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Checking In on Facebook Places

Pun intended, for sure.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Facebook launched its Places feature – a geolocation function that let’s users identify their location within their social networks. I’ve seen a number of posts and articles by sports marketers about integrating Facebook Places/FourSquare into their promotional mix.

Here’s my 2 cents…

While I will agree that Places/FourSquare presents some interesting and engaging opportunities, my own experience has shown that it’s still the early days for these tools.

FourSquare does have a growing user base, but I’ve found that it still requires a fair amount of education to enable fans to use it effectively in promotions. I’m not suggesting to drop the idea of using it, but right now, my opinion is that the time required to educate and inform is greater than the benefits or rewards.

Moving forward, I would look to include a geolocation feature to a promotion, but would probably hold back on building a promo that only focused solely on that platform. Start small, and look to enhance social projects with a check-in element. For example, if you were building a promo that supported a multi-location sponsor in your market, you could offer a tiered prizing/award structure that offered something for check-ins as well as for entries for less savvy,yet still socially aware/active fans.

Ultimately, the last thing you want to do is create a digital divide. Don’t forget, there are a number of privacy concerns that were raised with this launch. So start small, measure and assess your results and continue to plan from there. Be prepared to teach your fans along the way.

Facebook Saturation and Web 3.0

Published July 22, 2010 Facebook , Uncategorized 2 Comments
Tags: Facebook, Web 3.0

As Facebook plows on towards 500 million users, there will be an estimated 6,859,480,895 people on the earth by August 1st, 2010.

So, about 1 in 13 earthlings have a Facebook profile. You get a pretty clear picture that Facebook is quite simply, A BIG DEAL – whether you like it or not.

All this rapid growth has got to stop somewhere, right? Correct. In fact, probably pretty soon. The number of Facebook users will continually grow, but likely not at the same rate. It will begin to level off – then what?

What comes next has already arrived. Recent announcements at the F8 conference back in April showed us that the web was becoming more social in its very nature. You might remember my blog post from a year ago regarding the rise of Web 3.0 – the semantic web.

What Facebook brings across the web now is “meaning”… how the content of the web is presented to the user along with its specific impact to the user’s own experience. We see this in the form of “Like” buttons. When a user reads a story on CNN.com or NHL.com, they can see how many of their Facebook friends liked it. This is what I mean by meaning… its how the web content relates to the user now in a specific and personal way. And there will be more of it… new layers of meaning, and in deeper ways.

Facebook is also changing how people use the web – it is moving from search engine as starting point to social network as starting point. You’ll also notice that Facebook now has “Community Pages” – Facebook is slowly, but surely becoming an online repository of everyone and everything. Like an immense encyclopedia, not only presented with facts – but with what those facts mean to people.

Now, that is a big deal.

Micro-transactions and Future Revenues from the Social Space

Published July 13, 2010 Facebook , Micro-transactions , Social Media 2 Comments
Tags: Facebook, Gifts, Micro-transactions, Social Gaming

Last week, Facebook announced that it was discontinuing its Gifts feature as of August 1, 2010.

I have previously blogged about important Facebook changes, but you can only come up with eye-catching titles like “Facebook Changes You Need to Know About” so many times… it is pretty clear that Facebook is a constantly shifting space and you need to stay on top of it both tactically as well as strategically.

Discontinuing the Gift Feature

In past posts, I had presented the idea of micro-transactions – small dollar value ($1 or $2) transactions – as a possible revenue stream for the social space. Conveniently, Facebook did a very good job of facilitating and sharing Gifts – small icons that users could buy (with $ or credits) and display on their own profiles or give to friends. This seemed straightforward enough, and a strong fit for sports marketers to leverage a team logo, a player or other aspect of their sport.

Micro-transactions could generate some fairly high numbers (once the initial outlay was built and in place) for strong sports brands with tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of fans. For example, a .5% conversion on $1 from 500,000 fans = $2,500.

Perhaps it was a good idea, but also a bit late. Gifting across Facebook was certainly more popular in 2005-2007/08 – add the recent economic downturn and it results in the closing of the gift store today.

Of course, teams can still continue with gifts on their own – but it seems that the gift/revenue legitimacy is now over; however, the concept of micro-transactions is still a powerful one and will have an increasing role in online revenue and also from the social and mobile space as well.

Micro-transactions

A familiar example of a micro-transaction is iTunes – $1 per song. Pretty easy to execute, and some serious revenues follow as a result.

Micro-transactions have been very successful in “free-to-play” online games represented by both the purchase of virtual items as well as in-game progression. Recent years have seen rapid growth in the popularity of micro-transactions in social gaming (consider famous titles such as “Farmville” or “Mafia Wars” on Facebook).

So how can sports marketers benefit?

For one, I am confident that social platforms will increase their focus social gaming. Sports games make very good sense and offer a wide appeal. While some of these opportunities will exist at the league level, imagine a social game in which you are able to manage “your team” as a GM. There could be integrated sponsor opportunities to give your players more energy by providing them with Gatorade for a micro-transactional fee…

As DVRs (or PVRs in Canada) continue to erode effective messaging opportunities on TV via traditional advertising, product integration will increasingly show up in spaces where consumers spend their time or draw their attention. Similarly, consumers are spending more time on their smart phones and social networking platforms. This is not a “better or worse” type of situation or evaluation, but it is clear that things are changing (fairly quickly) and marketers need to adapt, not to mention, innovate.

Interview with the NHL’s Director of Social Media, Mike DiLorenzo

Published April 29, 2010 Business Tips , Facebook , Marketing , NHL , Social Media , Tools , Twitter Leave a Comment
Tags: Facebook, NHL, Social Media, Twitter

I first “met” Mike via Twitter during last year’s Penguins and Capitals playoff series. Since then, we’ve had a great dialogue about social media and the NHL.

Mike manages the NHL Fan Page on Facebook as well as the NHL on Twitter… and you can find him on LinkedIn as well.

I recently asked Mike some questions and will share those along with his answers below:

1. What’s in your social media tool kit (desktop clients or Bberry/iPhone apps)?

I am a social media simpleton. I use CoTweet and OpenBeak for Twitter, and Facebook for Blackberry. On the analytics side, I subscribe to a service called ViralHeat.

2. How did you get here/how did this job come about from the NHL?

This is my third season at the NHL, and I started as director of corporate communications. Our senior VP of digital media, Perry Cooper, appointed me to lead a newly formed social media department at the start of the 2009-10 season. I had been running point on social media stuff prior to that, so it was a natural transition to doing it full time.

3. Most rewarding moment you had over the past season from your perspective?

I was interviewed on behalf of the NHL by Josh Bernoff, who is writing a sequel to Groundswell. I may wallpaper my bathroom with the pages from the new book that mention the NHL.

4. Where is the NHL going with social media? What are your/the NHL’s long term goals/ideas?

We are building windows into the NHL on 3rd-party sites, so we can expose fans to the game and capture a share of their minds when their not necessarily on NHL.com or watching a game. Our long term goal is to become more pervasive in the hearts and minds of fans in North America and beyond, and to give them many more reasons to spend time, energy and emotion with us.

5. Your blog, “From the blue seats“… where is this for you now?

I need to water it and put it in the sun before it shrivels up and dies! I am hopeful that I will have more time to dedicate to it this summer and all of next season. What I’d like to focus on is social trends in sports, and occasionally some opinion pieces on the game itself. I am all ears if people have ideas.

6. Are you currently incorporating any league sponsors into your social media spaces, if so – how?

We promote all of our partner activations on our social media. It’s an area that we’re becoming smarter and more sophisticated with, and are developing business models around. Currently, we’re really excited about the Bud Light Canada Facebook app that’s out there right now.

7. The NHL has more followers on Twitter than Facebook fans – why is this?

When we were named to the “recommended user” list by Twitter, we were seeing very strong weekly growth rates. Once Twitter changed the mechanics of the recommended list, our growth rate slowed. Now, with the integration of the Like button on NHL.com, we’re seeing hypergrowth on our Facebook page. I don’t think it’s a referendum on the technographics of our fans, or our success/failures on one platform or another. To me, it’s circumstantial.

8. How do you stay current on new tools and trends? What are you reading (online or otherwise) or who do you listen to?

I love to read Fast Company, and Lauren Goode’s stuff in the Wall Street Journal. She is a terrific reporter. Of course, MediaPost, Mashable and TechCrunch are must-reads, and I also try to stay current on industry analyst reports. I also learn a fair amount from Gary Vaynerchuk, who has been an adviser to the NHL this season. My favorite bloggers are Shannon Paul and Guy Kawasaki. Truly, I wish I had more time to dedicate to reading up on Trends.

Facebook… Like It

Published April 22, 2010 Branding , Facebook , Marketing , NHL , Social Media , Sports Marketing Leave a Comment
Tags: Alex Ovechkin, Facebook, Fan Page, NHL, Social Plugins, Sponsorship, Sports Marketing

Facebook launched some potent new tools yesterday and I will start to break down what it means for sports marketers…

You may have heard/seen that recently Facebook changed the term “Fans” from its Pages to simply, “Like”. So now, your Page doesn’t have fans, but people who like it (too bad – “Fans” was a perfect fit for sports teams). Now, the idea of “Like”ing something gets a whole lot more engaged.

Social Plugins

If you are familiar with Facebook, the ability to “Like” something is not new. But through the use of social plugins - check them out here – the “Like” button can show up anywhere, on any website – even your own.

Here’s an example from NHL.com with Alex Ovechkin.

What this means is that now, Facebook can be pretty much anywhere. The web is increasingly semantic and social. Furthermore, “Like”s can dynamically alter a Facebook users profile, and the act of “Like”ing something can create a long-term communication between the user and NHL.com. Whenever there is an update on Ovechkin from NHL.com, the “Like” will update the user on the Facebook platform. Pretty neat stuff.

Ok – Now What?

So now that you have an idea of what technology is in place – here’s what to start doing with it.

Every team site has a roster page – get some Like buttons up there for the players (like the NHL.com model) and tell your fans to get clicking
The viral nature of all this “Like”ing should help grow your Page population as well, be ready to track this
- NHL.com integration increased the NHL Facebook Page by 3.2% (>9000 Fans) overnight after this launch
Consider partner/sponsor brand synergy – what kinds of sponsors would be a good fit for social plugins?

I will be thinking/blogging more about the last bullet – in the meantime, more to come on Facebook’s new tools and how to best put them to use.

If you have some ideas or some other great examples/models to look at, please leave a comment and let us all know…

NHL Teams on Facebook: Where are they now?

Published April 14, 2010 Facebook , Marketing , NHL , Social Media , Sports Marketing 1 Comment
Tags: Facebook, NHL

Last October, I profiled the 30 NHL teams and ranked them according to population size on Facebook. As the 2009/2010 regular season has ended, here is a look at where these teams currently sit…

The Century Club

1. Pittsburgh: 187,985 (+58%)

2. Chicago: 168,441 (+122%)

3. Detroit: 157,510 (+77%)

4. Vancouver: 140,443 (+50%)

5. Philadelphia: 129,291 (+76%)

6. Boston: 127, 592 (+92%)

7. Washington: 122,750 (+156%)

Note strong increases across the board – the Pens still lead the pack… the Canucks lead all Canadian teams by a sizable margin (see below)… with relative on-ice success, both the Boston and Philly are strong hockey markets in large cities.

50K – 100K Club

8. Buffalo: 78,356 (+74%)

9. Colorado: 74,992 (+249%)

10. Toronto: 69,116 (+273%)

11. Carolina: 59,507 (+211%)

12. NYR: 54,942 (+147%)

13. Minnesota: 51,906 (+60%)

14. San Jose: 50,461 (+164%)

Note the steep drop from #7 to #8 position… very strong % increases from the Leafs, Avalanche and Hurricanes here. Still huge potential for NYR and the Leafs considering their market size and fan base.

30K – 50K Club

15. St. Louis: 47,311 (+136%)

16. Edmonton: 40,966 (+153%)

17. New Jersey: 39,674 (+205%)

18. Calgary: 33,385 (+102%)

19. Ottawa: 31,827 (+72%)

20. Dallas: 30,523 (+46%)

21. Anaheim: 30,105 (+57%)

These teams see strong % increases as well – Note Edmonton’s #16 position proving that a winning product isn’t everything (but it certainly doesn’t hurt).

Under 20K Club

22. Nashville: 16,911 (+86%)

23. Tampa Bay: 15,877 (+230%)

24. New York Islanders: 14,796 (+61%)

25. Phoenix: 12,641 (+164%)

26. Florida: 12,551 (+110%)

27. Columbus: 10,786 (+1056%)

28. Los Angeles: 7,293 (+55%)

29. Atlanta: 5,825 (+145%)

Despite some significant % increases across this group (note Columbus up from 933 fans at the beginning of the season), Phoenix, Nashville and LA provide similarly to Edmonton that winning isn’t everything…

* Montreal: Official Facebook Community is a Watercooler App and not a Facebook Fan Page – current fan total: 498,673

7 Tips for Social Media ROI

Published March 22, 2010 Business Development , Facebook , How To... , Marketing , Sales Tips , Social Media , Sponsorship , Sports Marketing , Twitter 2 Comments
Tags: Facebook, ROI, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sports Marketing, Twitter

Where is the ROI from social media? From a sports marketing perspective – here is where you find the money:

Grow your Fan and Follower populations – more eyeballs, more traffic to drive back to your website
- Bigger pops allows you to sell the social space itself too (see #2)
Custom tabs on Facebook: You can build and sell these spaces to sponsors
Sponsored contests for engagement
- Don’t just drop sponsored links, give fans a reason to click
Sell your Twitter background space
Get a sponsor for your Facebook page
Engage with sponsors on Facebook and Twitter
- As part of a marketing strategy, brand synergy is important
Sponsored player Twitter account

7 tips to get your social media strategy integrated into your marketing mix and draw an ROI as well.

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Posts Tagged 'Facebook'

Checking In on Facebook Places

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* Montreal: Official Facebook Community is a Watercooler App and not a Facebook Fan Page – current fan total: 498,673

(Thanks to @trevorturnbull for the inspiration for this post!)

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