Steven Cairns Leverages Social Media for Boxing Success

Perhaps one of the most under-used tools in a fighter’s arsenal is social media.

Not as a way of getting into an opponent’s head but as a way of a fighter marketing themselves.

Steven Cairns, an Irish lightweight prospect who is trained by Dave Coldwell, is only 24 but 14 fights into his unblemished pro career, he boasts a following that many champions would be envious of.

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Cairns, who returns to the ring at the 3Arena in Dublin on August 1 against 12-1 (2 KOs) Senan Kelly, has around 130,000 followers on Instagram and more than 50,000 on TikTok. His videos on the latter have been viewed almost 2.5m times and it was something Coldwell mentioned to him at the start of his pro journey, that he needed to build a brand.

“Even when I was an amateur, when I was like 12, 13, I used to make Flipagrams,” he said. “You used to collab all these different bits of your fights, and I’d put up the highlights of my fights, and I was buzzing, because for me, I just went in there, won a national title, now I want to show people what I’ve done. And I kind of got a buzz off it when people texted me, they were like, ‘Oh, that was really good, well done, unbelievable.’ So since I was young, I used to post all the time. But when I turned 18, I realized that when I was over here, that being a pro is so much more than just boxing. It’s a business, it’s a brand that you’re building. So what I was doing over here was set me up for now, pretty much when I’m like, fighting for titles, stepping up where my brand is known, I can sell tickets, I can get sponsorships, stuff like that. But at the start, I remember I had like 6,000 followers, and I used to think, you know what, I’m looking at people online, and they have fancy cars and this and that, and that’s why they’re blowing up, that’s why people like them. So then you’re getting pictures in front of cars, and you’re trying to do that, and you’re just like, why isn’t it blowing up for me, what’s happening?

“But all you have to realize is people don’t really care about fancy cars and fancy this, they want to know about you as a fighter. They want to know your story. They want to know the process. They want to know how you train. So that’s what I do, I document my journey, working towards world titles, and I think people seem to like it.”

And Cairns has made himself familiar with the market place. He watches all boxing and studies social media to see what works and what doesn’t. He’s also very funny.

“Even with all these Misfits guys, you got Jake Paul, stuff like that,” he said, “And to be fair to Jake Paul, I feel like he’s actually taking boxing pretty seriously now where he’s actually in training camps, and he is improving, he’s obviously just late to the game, but the Misfits guys, like watching the fights isn’t great. You’re watching them and you’re thinking, ‘Jesus, it’s entertainment, because you don’t know what they’re going to do.’ ‘Are they going to kick each other?’ ‘Are they going to elbow smash someone?’ You don’t know what’s going to happen. But what they are good at is putting bums on seats, generating people wanting to watch the fights.

“And you can learn something from everybody. And I don’t think a lot of people look at them YouTubers and whatever you think about YouTubers, I’m like, ‘Bro, we can learn from them.’ So I look at them and I think, ‘All right, they can’t fight, but they can sell.’ “So imagine if you could fight and you could sell. That’s the way I look at it.”

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