1. Cultural Issues
2. Skill Gaps

A few years ago, I was a fairly lone voice in my position on selling social media assets to corporate sponsors.

Today, digital assets are premium buys and social remains the most dynamic property available. Trouble is, many teams are challenged in selling it (it’s a solution sell, not a transactional sale) and some sponsors think they need it but don’t know what to do or why.

One challenge that holds up sales teams is the classic QUOTA. The development or standardization of social assets means that quotas will go up, and sales manager/director targets go up in turn. This is a cultural issue – teams continually are looking for revenue stream development, yet some stand in the way of adopting this category of digital inventory. Broader thinking is required here…

The other problem is rooted in skill.

I mentioned that social is a solution sell – one that takes a different set of skills and discovery questioning. Often, sponsors need some guidance here to develop a social strategy for the deal. In this way, many web/technical resources have become “sales engineers” of a sort – as they better understand the platforms involved – and can lend good skill sets to these sales conversations.

Since some sellers struggle with how to sell social assets – here’s a list of questions to use in your own sales process to help uncover deals with social media activations:

• What are your own goals with social media?
• How does your company handle admin of your social sites?
• How does social fit into the rest of your marketing mix?
• What results will make a promotion/activation a success for you?
• What , specifically, would you like to accomplish here?
• Are they any examples of successful social campaigns that resonate with you?
• What are your expectations of my team/brand?

What we’re trying to avoid here is “Do you want to buy some Facebook updates and Twitter posts? They are $X each – how many would you like?”. These are simply conversation starters to get your partners talking – there are endless ways to structure a promotion, but you need to start somewhere.

Here are some other tips:

• Keep it high level (to start)
• Bring ideas and facilitate brainstorming
• Understand their goals and experience
• Work to conceptualize with your internal resources
• Present options that meet those needs
• Be prepared to adapt/adjust

One last thing… both problems – Cultural and Skill – are very solvable for organizations looking to uncover the dollar. I can help with both.

The first impact falls on your sports brand as fans can now tag your Page in their photos. Consider fans’ photos wearing team jerseys/apparel, or photos in your arena… the ability to tag your team Page layers a new level of visibility and engagement.

The second impact falls on your sponsors. Activations can now involve your Page tagging a sponsor’s Page in a photo – situations like this provide:

• A passive social marketing opportunity
• An increase in using images of/with sponsors
• A greater focus on product placement
• Cross page promotions – Sponsors tagging your Page on their photos

Up to now, most sponsored activity on Facebook has been located in status updates or tabs. Photo tagging presents a new opportunity to include images as an important asset to include in your social media kit.

The rapid rise of activations in the social space has teams building deals/packages with social elements, but without a breakdown how these items are priced out. Now, that’s a good problem to have – but teams need to be careful as they are setting standards and precedents on how their social inventory is valued and priced.

Some teams have hundreds of thousands of fans/followers – this is a premium buy for a sponsor and should not be treated as a value add activation. Innovative sponsorships look to position the social element at the core of the deal and then build in value adds around it. If you are suddenly “throwing in” custom tabs and contests on Facebook, you run the risk of having to justify any increase in this area down the line. Teams need to be aware of how social sponsorships can factor in renewals, and how this is positioned against new business.

Beyond that – social $ spend is a number that teams need to be tracking. If their in-house/CRM systems are not set up to track it, then there needs to be some sort of excel sheet that accounts for what % of deals or entire social deals that are being quoted and sold to your corporate partners.

My topics ranged from:

• Getting started and setting objectives
• Customizing platforms for differentiation
• Monetization and e-commerce integration
• Trends and forecasts

The attendees were the Wild’s corporate sponsors – which is a great value add that the team provides it’s partners. Other presenters included Tom Reutter of Scarborough Research who presented some great data on Wild fans and social media, and  Dewayne Hankins / Michael Brinkman of the Wild’s internal DIG group (Digital Interactive Group) who presented on the Wild’s social presence, successful promotions and future direction.

Thanks also to Anna Johnson and Kathleen Borschke of the Wild’s Corporate Services team for all their work in preparing for the event.

True to social media form – some attendees were tweeting during my presentation – which I think is an effective way to measure engagement:

A corporate partner summit is a good way to offer value for any team – and it’s great to have the opportunity to see what your audience is picking up on. As I have mentioned many times, along with many other voices in the social space – one of social media’s key benefits is the opportunity to listen.

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…

1. 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)
2. Custom tabs on Facebook: You can build and sell these spaces to sponsors
3. Sponsored contests for engagement
   • Don’t just drop sponsored links, give fans a reason to click
4. Sell your Twitter background space
5. Get a sponsor for your Facebook page
   
6. Engage with sponsors on Facebook and Twitter
   • As part of a marketing strategy, brand synergy is important
7. Sponsored player Twitter account

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

Have you tried any of these?

Many people call Linkedin the “Facebook for business”. I’m not 100% in agreement with that statement, but Linkedin certainly is a powerful and important social network. Personally, Linkedin has been vital in my own experience having been the stating point for projects, clients and even full time jobs. I consider being on Linkedin a must.

As sports sales teams are out there looking to increase their sponsor business – and for many accounts, this means the incorporation of social spaces, I think it makes sense for sales departments and marketing teams to spend some time ensuring their presence on Linkedin is strong.

Here’s how:

• Update your “Company” profile – Marketing should have a look at this; be consistent with other messages
• Ensure that all sales people have profiles – using Linkedin as a business development tool is essential in this space…
  • Reach out/connect with sponsors/contacts = Re-enforce existing relationships
  • Continue to build out networks and contacts
• Is the Executive/Management team represented? This lends to credibility…
• Consider starting a business networking group for your teams’ fans
• Link to other social media platforms

If you are selling the social space, you need to be on Linkedin. It just makes sense.

More about using Linkedin as a business development tool by clicking here.

If you are looking to layer social media as part of your sponsorship inventory, here are a few ideas/tips on how to get started:

1. Profile Your Base

If you have 100 or so brands that you work with, you should start by profiling your account base. By that, I mean to map out commonalities in the industries (retail, beverage, financial, etc…) and get a picture of what kinds of businesses you are working with. Finding similarities can provide the path of common strategies and approaches to speak the language of your customer. Profiling your base will give you a deeper understanding of what you have to work with.

2. Build a Social Media Matrix

Take those 100 brands and determine which ones are already active in social media. Do they have a Facebook Page or a Twitter feed? Are they active in this space? This is your “A” list.

The next group would be the “me too” brands that are emerging social media marketers. Small followers and small fans, less than consistent content and engagement. This is your “B” list.

The remaining group of brands are your “C” list – brands that are not yet active in social media or not interested.

3. Engage Your “A” List

Time to become a fan and follow your “A” list. You might consider building an alias profile to do this. The idea here is to understand how the brand operates within these platforms and get a real feeling for what the brand is about and how their social media strategy is playing out. Spend a bit of time on this as the information and insight you gain will be very valuable down the road when it is time to talk about alignment.

By alignment, I mean that you will be looking for brands that would be interested to partner with/leverage the online brand that your team represents in the same social media spaces.

4. Collaborate with Your “A” List

Request to meet with your partners to discuss their social media strategies. Find out what their goals are – what their challenges are – what their successes have been. Successful social media sponsorships are built collaboratively with the sponsor and are unique and custom in their approach. Creative teams, web teams and marketing teams need to be in communication to pull ideas together into promotions and campaigns. It’s all about working together, not about just another piece of inventory to sell.

5. Farm the “B” List

Meanwhile, your “B” list may see the opportunity to work with you as a chance to establish their social media presence. Keep going back to this group who may consider you a thought leader and look to find ways to leverage your presence and market. Your “B”s want to be here, and they see you as being in a position to help them. Stay close to them, but spend your time preaching to the converted with your “A” list.

6. Wait for the “C” List to Catch Up

Sponsorship sales can be difficult enough – you shouldn’t be spending your time and energy educating on social media benefits and strategies. These brands will catch up if they feel the need or simply continue on with current marketing efforts outside of the social media sphere. This isn’t a criticism, just the highest and best way to spend your time when social space sales are on the table.

I hope this gives you some ideas and plans on how to approach your base. Remember these are not off the shelf deals – this is not about dropping a link into your Twitter stream or posting a sponsored status update. There is a great deal more at stake in the social space for teams, brands and fans – engagement and collaboration is the key and there must be something in it for everyone.

Here’s why…

Let’s say you have a Pro Sports Team Facebook Fan Page – and a brand – one that is not currently a sponsor of yours – shows up and engages your brand on Facebook. The viral nature of Facebook makes this action visible to many, possibly thousands of other people. Is this kind of brand interaction “fair” to your other (paying) sponsors who are not actively engaging your brand on Facebook?

Perhaps fair is the wrong word, but you get the idea. Social media is a platform – and yes – it is a free one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that brand interaction in this space does not have a price. In fact, I would counter that it does.

As teams and leagues begin to negotiate the social media space (check out the NHL’s new Fan Page that launched recently) these kinds of questions need to be asked and addressed. These are the kinds of answers and strategies that I build. More on just how to do that in a later post…

What do you think? Can brands be Friends?

This is the high season for sports – the kick-off of the NFL season, MLB playoff races, the NHL season is about to start and the NBA is just around the corner. There are more eyeballs on more teams and leagues than any other time of year. Right now.

But is this opportunity being leveraged?

For the most part – I would suggest the answer is no. Despite interest, there is a lot of tire ticking and/or reluctance. There are also teams who are looking to be leaders but are not willing to put up the investment in time or dollars without the classic ROI path in advance.

There are some teams who are fully engaged – nothing new for the Phoenix Suns – well regarded as thought leaders in the sports and social media field. And there are other teams out there I am in conversation with and aware of who are taking the steps now to organize and launch major social media initiatives and sponsorship integrations.

This is the exciting future path – this is where thought leaders are taking the industry, and this is where the others will follow in time.