Littera Deusto

Aritz Aranburu is a Basque professional surfer that is absolutely involved in the net, since he uses many web communication tools such as social networks and microblogging nets. He has accounts in several websites: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tuenti and Twitter but he mainly uses his blog in order to publish his surfing videos and promote his proffesional career as a sportsman and a surfing contest presentor. As he says in some interviews, he uses social networks because he wants to give information about surfing since the mass media does not usually focus on this sport and he wants people know more about his results in competitions. As Debra Littlejohn Shinder explained in her article written in August 19, 2010, he is not the only one that uses the net to promote his career as many other celebrities do the same:

Social networking tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live, and Google Buzz, are great for keeping in touch with friends and family and having fun. Other people are going further and using social networks to build bussiness relationships with colleagues and potential clients. LinkedIn is specifically targeted to that audience. And some are taking it further still and using social networking sites to actively promote themselves and their businesses. This can be particularly effective for self-employed people, such as consultants, writers, and trainers.

In an overall analysis of his blog, we can see that surfing news and videos occupy almost the whole site. For instance, in the upper part of the site there are photos of Aritz’s trips and we can also see where he has been during the last month, as well as which his sponsors are (San Miguel, Quicksilver, Pukas, DC, Moskova and Basqueteam). Equally, we can see there his last tweets and categories.

• Example of Category
  • Art
    • Ringa ringa Viernes 21 de octubre de 2011. 23:01 1 comentario: Fausto Beaxai, el portero de balonmano que más goles mete, suele ver este video para motivarse antes de los partidos. Hoy he usado su técnica y he pasado la manga. De momento el equipo zarauztarra ha ganado 3 de 4 partidos que han celebrado. No tendrán los fichajes más caros, pero tienen más huevos que nadie… Aupa Zarautz, aurtenguan gora!

Apart from his web, Aritz Aranburu is the presentor of “Cracks del Surf“, the new surf contest on Antena 3 Nitro and the Internet. In this programme they invite non-professional surfers and their videos are shown on their website, on Aritz’s blog and on Youtube. So Aritz is also promoting his career through these videos in the web since he uses his blog to advertise his programme:

If we compare his web communication tools to Kelly Slater’s (an American professional surfer), we can conclude than they resemble a lot. They both have a website with their names and sponsors on it, but Kelly’s website is more developed. Apart from that, he is more organised because he has different websites depending on his purpose:

• Information: http://www.kellyslater.com/
• Charity: http://www.kellyslaterfoundation.org/
• His social networks: http://www.kswaveco.com
  • Facebook
  • his own Twitter

Web communication tools are absolutely useful to promote careers and businesses. John Costello, senior vice president and general manager of marketing at Sears, Roebuck and Co. wrote an article and explained:

This is the age of the internet.Technology is moving fast. To be successful in today’s business environment it is important to take full advantage of technology without bogging you down. The way to accomplish this is to seek advise from those who specialize in your area of inquiry. As far as the internet is concerned, what worked well months ago has changed. The window of opportunity is constantly moving.

REFERENCES

• Second Quote: John Costello, “Why Your Business Needs A Web Site “. Retrieved the 13th of November from: http://www.soloenterprises.org/web-design-requests/why-do-i-need-a-website.php
• Aritz Aranburu, 21st of October “Ringa Ringa”. Retrieved the 28th of October for my WCPlan from: http://aritzaranburu.com/blog/
• Kelly Slater, 21st of October. Retrieved the 28th of October for my WCPlan from: https://twitter.com/#!/KSWaveCo
• PHOTOS:

1. First photo: Retrieved the 21st of November from http://www.canalsurfboard.com/content/view/1373/2/
2. Second photo: Retrieved the 19th of November from http://www.elclubdelsurf.com/pro_noticias71.htm

• Websites:

1. Aritz Aranburu: http://aritzaranburu.com/blog/
2. Kelly Slater: http://www.kellyslater.com/ and http://www.kellyslaterfoundation.org/
3. Cracks del surf: http://www.cracksdelsurf.com/

• Video: uploaded by cracksdelsurf  the 14th of July, 2011. “Oportunidad única con Aritz Aranburu en Cracks del surf”. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZJxazMRdM

Filed under: Blogs and forums, Microblogging, Social networks, Web Communication Tagged: Aritz Aranburu, Basque Professional surfer