We just witnessed one of the greatest World Series games ever.

Were you there?

The game had it all. Drama beyond belief, improbable comebacks, joy, pain and action that you just couldn’t take your eyes away from.

Were you there?

I’ve never seen more excitement from fans. People were reacting to every play, heck, every pitch sometimes. They were making predictions, cracking jokes, cheering pitchers and batters, and sharing their hopes and fears. There was a lot of yelling, of course.

Were you there last night?

If you went to the stadium, that’s awesome. But I’m talking about Twitter here.

As Jason Romano said, “Twitter was made for baseball games like this. Great sharing it with you all.”

Social media brings fans together and makes the greatest sporting events even more fun to be a part of. For those of us on Twitter last night while we watched the game, we may not have been at the stadium. But we were there, participating and interacting, not just passively watching.

Personally, I can’t wait to see what the future holds in terms of the opportunities that we’ll see for deeper and wider fan interaction and engagement during games. How about you?

I’m sure you agree that when people first visit your website, you want to make sure they are able to quickly understand what your company/website offers and why they would want to learn more about you, view your content, get in touch with you and potentially buy your products/services. You want to leave a great first impression so people will come back for more, tell their friends, and keep you in their thoughts.

With Facebook, it’s also important that you make a great first impression with new fans–people who are potentially going to click the like button and subscribe to your updates. However, many sports organizations (and companies in other industries) are missing a crucial opportunity to make a great impression with people who come to their Facebook page for the first time.

When people view a company’s Facebook page, they want to see what kind of value the page provides. They’re likely asking themselves a few questions (whether they realize it or not):

• What kind of content can I expect to see here?
• What’s in it for me?
• Is it worth liking or not?

Some sports organizations are not answering these questions and are missing the boat with first impressions on Facebook. They’re directing people straight to the wall of their pages instead of to a custom tab that can help welcome first time visitors (non-likers) to their page.

A good Facebook welcome tab gives people two crucial pieces of information:

1. Information about what they can expect from the organization on Facebook – the reason/s WHY people should like the page
2. A call to action that encourages people to like the page to stay updated

Sending people to straight to your Facebook wall is like starting a conversation with a new acquaintance by bombarding them with a list of everything that’s going on in your life. Instead, you want to give people a proper introduction. Send them to a welcome tab so they can get an idea of what to expect from you on Facebook, and most importantly, see what’s in it for them if they like the page. Ideally this means giving people access to exclusive content, discounts, promotions, and engagement opportunities.

Here are a couple examples of great Facebook welcome tabs from sports marketers:

Washington Redskins

I love the design of this tab. Santana Moss is pointing to the like button. Great execution.

Carolina Panthers

Simple, yet effective.

I know that there are many other sports organizations that are effectively using Facebook welcome tabs , but some organizations and companies are not using them to make great first impressions and encourage people to like their pages. They’re missing out on the opportunity to introduce people to their pages and give fans a reason to click the Like button.

What do you think about Facebook welcome tabs and how sports organizations are using them?

While the numbers for location-based services appear to be growing, the technology really hasn’t lived up to its potential yet, since there’s often no real reason for checking in; checking in to share a location with friends probably isn’t enough for most people. However, I still think there’s a ton of potential here, especially for the sports industry. Teams can tap into the fact that fans come to stadiums and arenas for hours at a time and often like showing off their fandom. They can reward fans and incentivize them to check in by offering real and virtual benefits. Sponsors can be integrated into these types of programs, so it’s a win for everyone.  For more information on the sports industry and location-based services, check out this great white paper from Tariq Ahmad.

Back in February, I wrote about Valuevine, a location-based analytics platform. Neil Crist, Valuevine’s CEO, kindly provided me with access to their platform so I could see what it had to offer. I thought it’d be fun to do a quick run-down of the top MLB stadiums, ranked by the number of check ins at each of them. In this case, check ins include data from Foursquare, Facebook Places and Gowalla.

See below for the top 10 MLB stadiums with the most check ins and click this link to see a Google Doc with the full results.

1. AT&T Park – 284,854
2. Dodger Stadium – 233,008
3. Wrigley Field – 201,277
4. Yankee Stadium – 196,799
5. Target Field – 105,736
6. Busch Stadium – 96,989
7. Coors Field – 89,113
8. Citi Field – 86,373
9. Safeco Field – 81,670
10. Petco Park – 71,186

One thing that obviously stands out about the stadiums with the most check ins is that they’re all in very large cities. The top two stadiums are in California, which has a reputation for being home to many technologists and early adopters. One thing that stands out to me is that Yankee Stadium has over two times as many check ins as Citi Field. Any Yankees or Mets fans care to comment on this discrepancy?

It’s getting late so I’ll let you think about other insights to pull out of this data. Is there anything that surprised you about this data? What do you think about the future of location-based services and sports?

As of today, I’m evaluating new projects and opportunities to work with smart, passionate, and awesome people and companies. I’m a free agent! …at least in the work world. I’ve just wrapped up a gig for the past two years working at the online marketing company/technology provider, eWayDirect, and am now seeking new opportunities.

I’m Excited!

Call me crazy but I’m pretty excited about the position I’m in. After 2+ years at eWayDirect I was able to gain a ton of knowledge about digital marketing as a whole, especially email marketing and search marketing, and work on ways that social media can support and enhance companies’ programs in these channels. I was able to work with great people and gain experience in a variety of areas, including marketing, product management, account management and sales. Some highlights included the following:

• Helped a client launch an online community that attracted 4,500 members in the first 3 months. This client won an award from PROMO Magazine for their approach to email and social media.
• Created and executed a promotion through Twitter that won the grand prize in the HP Intel Small Business Success Stories Contest last year.
• Contributed to a book called “Chatter Marketing: Putting the Relationship Back Into Customer Relationship Management,” written by Neil Rosen, eWayDirect’s CEO and brilliant marketer.
• Launched and managed eWayDirect’s social media presence and programs. Saw our blog’s unique visitors increase by almost 400% so far this year vs. the same period in 2010.
• Worked with an online retailer to increase transactions and revenue from social media referral traffic by 200% and 120%, respectively, compared to the previous period of months.

What’s Next?

Earlier today I started an evaluation of my work/career by writing down a few general phrases that describe what I like and want to do (my favorite-so far-is in bold)

• work with smart, passionate people to make a difference
• help a world-changing company get the word out about its revolutionary product
• make a significant and direct impact in a company’s performance by calculated use of social and marketing strategy
• help make awesome people and companies more awesome

Whatever my next move is, it will involve some mix of digital marketing, technology, social media, communication and analytics…likely at a manager/director level. Other than that, I just want to work with smart people who are passionate about what they do. I’ve started a list of companies that have people, products and services that align with what I’m looking, but it’s in the early stages. I’d like to stay in the Arlington/DC area but I’m not ruling out moving for the right opportunity and location.

Other than work, here’s some other stuff that’s coming up on my radar. I was recently selected as one of the VPs of digital content/communication (my man Alex Priest is the other) for DC’s Social Media Club. I’m psyched about working with some smart folks on helping the club further its mission of facilitating the sharing of best practices, insights and examples related to social media be awesome.

Lastly, I mentioned above that I was working on a sports marketing and social media textbook. We’re in the final stages of writing so that has definitely been keeping me busy on nights and weekends. If all goes well, the book will be published early next year.

How You Can Help

If you’ve made it this far, I want to say thank you for reading and sticking with me. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to meet so many of you through social media and offline at events, meetups, conferences, etc.  If you’d like to help me out on my quest to find awesome people and companies, feel free to get in touch using this contact form, email (jolpid@gmail.com), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or stalk me in person (please, no real stalkers). You can also help me spread the word by sharing this post with friends and colleagues via social media or email. Here’s a link to use if you want a short version…and want to help me satisfy my cravings for analytics.

• http://bit.ly/mSAdox

Thanks again for reading and I’ll talk to you soon!

P.S. I apologize for any formatting errors above…This WordPress theme/version acts funky sometimes.

The numbers above were taken on 4/19/2011 from Twitter and Klout. The numbers for retweets and @ mentions are for the number of retweets and @ mentions a team has received. I’m not sure which type of retweet Klout counts (built in Twitter retweet function vs. using RT in front of a tweet) or if they count both. I wanted to include “average tweets per day” in this table but Twittercounter was acting strange and not giving me completely accurate data.

Take a look at some of the winners and losers below. Obviously the teams below aren’t true “winners” or “losers” since I have no idea how much money and resources these teams are putting into Twitter and what they’re getting in return in the form of sales and cost savings/avoidance, as well as whatever other goals they’ve set that Twitter is contributing to. I just thought it would be fun to look at these numbers.

Winners

• Followers – LA Lakers
• Klout – LA Lakers
• Retweets – LA Lakers
• @ Mentions – LA Lakers
• Tweets – Chicago Bulls
• Bonus – first to join Twitter – Portland Trailblazers (5/28/07)

Losers

• Followers – Atlanta Hawks
• Klout – Atlanta Hawks
• Retweets – Memphis Grizzlies
• @ Mentions – Atlanta Hawks
• Tweets – Memphis Grizzlies
• Bonus – last to join Twitter – Denver Nuggets (3/23/09)

Observations

It is interesting to see these numbers, but it would take a lot more research to dig in and see why the numbers are like this and what teams are doing well/not so well to move the needle. But here are a few observations:

• The Lakers are the second most profitable NBA team (valued at $643 million here vs. the Knicks at $655 million) but are dominating the Knicks and all other teams from a numbers perspective on Twitter
• Twelve teams have more @ mentions than retweets. Four teams (Magic, Heat, Bulls, Nuggets) have more retweets than @ mentions.
• The Chicago Bulls have 1/9 as many followers as the Orlando Magic, but they have six times more @ mentions.
• The average ratio of interactions (retweets + @ mentions) to tweets is 1.75
  • Tweets from the Lakers generate the most interactions per tweet – 5.7 per tweet
  • Tweets from the Trailblazers (despite being the first of these teams to join Twitter) generate the lowest number of interactions per tweet – .36 per tweet
• The Orlando Magic have the second most followers but the sixth fewest @ mentions. They rank seventh in retweets. They have a relatively low amount of interactions per tweet (.61). I’m not sure what they’ve done to gain such a huge number of followers. Any ideas?

It’s late and I’m tired, so I haven’t done much more digging to understand why the numbers are what they are. What other insights can you find in these numbers?

Next up: A look at NBA Playoff teams and their Facebook pages.

I don’t often write about social media software and companies. This is mainly because there are so many of them out there that do one or two things well, but nothing really extraordinary. But when Neil Crist, CEO of Valuevine, reached out to me recently to chat about their new location-based analytics platform, Valuevine Connect, I was intrigued. After Neil walked me through their approach and dashboard, I had to write about it.

Valuevine provides social media marketing software for multi-location franchises and retailers. Since launching in 2009, they have focused on helping multi-location companies publish and manage social media content from a single dashboard. For example, if you oversee marketing for a chain of hardware stores across 10 states, Valuevine’s platform would make it easier for you to work with local store owners to ensure that the overall brand message is consistent and to execute social media promotions at the local level.

From talking to clients, Valuevine realized that these businesses wanted a little more. They wanted more information the level of activity and reviews around each store on third-party local review sites, such as Yelp, MerchantCircle and Foursquare. Many people use reviews in the decision-making process for where to go/shop/eat. Business owners also may want to look at how marketing campaigns and social media efforts affect these reviews. For example, maybe you’re doing a promotion across 40 stores and want to see how this has affected the number of reviews people are leaving on these sites and the sentiment of these reviews. It can be difficult to monitor all these sites, and many social media analytics platforms overlook them.

If you’re interested in this kind of information, keeping track of everything is about to get a lot easier. Valuevine Connect (launching today) helps multi-location companies drill down into location-based analytics and keep up with the social footprint of each store across multiple sites. The platform lets companies add their store locations and see activity as a whole and for each location.  Click on the thumbnail below to see the screenshot of the main Valuevine Connect dashboard and continue reading to see some of the features I found interesting.

The Valuevine Connect Dashboard

I really like the look/feel of the overall dashboard. A drop down menu at the top lets you see location-based activity by location, ownership or region. The dashboard includes charts for most active channels, overall positive and negative sentiment trends, location-based trend charts, and information on fans, critics and most vocal people.

Sentiment Trending

The dashboard has charts to show overall sentiment trends, as well as sentiment by individual location. You can also see the locations with the highest and lowest sentiment and the locations with the largest recent sentiment change. While no sentiment-tracking system is perfect, this is still valuable information.

Actionable Data

The thing I like most about Valuevine Connect is that it gives businesses access to actionable data. This data can be used to proactively identify staffing and/or operational issues, and maybe help understand why a certain store is performing better or worse than others. Is one store location suddenly receiving a lot more negative complaints than usual? You can easily drill down to see what’s going on. Maybe it’s because the fries are always cold. Or maybe it’s because one waitress is very unfriendly. Instead of only looking at sales as an indicator of local success, you can use this activity-based data to quickly identify problems and successes.

The other actionable data businesses have access to is the ability to easily identify their biggest fans, critics and most vocal reviewers. You may want to reach out and thank or reward people who are your biggest advocates. Or you may want to reach out to your critics to let them know that you’re listening and will do your best to give them a better experience next time. Or you may even find information that shows you probably shouldn’t reach out to someone (for example, if he/she is a troll and giving everyone terrible reviews).

Pricing

Pricing for Valuevine Connect starts at $299 per month for unlimited users and locations. Very reasonable, if you ask me. If you’re interested in this stuff, you can get a free location-based social footprint report at socialfootprintreport.com

The Bottom Line

As you can probably tell, I’m pretty psyched about this platform and looking forward to seeing what businesses do with this kind of data. It’s going to be interesting to have a better understanding of this stuff in evaluating the success/failures of specific locations and crafting local programs that can be tailored to each location. For example, if sentiment is low around one location, you may want to run a different promotion/campaign than if you were just trying to raise awareness about that location.

Also, I’m hoping to do some digging to look at location-based activity and sentiment around some pro sports arenas and venues. It would be interesting to compare the data to things like win-loss records and fan attendance.

What do you think about location-based analytics and its future in business?

But how do you actually know if your social engagement efforts are successful?

Some have argued that it’s silly to ask for ROI or to measure things; after all you wouldn’t ask what the ROI of answering the phone is, would you? Or maybe you would.

My philosophy is that you have to be where your fans and enthusiasts are (if it fits with your goals and objectives). If people are talking about you and you’re not listening, responding and engaging with them, that’s bad business. But if you’re running specific programs, promotions and initiatives that require time, money and resources, you need to be measuring what’s working and what’s not working. Before you do that you need to set goals and look at how social media can support them by mapping metrics to these goals.

Ultimately, I believe in looking at a bigger picture (social, search and email factors and trends) to understand your online recognition and reputation and their impact on your business. It is kind of silly to look at things in silos, as social, search and email all are connected and can affect each other. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also look at what your specific social media initiatives are doing for you. While your company should create a customized measurement program that is based on real goals, here are six overall buckets to examine.

Business Metrics

There are tools out there that can help you link specific social media efforts to business outcomes. These are things such as leads, new email subscribers, sales and donations. I use a tool called Argyle Social for this. You can create campaigns and see which links/posts to social sites are driving the most conversions.

Depending on your goals, you may also want to be tracking other things (assign a value to them first), such as number of calls to customer service over time, number of new ideas submitted or the number of times people have given feedback on your products or services. Keep track of these things and look at how your social engagement has affected them.

Share of Voice and Sentiment

In social media, share of voice refers to the number of conversations about your brand vs. your competitors/market. To do this, you’ll want to use a monitoring program that can help you keep track of all conversations about your brand and your competitors over a given time period. When looking at all these mentions you’ll want to make sure to track which ones are positive, negative and neutral, so you can assign a weight to each of these categories and calculate your average sentiment. To get share of voice, you divide the number of conversations about your brand by the total number of conversations about brands in your market. Jay Baer has a great beginner’s guide to share of voice on his blog, and some useful spreadsheets to help you get started.

It’s good to keep track of share of voice and sentiment over time, so you can see how your social engagement and promotions are affecting your overall trends and use this information to make smarter marketing decisions. Also, if your sentiment/share of voice jumps or drops suddenly, then you’ll want to dig deeper to understand why.

Awareness

Building awareness may be one of your goals or jobs as a marketer. A few things that may help signal online awareness include:

• Amount of website traffic/site visits/page views
• Number of searches for brand terms
• Video and content views

Engagement

Engagement is the extent to which people interact with you and your content. Some signs of engagement include:

• Likes (of a Facebook page and of your content)
• Shares
• Mentions (positive, negative, neutral)
• Blog comments
• Ratings
• Retweets
• Email opens and clicks, complaints, etc. Don’t forget about email, as your participation on social sites can have a positive (or negative, if you’re doing it wrong) impact on your numbers here.

Influence

Influence is the likelihood that what you’re doing inspires action. Some signals of influence may include:

• Number of (and quality of) inbound links to your content
• Likelihood that emails drive actions
• Likelihood that Twitter links are retweeted or commented on
• Likelihood that Facebook posts will be commented on and liked
• Likelihood that content will be shared/liked (and to what extent)

Popularity

Online popularity is essentially just the number of people subscribed to your content. Some people always say it’s all about the quality of your following, not the quantity. That’s true to some extent; however if you’re looking for advertisers or sponsors to partner with on social programs, having 10,000 followers on Twitter looks a lot better than having 500. Some examples of  online popularity signals include:

• Number of email subscribers
• Number of followers on Twitter
• Number of members of a LinkedIn group
• Number of people who like your Facebook page

I hope these buckets serve as helpful starting points for you. Before starting a new program, make sure you understand your current numbers for this so you can see how things change over time.

What do YOU think about these buckets as starting points for social media measurement?

If you’d ever like help measuring your social engagement efforts, please feel free to email me (jason at ewaydirect dot com) or drop me a line on Twitter. At eWayDirect (where I work), we’ve developed something we call eMindshare, which helps you benchmark your online awareness and sentiment vs. your competitors and keep track of how you’re doing. If you’d like to know more, let me know.

It is my pleasure to present the ebook, Sports and Social Media Predictions for 2011, which features 17 smart people and thought-leaders who have graciously shared their opinions, thoughts and predictions for sports and social media in 2011.

Feel free to download this, read it, blog about it, and share with your friends and coworkers. I hope you find it interesting. Apologies if the links to share this on Twitter don’t work…had a lot of trouble with that for some reason.

Click the image below to download this compilation (for best usability/results) or you can read this on Scribd.

*Note: I screwed up and forgot to include Joe Favorito‘s prediction in the ebook. Here are his thoughts. Sorry, Joe.

I think that you will see more team and brands integrating social media practices into their marketing plans so long as it does not increase budget and there is a more direct return on any investment. Teams have tried and abandoned a great deal of programs in 201 and now they are treating social media as much more of a tangible asset and less of a curiosity. Traditional media still is essential but an effective social media plan is a growing compliment and makes good sense. I think we will also continue to see a weeding out of self proclaimed “experts” and a bigger migration to those with a wide background who show that they can bring consistent and effective results.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Here are the slides from my presentation, as well as some key points. My goal was to give examples of opportunities made possible by social media and share some ways brands/properties can enhance current fan experiences or create new ones. The video from slide 19 didn’t make it into Slideshare (it didn’t work during my presentation either), but you can watch it here. On a couple of the other slides, the formatting looks a little strange, but hopefully you can still get the main points.

3 Main Points

1. Social media tools and platforms are unlocking some great opportunities for properties and sponsors
2. We can measure this stuff and prove its value
3. There are people out there doing some really cool things

Intro

Social media tools and platforms are everywhere. But they’re not social on their own; people are social.

There are a lot of opportunities–listening, responding, content delivery, promotions, etc. 1 to 1 conversations and 1 to many.

What do you do? Focus on your fans and enthusiasts. These people have always been passionate about brands/teams/properties they love. Social tools have just helped amplify their voices and bring people close to the things they love and others who share their passions.

Fans crave experiences, engagement and recognition. This has always been true, but now there are new opportunities to deliver these things.

New opportunities – beyond the stadium, for enthusiasts and fans to engage with each other, and for properties and sponsors to engage fans.

Example of access, engagement, and recognition coming together – Old Spice response campaign with Isaiah Mustafa. 40 million views after first week. Now, most viewed YouTube channel of all time. And sales went up.

Relationships are the currency of social media. Likers, fans, followers, subscribers are essentially the same–people you can build a relationship with. Relationships are what help you increase the things you care about–awareness, sales, attendance, customer lifetime value, etc.

Opportunities to make current fan experiences more social

Socialize your website. Enable and encourage people to share your content. Over 1 million websites use the Facebook Like button. People who like articles click on 5.3x more links than average Facebook user and have 2.4x as many friends (310 vs. 130).

Encourage fans to share their experiences. Empower your advocates and enthusiasts. Strategically reward or incentivize people to encourage sharing.

Socialize your events

• Location-based services. Offer rewards (content + experiences) to incentivize check-ins and increase awareness, foot traffic and sales.
• Encourage people to share content while at events
• Show people at events what others are saying about it

Group buying. People like buying things with others, especially if what they’re buying is cheaper this way.

Socialize your giveaways and promotions. Encourage people to share them and think of how you can use social platforms to get the word out and create/run specific promos and giveaways for social platforms.

Ideas for creating new experiences

Identify your passionate and profitable fans – within your database and outside it. Involve these people in new experiences and targeted programs.

Appreciate and Involve Bloggers. Warriors did a great job of this with their Tweedia Day.

Create new content. If you want people to care about you, you have to offer them something of value. Offer people exclusive, behind-the-scenes content on Twitter and Facebook (use tabs and maybe require a “like” to unlock the content)

Extend your event’s reach. American Express and Twitter created a great real-time hub for Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week. The site displayed tweets, pictures and videos about the event from fashion gurus, models and others. Great way to reach people who may not have attended the event, but still wanted to keep up with what was going on. And another way for AmEx to further align its brand with fashion while giving people exclusive access and content.

Social media is unique in that it powers experiences and is also used to promote them. Social-only programs are cool, but it’s a lot more powerful when you have a great idea/program and can integrate social into it.

Panthers Purrsuit case study. The Panthers teamed up with a main sponsor (Allen Tate) and 14 other sponsors to create a social media scavenger hunt. The event wasn’t just a social thing-it was promoted  in a variety of ways (email, social media, banners on Panthers/sponsor websites) and generated some great coverage in traditional media. On Saturday, October 23, 64 participants started at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC, and followed clues to arrive at specific sponsor locations. People had to tweet, post content, check-in, complete challenges, etc at each location. More than 1000 photos were posted to sponsor walls and there were 1200+ tweets with the #purrsuit hashtag posted on the day of the event. More importantly it drove actual people to sponsor businesses to help build new relationships and it showed businesses that Twitter and Facebook are more than just tools for pushing out content.

Measuring Success

• Establish goals
• Map metrics to goals
• compare before/after numbers
• Look at long-term trends

What to measure:

• Business metrics
• Share of voice and sentiment
• Awareness
• Engagement
• Influence
• Popularity

7 keys to success for implementing a program – slide 41.

5 things an agency can help you with (obviously there are more than 5, but here are a few)

• monitoring what’s being said
• identifying enthusiasts and influencers
• help set up/socialize presence on social sites
• creating and executing promotions
• Measuring results and collecting data

Hope you enjoyed the slides/notes. Would love to hear what you think.

• Allstate’s Good Hands Community
• MyColts.net – official community for the Indianapolis Colts
• AARP online community
• Ovation Arts Community

I assume the companies that run these communities and others are using them to engage their audience and bring people together for:

• Retention – Keep current customers around longer (and see how this community contributes to their spending)
• Acquisition – Identify new prospects and generate leads
• Research and data collection – monitor what people are talking about and collecting more data on prospects/customers
• New revenue opportunities – selling products, creating new products, incorporating sponsors, advertising, etc.
• Cost reduction – maybe these communities help companies save money on customer service
• Branding/awareness

In order for this to work, two crucial things must happen – people have to join the community and they have to participate (or at least come back and visit again). Sure there’s a lot that goes into this but in order for a community to be successful, people must join and participate.

Other communities may function fine with a set number of people or may work as private communities, but I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about communities where it’s important that the number of members/participants is constantly growing. Since a percentage of people usually stop participating at some point, or they only participate once, or they never participate, these communities must always be adding more members.

Here’s how things usually work with these communities when new people navigate to them.

1) People can see all (or some) of the great content there- activity streams, pictures, videos, question and answer sections, blogs, discussion forums, groups, etc– without being a member or logging in.

2) In order to participate in discussions, people must join the community by filling out a few fields (name, email address, password, and maybe others) or by clicking a button that enables them to use their Facebook identity or other social profile to register/log in.

What I’d really like to know is how many people would have participated in some manner (ex: commenting on a discussion), but don’t because they aren’t sure they want to become a full member..yet or ever.

What if we made it easier for people to participate in these online communities? What if we made parts of them more like blogs, where it’s accepted that people must put in a name and email address to participate, yet don’t feel pressured into having to become a “member.” You could then prompt people to register after the comment is published–you would already have their name and email address and would only have to go one extra step to ask for a password.

How many more participants and members could these communities gain if they opened them up a little bit and didn’t force membership in order to participate? And how many more people would join as a result of these non-members, if they’re given the choice to syndicate their comments/participation to sites like Facebook and Twitter so their friends are exposed to the communities? It would be fun to test.

On one hand, you want committed members and asking them to register is a commitment. But on the other hand, by forcing membership, you’re losing people who would have casually participated and then went on to become full members later.

In many cases, just being able to participate isn’t enough of a reason for people to join. People can often find the same/similar content on other blogs, forums and social networks they’re already participating in or don’t have to join. Maybe this means the community’s content isn’t good enough..or maybe not..there’s good content everywhere these days. You often have to add in special deals, offers, games, access, etc to attract people. So maybe we should let more people participate casually in online communities and then reward actual members with the more special stuff. I’m not sure what the answer is but I think there’s something here.

What do you think?

*photo credit - http://www.flickr.com/photos/27518426@N03/3874225648/

October will be an even busier month. I’ll be at some great events next month and would love to meet up if you’re there or in the area.

DMA 2010 Conference

I’m really looking forward to the DMA 2010 Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco. As my friend Espree Devora said on the phone today, social media and direct marketing have a lot in common. I’m excited to meet with some smart people and talk about social media, online communities and the integration of direct and digital marketing. I’ll be there from Oct. 10-13 if you want to try to meet up.

I’m also excited about the fact that the company I work for, eWayDirect, will be an exhibitor there. We’re working on a very cool algorithm that takes a brand’s marketshare, awareness, popularity and trust (looking at social media trends and sentiment, email marketing trends, acquisition trends and search trends) and combines them into a metric that the company can use to determine how successful its online marketing is and see how it is doing compared to its competition. We’ll be releasing the first version of this metric at the DMA show and if there’s enough interest, we’ll really build it out. If you’re going to the show, I’d love to walk you through our approach and get your thoughts. Or you can follow the eWayDirect Blog for updates and news about this.

BlogWorld

I’m definitely looking forward to going back to Las Vegas again this year for BlogWorld (October 14-16). You can see some of my takeaways from last year’s event here and some video interviews I did with some smart folks about the ultimate mobile+social app here.

I’ll probably do another series of interviews this year, but I haven’t yet decided what the question should be. If you have ideas, I’m all ears. But interviews or no interviews, the best part of BlogWorld is hanging out with some really awesome people in Vegas. Let me know if you’ll be there and let’s definitely meet up.

Western Sponsorship Congress

I’ll be speaking on how social media platforms can benefit sponsors and properties at the Western Sponsorship Congress in Calgary on October 26-27. I’m looking forward to having a good discussion about this and hearing from some other smart folks in the sports marketing industry. If you’re going to be there, I’d love to chat!

Please see below for some questions and answers about the Panthers Purrsuit from Mike and Dana Thomas, Account Manager/Events Coordinator with the Panthers.

What is the Panthers Purrsuit?

The Panthers Purrsuit is citywide quest to discover new places, visit local businesses and non-profits, and connect with other Panthers fans. Team up with friends to find clues, complete challenges, earn points and win prizes – all while sharing the experience with friends via popular social networking sites.

What was the thinking behind launching this? Did anything that other teams/brands have done with social media inspire this?

We started talking about this in May when Scott Hepburn mentioned this concept over a coffee brainstorming meeting. He thought the Panthers could be a tour stop on this brilliant “road rally” concept he had thought up to get folks to interact not just online but in person with places around Charlotte. I thought it was a perfect (purrfect) way to get our fans in closer contact with our team partners, sponsors and non-profits and brought it back to our team internally who saw the potential in the event.

How are you getting the word out about the Panthers Purrsuit?

Mainly via social channels, our Twitter and Facebook pages, but also email, PR, and they’ll be Panthers radio ads and also ads in our GameTime program as well. So far at least one Panthers player, Everette Brown, has done a Youtube video inviting fans to participate and we are hoping for more support in that area.

How has social media changed the way you think about creating programs like this that engage fans?

From the sponsorship side, our partners really share a passion for Panthers football and they want to engage our fans that share that passion. Social media is a great bridge between traditional media (print, radio, tv) and interactive sampling that happens at and around games. Social is also measurable and helps start conversations as opposed to one-way messaging. Our sponsors have been asking for more ways to interact with fans and social media really helps make this possible.

I see that Allen Tate is a sponsor. How were they involved in creating this and how will they be involved on October 23rd?

Once we met internally as a team around the Panthers Purrsuit idea and decided it was an event we wanted to make happen, we had to have a sponsor that believed in social media as a medium to help cover the costs of such an event, the prizes, the T-Shirt, the food and beverages at the awards party. Allen Tate was the first company we looked to because of their adoption of Facebook, Twitter, and blogging. We also executed a Twitter contest last year with Allen Tate that netted some excellent results for them and for a lucky fan so we thought they might have an appetite for pushing the envelope a little further.

Registration for a team is $40 – what was the thinking in having people pay to register vs. letting them register and participate for free?

We have two main reasons for the entry fee. We believe the fans will find value in the event. It’s going to be a lot of fun to participate and fans will get a T-shirt for signing up and checking in, as well as an awards after-party where the teams can gather and have dinner and drinks and watch as the prizes will be handed out. Secondly with so many local partners involved we had to have a way for them to plan their day and how many people will show up. We have a defined start and end but lots of clues along the way. We need to plan exactly how many teams will show up an Allen Tate office or a Harris Teeter store (if those are clue stops, my lips are sealed) so that the brand staff can have a positive experience with them. So with an entry fee there is a commitment to participate.

What kind of prizes can people win by participating?

The grand prize is a trip to our Panthers vs. Steelers game in Pittsburgh with airfare, hotel and game tickets on 12/23. There will be many different prize categories from something as simple as Best Team name or best team costume. I hope nearly everyone goes home with something from the awards party whether that’s a trip to the ‘Burgh or a Panthers hat.

What are your expectations for this? What would make it a success?

First I hope we have all types of teams sign up. This is not only for social media addicts. This is for Panthers fans and fans of shows like the Amazing race. It’s not all social, but there are physical challenges as well. Then I want 100% of the challenge teams that participate to sign back up in 2011 when we have this again. The same for our partners because that will mean it will have been fun for the teams and a productive example for our partners that social media is not just online, but its real life.

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Mike and Dana – Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

I hope you found their answers valuable and that they spark some thoughts on new ideas that you can try with your company or organization.

What do you think about the Panthers Purrsuit?

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?
• why should agents care?
• why should coaches care?
• why should colleges care?
• why should agencies care?
• why should properties care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is sponsors. Sponsors should care because social media can help them increase the effectiveness and reach of their programs and activation efforts. Social media can help them achieve their goals and reach fans in interesting ways at the stadium and beyond it. Everything online is measurable, so sponsors can see what is driving actions/activity they’re interested in.

See below for a few thoughts from other smart folks about why properties should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – Social media gives sponsors a whole new medium to reach fans. The catch is the sponsors have to completely rethink how they approach fans in this medium. Talking at them isn’t going to work, so sponsors have to figure out how to start conversations with the end-consumer in a non-intrusive manner that leans more towards a conversation than it does advertising.

Dennis Allen – Social media provides sponsors a way to eliminate layers between them and their consumers. The real time assessment of their brand, product and strategy is invaluable in today’s world of global competition. Social media also affords them a way to be more personally involved with their audiences. As well as a method to get out in front of potential negative branding issues before they cause irreparable damage.

Anthony De Rosa – Sponsors, like properties need to connect organically on social media. They have to be here because that’s where the audience is.

Brian Gainor – Sponsors should care about social media because it serves as an additional channel to deliver and reap value from their property agreements. Sponsors can utilize social media as a cost-effective, engaging means to drive awareness for programs/promotional offers, drive traffic to microsites and URLs, stimulate discussion about products/team affiliation, capitalize on new inventory (owning social media channels), and seamlessly align with athlete endorsers (to name just a few). Properties are still in the early stages of developing and valuing their social media channels, so sponsors looking to make a huge splash with limited activation dollars should seek out this inventory now!

Lewis Howes – Sponsors should be looking at new ways to use social media in their campaigns in place of the traditional advertising methods. It’s no secret that people are becoming less trusting of companies and want to trust and interact with “real” people today. Sponsors should capitalize on that and come up with sponsorships that are personable to their consumers.

Ash Read – Social media allows sponsors to build up relationships with sports fans. Rather than just broadcasting their message they can provide interesting content, interact with fans and really build their brand through sponsorship. If a sponsor really wants to make the most from their sponsorship they should look into the possibilities of social media and digital activations. Sponsors shouldn’t try and use social media as a way to broadcast their brand name though, they should look to provide content that fans will appreciate and become a part of the community.

Brian Reich – The economy of eyeballs has been undermined by social media — its not enough to deliver a message, a brand now has to make a strong case for why their product is worth buying, address questions that consumers might have… and explain how their connection to an athlete or team can translate to an individual’s life. Sponsoring a sporting event and having your ads appear in the stadium or between segments of the broadcast won’t be enough. Fans get information from a variety of sources, and they look for more information than what is simply put in front of them before deciding to make a deeper investment. Sponsors make it possible for sports leagues to exist and games to be played, but social media gives them both an opportunity – and I would argue an observation — to add more to the fan experience, and the quality of the sports offering as well. They can use sports sponsorship as a venue to deliver a message about their commitment to a serious issues — and mobilize action among fans to respond and support a worth cause. They can add data and insight, through a lens that promotes their products or services — and in doing so demonstrate the value of their offering and commitment to creating a valuable experience for the audience. But they have to do something different if they want to realize a return on their investment.

Trevor Turnbull – Social media is all about building relationships. The success of a sponsorship agreement can be directly related to how closely tied their brand is to a team, athlete or event. Social media allows sponsors the opportunity to directly associate themselves to a sports team, athlete, venue or event. The influence that these entities have over their fan base can be directly attributed to the connection consumers might inevitably have with a sponsor.

Brendan Whilhide – Social media is a unique opportunity to reach your audience directly. Also, when done well, marketing via social media can have incredible results. See the recent Old Spice viral YouTube campaign as evidence of that.

Joseph Yi – To an extent, social media has changed the way that sponsorship deals have developed. No longer are online assets limited to banner placements and pre-roll advertisements on videos. Rather, sponsors are looking for ways to tap into the large distribution opportunities that social media provides. Because of social media’s sharing capabilities when sponsors look at areas like impressions, visibility, and the distribution networks that are possible, the opportunities are endless.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think sponsors should care?

It’s been a lot of fun putting this series together. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I have.

*photo credit – http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiros2004/3896658394/sizes/s/

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?
• why should agents care?
• why should coaches care?
• why should colleges care?
• why should agencies care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is properties. Properties can use social media in a variety of ways:

• drive awareness and get more butts in seats (sell more tickets to events)
• improve the fan experience before, during and after the event
• improve the experience for fans who are not able to experience the event in person (new content/monetization opportunities)
• increase the reach and effectiveness of sponsor activations to drive more sponsorship revenue

See below for a few thoughts from other smart folks about why properties should care about sports and social media.

Anthony De Rosa – Properties need it to brand themselves. Social media allows them the opportunity to connect with people in a organic way, if done properly.

Brian Gainor – Sports properties that assess social media primarily as a fan engagement tool and secondarily as a revenue-driver (direct/indirect) will experience the best results. Those who invest necessary time and resources to provide users with unique content (videos, pictures, stories), behind-the-scenes access, promotional offers, and insights will attract a multitude of avid fans online. This is in turn will help formulate new fan databases, deliver new promotional inventory for sponsors, serve as a means to drive traffic to merchandise/ticket/suite sales, and help maintain brand relevancy 365 days per year. Twitter and Facebook also help teams monitor real-time fan feedback, promote individual players’ brands and charities, demonstrate a tech-savvy corporate culture, and interact directly with both avid and casual fans all across the world. The opportunities are endless with social media!

Ash Read – Social media can generate more exposure for sponsors. In my social media interview with Real Madrid I learned that some club partners now prefer exposure on the clubs social media profiles (mainly Facebook and Twitter) to the official Real Madrid website. When putting together a sponsorship proposal or package properties should put a focus on digital rights and opportunities – this is something which is often overlooked. However, before properties can build social media into proposals they first need to build up their social media profiles and following; sponsors want eyeballs and being put in front of 20 Twitter followers probably won’t make them stand up and take note. If properties can allow sponsors to become part of a vibrant and large community then this becomes a great opportunity for sponsors.

Brian Reich – The people who build ballparks and design arenas are looking to create the ultimate fan experiences, and maybe to provide a team with home field advantage as well. The game unfolding on the field will always be the primary attraction, but in the digital age, and a socially enabled world, the experiences that fans have is not limited to what they can see from their seats. We are always connected, have access to more information than what is available on the scoreboard, and welcome the observations from those who are attending or watching the same game, at the same time. Just as social media creates the possibility of building a community around any event, properties should recognize the experience they must now create should be socially-enabled also. Give fans a way to interact with the building. Make connections between those inside an arena and those participating from afar. Capture and share the total experience that the gathering of fans makes possible, and use it as a way of enhancing the product (sports) as well.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think properties should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post (the last in this series), which will examine why sponsors should care about social media/sports.

*photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambermarie/3805836002/sizes/l/

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?
• why should agents care?
• why should coaches care?
• why should colleges care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is agencies. It’s agencies’ jobs to understand clients’ business goals and bring new, innovative ideas for marketing, promotions and partnerships to their clients to help them achieve these goals. They need to understand how social media can be leveraged to support overall marketing and business objectives.

With all the social media platforms available, fans are creating and consuming content in a variety of ways, and agencies need to understand this. Agencies need to bring ideas for sponsorships and promotions that enable fans to interact with the companies running them and the content that exists as a part of them. Most importantly, they need to understand how to measure the results. Old metrics such as reach and frequency are outdated. Actions and engagement are what really matter. Agencies need to be able to navigate the sports/social media waters, so they can lead their clients in the right direction.

See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why agencies should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – If all of these other interested parties care, then you need to care, too. You need to go beyond simply using it and knowing about it, but be able to educate your clients on how to use it effectively.

Dennis Allen – Lots of today’s branding does not go through traditional media. They need to know where the fans are going to get their content. How to talk to them through the various mediums. They also need to know what is hot and what is not. What is everyone talking about? So they do not miss the mark with their branding and corporate messaging.

Anthony De Rosa – Agencies care more and understand social media second only to the generation that grew up on it. They have to because it’s the future of marketing. If you can reach 500 million people on Facebook, why waste money advertising on more traditional formats where you reach far less and in a passive way?

Ash Read – Social media gives agencies the opportunity to position themselves as field experts, drive sales, network and stay up-to-date with the latest trends – in short, social media can have big benefits for agencies. In my opinion one of the key benefits for agencies is the ability to position themselves as field experts, this can be done through blogs, Linkedin, Twitter, to name a few. The key is to share good content and build conversation with people within the industry and potential clients.

Brian Gainor – Agencies should invest time and resources in social media because it is clearly an X-factor that can have an impact on their clients’ business, winning new business, and creating holistic business solutions. Social media serves as a cost-effective channel to drive conversation and brand relevancy, promotional/web traffic, and direct/indirect revenue streams. Agencies can pad their experiential/digital/PR competencies with social media solutions that drive results and help brands make an immediate splash in the marketplace. Consumers now expect companies to have Facebook pages, LinkedIn profiles, YouTube Channels, and Twitter handles – so if you are not playing in this space, you are under delivering.

Brian Reich – Agencies should care about social media because utilizing it well on behalf of their clients is the only hope for their survival. In the past, agencies were hired to help market products and athletes to consumers on behalf of leagues and teams. They were put in the middle to help create a connection and translate an important message. But in the digital age, with the tools widely for all to use, we don’t need help to make connections. Teams, leagues, athletes and fans can connect directly — and there is no need to translate anything when there is an open, trusted, genuine relationship being developed. Of course, there is a lot of work left to do to help the leagues and teams and athletes understand what fans want, and how to support their interests… so agencies can help to educate their clients about the changing nature of communications and the potential power that social media provides. And in some cases, ,there will still be a need for agencies to help manage the efforts as well. For now.

Russell Scibetti – Agencies should care because social media needs to be a part of any company’s marketing mix, and this includes the events and properties that they represent. Their corporate clients are ultimately looking to increase revenue and improve their brand value, and actively engaging the fans through their sponsorships is an important part of that process. Outside of the actual game day experience, social media is the most “active” and engaging communication option they can leverage.

Trevor Turnbull – Agencies have two choices. Stick with the old traditional agency model and slowly become obsolete. Or, incorporate social media into their campaigns and thrive. Traditional media is not going anywhere, but, not including social media into client campaigns means missing out on a massive opportunity to drive offline traffic to online platforms that allow for further communication and relationship building between agency clients and their target audience.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think agencies should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why properties should care about social media/sports.

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?
• why should agents care?
• why should coaches care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is colleges. One major reason colleges need to care about social media is because they need to educate their athletes on what to say/what not to say. Like it or not, athletes’ actions reflect the colleges they play for. If they say something on Twitter, it is the same thing as saying it at a press conference. Athletes need to be reminded of this.

If you haven’t heard, UNC (my alma mater) had some terrible news Thursday re: football players being investigated for academic violations. This tweet from one of our running backs could not have come at a worse time – “Is it bad that I hardly ever know the name of my classes or the professors name??” I seriously hope the allegations aren’t true and that this player was joking, but come on dude! I really hope UNC gets all athletes in a training session soon about how to manage their online identities. PLEASE.

Ok, enough about the UNC stuff. All colleges need to get a handle on sports and social media. The impact it can have on their athletic programs for recruiting, marketing, ticket sales, fan engagement, etc. is huge (for good and for bad). See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why colleges should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – Kids will be kids, which means student-athletes are going to slip up somewhere along the way. Facebook, Twitter, and all of these tools make it even easier to slip up, which can get the player in legal trouble or, at the very least, reflect negatively upon your athletic department and academic institution.

Dennis Allen – Colleges are driven by financial stability in their sports programs. Bad image means declining revenues and less recruiting power. Their administrative staff, coaches and players all need to be aware of the demands being put on them by the additional exposure in today’s world of satellite TV. More games being broadcasted means more scrutiny. Awareness is again tantamount to success.

Anthony De Rosa – Colleges are using it to recruit. It’s a killer recruiting tool. Their audience is the biggest user and consumer of social media. They HAVE to be here.

Lewis Howes – Social media can be a great tool for small colleges and universities that don’t have the big marketing dollars to spend. I don’t like saying social media is free because you do have to give your time, but it’s still a great option in comparison to wasted advertising efforts. Many of their target audience members (college students) are already using social media. It would be wise of them to connect and take advantage of that setup.

Brian Reich – The challenge that a school must address in finding ways to market its athletic program, its hopes of selling merchandise or promoting game telecasts. and their likelihood of maintaining the interest of fans over time has totally changed. We are living in a connected society. A college can reach its alumni, build a fan base, or even scout a prospective student athlete halfway across the globe in more direct, compelling, and personal ways than ever before. Regardless of size or resources, the opportunities are now available to everyone. And since the generation that is entering college now has never lived in an age without computers, cell phones — and of course their internet — they are more likely to attend, play for, and continue to support a school that they have built a trusted relationship with over time. Social media makes is possible for any school to put itself on the map.

Russell Scibetti – College should care for the same reasons as teams, with the added focus that one of their key audiences, their students, are some of the most active and ultimately influential social media users out there. Even if they don’t currently represent the same monetary value of alumni and donors, the student of today become the donors of tomorrow, so social media can help build an even deeper loyalty and affinity now while they are in school.

Trevor Turnbull – There are plenty of restrictive rules around NCAA recruitment that makes engaging in social media very controversial for colleges. However, there are not many levels of sports that can rival the passion that college sports fans have for their favourite teams. Therefor, not actively engaging in social media is a missed opportunity to showcase the character, tradition and culture of a college athletic program. Social media can be used as a recruitment tool without actually communicating directly with young recruits.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think colleges should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why agencies should care about social media/sports.

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?
• why should agents care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is coaches. Social media can bring coaches closer to fans, ticket holders, donors, sponsors and even athletes they’re trying to bring to the programs they run. Social media gives coaches a direct line of communication to fans, which can help strengthen fans’ loyalty to the coaches and teams they love. Similar to athletes, coaches can use social media to build a following and open up new job and/or sponsorship opportunities. Social media has also led to recruiting 2.0–enabling coaches at schools with smaller budgets to identify talented athletes (or athletes they want to stay away from) based on the content about these athletes that exist online.

Also, some people have said that coaches need to make sure their players understand the RIGHT way to utilize social media–in a manner that reflects positively on the teams they play for. While this may not be coaches’ primary responsibility (I think this should fall to the same people that educate athletes on how to speak to the press), coaches are the perceived leaders of their teams. When a player does something negative, this reflects poorly on the coach, too. A coach needs to make sure athletes are given proper training so they aren’t using social media in ways that could hurt people’s perceptions of the coach or team.

See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why coaches should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – If you are like Pete Carroll, you can use social media to make your fans fall in love with you even more. If you’re like Roy Williams, you need to educate your players about how to act appropriately in social media. If you’re like Joe Paterno, well, leave the Tweeting up to your son.

Dennis Allen -Coaches need to know what the general perceptions are regarding their team and players. Also regarding their strategies. Coaches longevity is in decline. Demands to win are heightened. They need to please a lot of different audiences and as such need to heighten their awareness of what is being said. Social media allows them to stay “in the know.”

Anthony De Rosa – For amateur coaches, its a great tool to broadcast information to their players, like when their next practice is, etc. For major league coaches, again, it’s a way to talk to fans, but coaches aren’t really buying into social media in that way just yet. They prefer the traditional press conference, but that could change.

Brian Gainor - Social media serves as an effective means for coaches to connect with players/recruits, fans, and donors, and their local community. In the coaching space, Pete Carroll has differentiated himself through social media in both the collegiate and professional ranks. While at USC, Carroll used his Twitter profile to post viral videos of team meetings and off-field activities, engaging Twitpics, and unique moments where celebrities like Will Ferrell visited practice. With the Seahawks, Carroll has used social media to connect with the local Seattle DMA, provide real-time updates detailing team progress, promote his book tour, and thank fans for their support. If anything, coaches need to understand the social media space to stay one leg up in recruiting battles and understand how members of their organization (coaches, personnel, players) may be violating rules and/or missing out on engagement opportunities.

Lewis Howes – Coaches should care for similar reasons to athletes in career building. They also should be using social networks to monitor what’s happening with their own players.

Ash Read - Athletes will soon start arriving at new teams with social media profiles and fan bases, coaches will need to understand the ins and outs of social media and also keep on top what players can and can’t share through social media. Some coaches may be very open, however, others may not want to share behind the scenes images or info from the locker room as well as injury news and updates. Social media also holds massive opportunity coaches themselves to build their personal brands, just as it does for athletes.

Brian Reich – One of the wonderful extensions of the rise of social media has been the explosion of information that is available, and the addition credible voices to almost every conversation imaginable. With the controls on who can create and promote information lifted, new experts emerge, new perspectives begin to flow, and new insights can be gathered and processed. For coaches, this means there are more eyes to analyze game tape and countless different perspectives from which data and insight might be offered. The coaches that embrace social media can present their ideas for how to lead a team in more compelling ways — but also can embrace the opportunity to expand the size of their virtual staff.

Trevor Turnbull – Coaches need to be especially aware of the impact that social media is having on their role as the leader of their team. We have seen examples in the past where coaches have come down hard on players that act inappropriately online. Alternatively, by providing guidelines on acceptable conduct for players on social media platforms, a mutual trust and respect can be established between a coach and his players that is critical to the success of their team.

Brendan Wilhide – Coaches, especially college coaches, have the unique opportunity of fielding fan questions about their team or program on social media sites. Coaches can be brand ambassadors in social media.

Joseph Yi - With teams, athletes, and agents adopting social media, coaches can benefit from social media by giving themselves a voice. One great example of this is John Calipari, coach of the University of Kentucky. Calipari, who has over a million Twitter followers, uses social media as a way to interact with UK fans and the community. Just how athletes often like to voice their opinion on topics, social media gives coaches an outlet to the community rather than having to go through the media.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think coaches should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why colleges should care about social media/sports.

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?
• why should athletes care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is agents. Agents need to stay on top of social media and what their clients are doing to:

• educate them on what to do and what not to do
• research what potential clients are doing well and not so well (you want to identify potential liabilities now, rather than later)
• understand where new monetization opportunities exist for athletes
• understand how to do damage control if necessary
• in some cases, to keep athletes from violating terms of their contracts

See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why agents should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – Your athletes will probably use some form of social media, whether it be a personal Facebook page or a fully integrated social media presence. No matter what it is, you have to realize that everything spreads quicker in the social age. This means naked photos, mug shots, un-kosher tweets, and stupid comment sin post game press conferences. Make sure your athletes know what to say and what not to say in these mediums, because they don’t want to end up on Deadspin.

Dennis Allen – Management sees what the fans are saying about teams and players. Agents need to be aware of this to properly position and market their assets before, during and after contract negotiations.

Anthony De Rosa – Agents should care because they have less control over their clients. Agents want to control the message and the story around their client, but it’s harder to do that when they have so many outlets they can speak through at a moment’s notice.

Ash Read - It’s essential that agents understand social media and they need to make sure their clients have adequate social media training to avoid the potential pitfalls. We all talk about the endless opportunities social media provides but someone needs to make sure athletes understand what they’re doing. Agents also need to understand the commercial benefits of social media and how they can make it pay off for their clients. Once an athlete has built up a following on social media there are endless ways they can utilise it and make it a part of endorsement details.

Brian Reich – Agents are in the business of selling athletes — they negotiate large contracts, put together endorsement deals, and manage public relations on behalf of their clients, with the goal of enhancing their value in the eyes of owners and sponsors. For an agent to demonstrate that an athlete is valuable, they need to show the passion of fans, and the prospect of converting interest into revenue. As social media becomes a more embedded part of all aspects of life, it redefines consumer culture — so agents must understand that community and accountability and transparency (values that you see on display across all types of social interaction online) contribute to the ways people get/share information, and what motivates someone to buy a product, and thus should be applied to their work with athletes as well.

Russell Scibetti - Agents should care for the same reason that athletes need to care. If an agent is going to best represent their client’s interests, they need to be just as aware, if not more aware of the impact that social media has on their client’s brand. How their clients interact with fans on social media can affect everything from player contract negotiations to maximizing the athlete’s endorsement and marketing opportunities.

Trevor Turnbull – Athletes turn to their agents for advice on all kinds of topics including contract negotiation, financial planning, legal advice, investments, marketing and promotions. Agents that choose to ignore the power of social media are taking a huge risk. After all, their clients have the ability to positively influence the profitability of an agency. If the agent does not assume the role of guiding their clients with regards to social media best practices, the athletes can say and do whatever they want. Therefore, it is in the best interest of a sports agent to provide guidance to their athletes on how to represent themselves via social media in a manner that is best for their career.

Brendan Wilhide – Social media is a great way to build awareness about your clients and “tell their side of the story.” Agents can use social media to break news about their clients, too, and even scoop the media sometimes.

Joseph Yi - For agents, social media is a great tool for networking. As social media creates a free flow of information, social networks like Twitter act as a business card into some athletes who may be looking for representation. Similarly, professional social networks like LinkedIn give agents a professional presence/resume online.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think agents should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why coaches should care about social media/sports.

• why should fans care?
• why should teams care?

Even if you already know why this is important, I hope you enjoy getting a variety of perspectives on this subject. If you have bosses, colleagues or friends that still don’t get it, maybe they’ll find some value in this series if you share it with them.

Today’s topic is athletes. Athletes are in a great position to benefit from social media tools and platforms. Social media gives athletes a direct line to fans, and fans a direct line to athletes. Instead of having to tell their stories through media outlets, athletes can now tell fans directly. This gives athletes an opportunity to show their human sides (for bad or for good) and shed light on their favorite brands/sponsors, products and charities. Even after athletes’ careers are over, they’re still able to interact with fans and extend their influence via social media.

See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why athletes should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – In the past, your game was just about all you had to separate yourself from other athletes and capture the hearts of sports fans. That is still important, but social media can both help you win over new fans and make your existing fans even more. This means you are more attractive to sponsors, get more love from the media, and get more cheers during the game.

Dennis Allen – Athletes are needing to become much more brand conscious in this new world of constantly streaming information. Social media is a way for them to engage the fan and their other constituencies directly. To create and broaden their own brand/personality.

Steve Cobb – Social media is a match made in heaven for athletes who want to connect with as many fans as possible, build their brand, attract and activate sponsors, and set themselves up for a career after sport. Sports fans are spending less time watching TV and listening to the radio and more time watching YouTube videos and chatting on Twitter, so what better place to establish a presence and distribution network than the media channels of the future? There is no denying the rising expectation levels of both fans and sponsors for athletes to utilize social media.

Brian Gainor - Social media allows athletes to no longer live at the mercy of the media – they now control their own message. By investing adequate time and resources into developing their own personal social media channels, athletes can manage their brand in an effective, yet cost-efficient manner. Athletes can utilize social media channels to build a loyal fan base, leverage their endorsements, promote national ad campaigns, control messaging around major decisions (free agency, off-the-field deals), communicate directly with fans and fellow celebrities, and promote charitable initiatives.

Anthony De Rosa – Athletes can bypass the middleman of needing a publicist. They can connect directly to fans if and when they want to.

Lewis Howes - Athletes should care about social media because of the opportunities for personal branding. Many athletes’ careers end the day they retire from the court or field. If they are planning ahead for that next career stage they can capitalize on their popularity as an athlete and turn that into a new business venture. Social media builds a network that can be carried from a life as an athlete to the next stage of their career.

Ash Read - Superstar athletes like Lebron James, Payton Manning and Lionel Messi will get the big endorsement deals, sponsorships and publicity without social media because they are the best at what they do. For athletes who aren’t ‘superstars’ getting visibility and building your own fan base can be difficult and this is where social media can help. Social media gives everyone the opportunity to be different and stand out from the crowd. Social media also allows athletes to show fans their real personalities, something which doesn’t always show through on the court/field.

Brian Reich – Social media isn’t a thing, a set of tools or tactics that anyone can use to advance their work. Social media is how people, looking to connect with others who have shared interests or who are hoping to develop a relationship with an organization that is doing something they care deeply about, engage and develop relationships. Though modern-day athletes have become, in essence, brands, the motivation for fans is to connect with them as human beings. Social media makes athletes more accessible and provides an opportunity for athletes, who are willing, to engage in a deeper, more direct, more genuine conversation, build trust, and develop true relationships

Russell Scibetti - In the age of free agency and big contracts, the most important thing that a player has outside of their contract is their brand. They need to care about social media because it gives them a direct-to-consumer communication channel that has more influence over their brand image than any jersey or team logo does. Because of the power that this medium has, players need to have a great balance of being genuine and being self-aware. They should let that fun personality shine through while remembering that once they click “Submit”, there’s no going back. They need to better understand the pros and cons of the instantaneous nature of social media.

Trevor Turnbull – Social media allows athletes to control their own personal brand and messaging. For superstar athletes, this means being able to paint their own picture on how they are perceived by their fan base, rather than giving up that control to the mainstream media. And, of course, for those athletes that are not of “superstar” status, social media can help build a loyal following that can prove to be extremely valuable in contract negotiations. It also allows opportunities for new revenue streams in the form of sponsorship agreements that can present themselves as a result of the direct influence athletes have with their unique fan base.

Brendan Wilhide – Athletes on social media control their own message. They can talk to fans and increase their fanbases and exposure with a strong social media presence. Athletes are joining Twitter and other social media sites at a very fast pace because they recognize the unique opportunity to interact directly with their fans via social media.

Joseph Yi - Social media has been an especially valuable tool to athletes because of its usefulness as a branding tool. Not only is it valuable for well known athletes like Shaquille O’Neal, but also for the lesser known individuals who are trying to make a name for themselves. More and more, we are seeing teams utilizing rookies and unknown athletes as part of their social media campaigns because these individuals are seizing the new opportunities to get their name out there through social media engagement.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think athletes should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why agents should care about social media/sports.

Today’s topic is teams. Teams have a ton of opportunities utilize social media and new platforms to increase fan loyalty, sell more tickets and merchandise, create new revenue streams for themselves and their sponsors, reach fans beyond the stadium and get a deeper understanding of what is important to fans. As traditional media often lack the resources to give many teams proper coverage, teams need to think like publishers to get their content in front of as many people as possible–in formats that fans want.

See below for a variety of thoughts from other smart folks about why teams should care about sports and social media.

Jackie Adkins – Your fans are talking about you in social media regardless of whether you’re active there or not, so you might as well listen to what is being said. Then, if you want to take it to the next level, you can give your fans a deeper into look and more access to your team than ever before, which will strengthen their emotional attachment to the team. Finally, you have the chance to build relationships with very influential supporters of your team in the form of bloggers, who have large and very faithful readerships.

Dennis Allen – Social media gives them an open forum to listen to the fans. To learn what is important to them. An opportunity to find out what is working and what is not. A way to factor real time input into their decision making process.

Steve Cobb – Different teams have different priorities. While the Wizards may be focused on selling tickets to fans in DC and attracting new sponsors, the Capitals may be focused on reaching fans outside of DC and activating existing sponsors. But no matter the goal, social media is a flexible tool that teams can leverage to achieve it. Beyond the obvious benefits of providing a voice for fans and distributing the latest news and highlights via Facebook and Twitter, teams now have the power to offer integrated real-world fan experiences through promotions using Foursquare and SCVNGR that creatively make use of assets and offer unique value to partners. In today’s sports world, just having a social presence is not enough and not having a social presence is inexcusable.

Anthony De Rosa – Because now they have real time feedback system to tap into what their fans are saying about their team. Much cheaper than focus groups and much quicker.

Lewis Howes - Teams should care for several reasons. Chance to brand the team, grow a fanbase or just increase fan loyalty. Teams can increase ticket sales for certain games or matches. They can use social media to create a buzz online that translates to press coverage. The list of benefits goes on.

Ash Read - Social media holds amazing opportunities for sports teams of all sizes. In my opinion one of the biggest benefits for sports teams is the ability to have constant communication with their fan base. In the past, many teams have faced club/fan disconnect, meaning fans would often visit un-official or fan run sites and not get their information from official sources but, social media has countered that in many cases. Social media also gives teams the opportunity to bring their fans closer and really make them feel a part of the team; this can be done through behind the scenes content, videos, images and conversation. Conversation is a key to social media, hence the word “social.” However, this has often been overlooked, especially over here in the UK.

Brian Reich – Teams are competing for attention, and dollars, along with every other brand, organization and distraction that exists in people’s lives. Thanks to social media, organizations are now receiving far more direct, focused, and constructive feedback from their most important customers. Those who listen and embrace that feedback, develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with their audience — and that results in more attention, energy, and yes, money.

Russell Scibetti - Teams should care because fans care. Their most active, passionate and vocal advocates are participating in the social media landscape, regardless of whether the teams are there or not. So really, teams have two options: ignore the conversation and stick to old-fashioned, one-way marketing, or join the conversation and engage with their fans. I think the answer here is obvious.

Trevor Turnbull – In the world of professional sports, teams are focused on winning (of course). But, they are also driven by profitability. The lifeline of a sports franchise is their fan base. Social media provides opportunities for teams to enrich the fan experience while building loyalty and trust through the highs and the lows. The connection that can be built between teams and their fans through social media can have a significant impact on the financial success of the team via ticket and merchandise sales.

Brendan Wilhide -Your fans are already passionate about your team. Tap into that passion by engaging them via social media and share in the fan experience with them.

Joseph Yi - From a team perspective, social media is great because it’s cost effective in regards to marketing dollars and also it allows teams to have a more “intimate” relationship with their fans. Teams are able to have a better understanding of what their fan base is saying about them and social media also provides teams with a chance to update fans instantly. When used effectively, social media can be a powerful tool that can bring fans together.

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Now it’s your turn – why do you think teams should care?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, which will examine why athletes should care about social media/sports.