitive list, however it quickly became a great snapshot of the ‘best Australian athletes’ to follow on social media.

The responses to the question are summarised below by individual, the sport that they represent, and how many times they were nominated.

The most popular from this sample were NBA basketball stars Andrew Bogut and Patty Mills, along with AFL star Dane Swan, who were all nominated four times.

Surfer Sally Fitzgibbon and AFL star Patrick Dangerfield were each nominated three times.

Those surveyed were not asked to explain why they loved following the particular athlete, although certain key words mentioned and themes developed:

Entertaining, humorous, refreshingly honest, authentic voice, candid, good value, stays connected with fans, engaging, informative, gives back, plenty of personality, gives insight into non pro world of sport.

My personal favourite? Aussie basketballer Matthew Dellavedova of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.

If you would like to nominate your favourite Aussie athlete to follow on social media, simply click here to take our two question survey: http://goo.gl/forms/LUBNyXsAB8

The full list of nominees and nominations looked like this. Thank-you to all who took the time to spread the word about their favourite!

Finally, it’s also important to note:

• Basketballers were very popular nominations – but the question was asked at the height of the NBA finals/playoffs, to a largely keen basketball audience.

• The majority of those asked are Victorian based, which may explain that there were zero NRL athletes nominated.