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Posts Tagged 'Sports Marketing'

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.

Beyond the Team: Social Media and Sports Management

Published July 20, 2010 Branding , Content Management , Facebook , Marketing , Personal Brand , Social Media , Sports Marketing , Twitter Leave a Comment
Tags: Athlete Representation, Online Branding, Online Identity, Social Media, Sports Management, Sports Marketing

The list of benefits for sports teams to be active in social media is clear:

Marketing
Fan engagement
Sponsorship activation
Monetization/ROI

Who else in the industry can benefit and how?

The past few years have seen the athletes/players themselves participate in social media on their own accord. @The_Real_Shaq being one of the first and most infamous on Twitter. Dozens of pro athletes have followed and built huge followings along the way.

The key here is “on their own accord”. Athlete as celebrity status provides these players with the opportunity to comment on news and events, or anything else the rest of the Twitterverse chooses to tweet about. In fact, the recent experience surrounding Twitter and NBA free agency really proved the medium had arrived and mattered as traditional media took a back seat to the goings on.

The Next Wave: Sports Management Companies and Player Associations

Now that teams have incorporated the social space as an important part of their marketing mix, sports management companies and player associations would be wise to do the same on behalf of their clients. Online identity and brand are of huge and increasing importance, and there are opportunities for sponsorship, promotion and PR that are largely un-managed and underdeveloped.

I realize that every player out there may not wish to be updating their Facebook profile or tweeting about their pre-game preparations – and this is not really required, but it is savvy, smart and time to develop an online identity and brand strategy… now.

This should be a priority for sports management companies and player associations alike.

New Twitter Features Make it More Relevant

Published June 15, 2010 How To... , Twitter Leave a Comment
Tags: Twitter, Sports Marketing, Twitpic, Face Tagging, Geo Location

Useful Twitter photo sharing tool, Twitpic recently announced that it was rolling out a face tagging feature – one very similar to Facebook’s in which users can identify themselves in photos posted on the platform (the story on Mashable here).

This, along with other pic organizing tools brings Twitpic up a few notches in its usefulness for marketing and promotions. The contesting limitations imposed by Facebook last year forced social media marketers (who were not inclined to spend $10,000 on ads) to look elsewhere for engagement opportunities and Twitter/Twitpic has filled the void nicely.

Here’s a few ideas on how to use it for contests, promotions or community building:

Encourage your followers to twitpic themselves with @replys and #’s
Use face tagging for contests – have users upload pics of them in their jerseys/team apparel/merchandise
Have users upload pics of them near/outside your sponsors’ locations using @replys
Twitpic members of your front office/players with Twitter profiles
Use in combination with geo-location features

Face tagging brings with it a personal level of engagement to Twitter making it more visual. Personally, I believe that Twitter is an excellent mobile tool and the addition of face tagging and geo-location give it a greater sense of relevance.

How can you use these new features in your next Twitter campaign?

Content Management Strategies and Why You Should Care

Published June 2, 2010 Blogging , Branding , Content Management , Marketing , Social Media , Sports Marketing Leave a Comment
Tags: Branding, Content Management, Sports Marketing

A couple of things you might be thinking…

What is Content Management?

Or, maybe if you know a bit about what content management is all about – Why should Content Management matter to me if I am a sports team?

First off – What is Content Management?

It’s most easily defined as the non-technical management of website and online content and how it is delivered. It’s the stories on your website, the posts on your blog, the status updates on Facebook, the things you tweet about… anything digital that you push out. A lot of people have been talking about content management as the next “big thing” following the rise of social media. You may have also heard the statement that “Content is King”.

But crowing “Content as King” is leaving a lot to be addressed. What good is content (no matter how good it is) unless there is someone out there to see/read/experience it? So, yes, its true that content is critically important, but do not forget the “how” part of this – how the content is distributed and organized.

I do a lot of work with sports teams so the issue of content might seem obvious at first for sports teams. “Content is not a concern for us”, you might be thinking. At first blush, one might consider “the game” to be your content. Sure – but consider that the game, your product, is primarily disseminated on television and across the internet by programing and websites that are not your own. Think of the different layers of media and experience involved here…

At the core is your product – the live game. Depending on your sport, about 20-50,000 people experience it live.

The next layer is broadcast – again depending on your team, sport and specific game, thousands to millions of people experience your product on television. Those not viewing the game will experience the highlights on TV as well… you can also add radio into this mix.

Now, of course, your website and social media platforms will “cover” the game as well – but it’s important to consider product content as only a portion of your content management strategy. No other business outside of professional sports benefits from such widespread coverage on a day-in-day-out manner (unless it is bad news… BP is a timely example). Non sports companies must rely on their own efforts to get their product out there, so content management strategies may seem more “important” or vital to them.

The point I am trying to make here, is that your sports product is being “covered” and disseminated already for you by NBC, CBS, Fox, CBC, TSN ESPN… Therefore, content management strategies in sports are even more critical.

Why? Because you have the opportunity to layer on much more than the product itself – and sometimes the product may not be the greatest thing in the world either. This is where your brand really matters.

What is your brand all about?

What is your team’s place in the community? What place do you want it to occupy?

What is your history/legacy?

What is your vision?

These are the questions you should be asking in regards to content management. Last night’s box score is the easy stuff – this is much deeper.

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…

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 'Sports Marketing'

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