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So you might be thinking: “What exactly does Tony Robbins have to do with sponsorship, and why did he speak at IEG’s conference?”

Though I’ve seen a number of Tony Robbins videos online and think he’s a great guy, I was wondering the same thing before I heard him speak last Monday.

For four hours, Tony had everyone listening, engaged, and, at times, on their feet and dancing (see end of video below). I’ve never seen someone who can control a crowd as well as Tony. He had the crowd fired up and gave people some things they can apply to their own life and businesses. His main focus is getting people to understand what things drive them to do what they do, and how they can use this knowledge to focus on the things they want. I came away with some good ideas about what I should focus on, and his speech energized me for the rest of the conference.

If you really focus on whatever it is you want to accomplish and attack it with an insane amount of energy, then good things will happen. This message can apply to anyone, so even though it wasn’t directly focused on sponsorship, I thought it was a great message for people to hear, especially considering that things have been difficult for many people lately.

Here’s a short clip of Tony’s speech. At the end you can see how fired up everyone was.

Leading up to and during the NBA All-Star Game last night, there were some great videos and initiatives created by the league and brands like adidas to insert themselves in the conversation online and engage fans. Here are some things I noticed.

Facebook/All-Star Game Live Streaming

Facebook, TNT and the NBA teamed up to live stream the NBA All-Star Game online and pull in fan conversations in the same page via Facebook Connect. Fans could watch the activities last night live on TNT’s website and choose from any of the four different camera angles available. While they were watching online, all the conversations from Facebook from the other people who were watching were pulled in to the page on the right side. Fans could see the conversations as a whole, or just what their friends were saying. Fans could also vote on which players they wanted to see via the Player Cams. The live streams were presented by Sprite, and this was a good way to tie in a sponsor to something that provides value/entertainment for fans. This was a very cool mashup of live streaming and Facebook, and one that I think complements/enhances TV viewing. In the future, I bet we’ll see more of this and the ability to segment the conversation even further, so you could break it down and see what people were saying by city/state/age/etc.

Adidas/Dwight Howard Videos and Live Updates

Adidas created a section for fans to follow Dwight Howard during the All-Star Game. Here they could find YouTube videos, his posts on Twitter and pictures from Flickr, which were updated in real-time via RSS feeds. Adidas did a good job promoting this  section–they branded their YouTube channel with Dwight Howard imagery and encouraged people to follow Dwight live on their website.This gave fans unprecented access to Dwight Howard and enabled them to see a side of him that they might not see during games–he’s a HUGE jokester and goofball. The key to this initiative was that it wasn’t forced or scripted (I don’t think). It was just Dwight being himself. The videos include footage of Dwight pulling pranks on some of the other players, and they’ve all received a few thousand views on YouTube. I hope adidas leaves them up, as they’ll continue to get more views over time. The semi-commercial that shows Dwight getting ready for a game to the beat of drums was uploaded on February 12 and already has over 2 million views! (see video below).

OTHER – Shaq Is A Dancing Machine

Shaq + Mask + Dancing + All-Star Game = guaranteed viral hit. The video of Shaq’s intro dance was quickly uploaded to YouTube by a blogger and it already has over 76,000 views. There are at least 10 other people who uploaded the same video, and their videos also have thousands of views collectively. I’m not sure if Shaq Daddy just really wanted to dance or if this was orchestrated by his PR team, but the exposure he’s getting/will continue to get from this is awesome. Shaq has really become an internet celebrity via his hilarious posts/quotes on Twitter. Check out the video below to see Shaq’ s intro dance from the All Star Game last night.

All of this stuff produced a lot of conversation on Twitter, blogs and other communities online, in addition to all the offline conversations that people have. It’s great to see the NBA and a brand like adidas taking advantage of social media in a ways that are valuable for fans. What do you think about these initiatives?

What’s up everyone? Yesterday I stumbled upon an article about participation marketing by Alan Rosenpan. As you know, I’m big on social media and how brands can utilize it to connect with their customers and fans. Social media was built for participation. Brands and individuals have to actively participate in order to successfully engage people on whatever communities/websites they’ve determined are valuable.

Check out the video below for some of my thoughts about participation marketing-what it is, why it matters and how teams can utilize social media to follow some of these principles. Some of these ideas are things that a lot pro teams are already doing, though I think there are some ways they can improve things.

Thanks for watching. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are for ways teams can get to know fans better, involve them in creating ticket packages/promotions  and make them feel like they have a stake in their success.