The video features Andrew Rosen (Washington Wizards), Mark McClure (DC United), Sean Parker (Washington Capitals) and Steve Cobb (Activ8 Social). Hope you enjoy.

Sports Teams on Social Media – 140 Conference Video from Jason Peck on Vimeo.

I highly recommend you check out a 140 conference in your area if you get a chance. The events, put on by Jeff Pulver, are a great way to learn about “the state of now” and how real-time tools and technologies are affecting a variety of industries and businesses.

Sony Ericcson Twitter Cup

The Sony Ericcson Twitter Cup is a really interesting mashup of Twitter and the World Cup. It’s a well-known fact that sports fans like to show pride for their teams, and like to think that they have more pride/support than fans of other teams. And soccer fans are some of the most passionate fans in the world. Sony Ericcson has created the Twitter Cup interactive website as an interesting way for fans to compete with other fans to see which World Cup team has the most support.

The concept is simple. The more tweets a specific team receives, the farther that team goes in the Twitter Cup.  Fans can score points for their team in two ways.

1) Tweet team name and World Cup together (ex: England World Cup)

2) Tweet team name and World Cup with the Twitter Cup hashtag (ex: Serbia World Cup #twc)

The website includes a cool interactive stadium that automatically fills seats with fans of a given team based on the number of tweets that team receives. This is a nice effort from Sony Ericcson and one that I think fans will definitely be talking about.

Brand Bowl 2010

This one comes from Mullen and Radian6, a reputation monitoring SAAS company. According to The Lost Jacket, Mullen approached Radian6 with an idea- leverage the power of social media for one of the biggest sports events in the world.

Why do many people watch the Super Bowl? The ads.

The Brand Bowl 2010 was born from this. This site will leverage Twitter and the monitoring capabilities of Radian6 to show people what everyone is saying about each ad. In real-time. Fans will be able to see which ads are getting tweeted the most, what people are saying about them, and if it is positive or negative.

Instead of having to wait until Monday morning to see what traditional media outlets say are the “best” ads, you can follow things in real-time. Awesome.

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I’m seeing more and more examples of Twitter+sports=really interesting content and initiatives. What do you think about these mashups? What other interesting mashups have you seen that you liked?

In other news, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to Dan Beeman and his company, Sponsorship Insights Group, which just relaunched their website. Dan is a good guy and has done a great job building his network/company through blogging and using his LinkedIn group to connect sponsorship professionals around the world.

Have a great night and rest of the week!

Do you think the term “sponsorships” is outdated and everything should be called partnerships? just an idea I’ve been thinking about…

It was really just an idea I’ve briefly thought about on occasion. A lot of times the terms “sponsorships” and “partnerships” are thrown around and used interchangeably to describe deals between entertainment and sports properties and brands. But does the wording that properties/brands use reflect how they actually see their relationships? Should we be moving towards the use of partnerships (which imply that both sides benefit) and away from sponsorships (which unfortunately has not been very well explained to the general public)?

Your Responses

After I posted that message on Twitter, I got some great responses. Thanks to all who contributed the thoughts below (earliest responses posted first):

rscibetti@JasonPeck I definitely see a mix of both terms. Definitely tells you something about how the entity views the relationships

MJMunson@JasonPeck No, people just need to know what it means. Look up the latin roots for sponsor and you’ll see it is a perfect word for its use.

BizballMaury@JasonPeck It’s moving more & more toward partnerships as deals are multi-pronged. See my NY Post article on Yankees/Audi http://ow.ly/hoef

jpbrunelle@JasonPeck I think it depends on the context, but ’sponsorships’ will remain in play for the foreseeable future. Bigwigs want to sponsor.

MJPatzwaldt@jasonpeck i still think there’s a difference between sponsorships and partnerships…those sponsored tend to have longer term benefits

jeffmard@JasonPeck partnership implys 2-way street, sponsorship implys other “partners” exist. Which is more true? then u have advertiser…

Play3r_VP@JasonPeck sponsorships is out. partnerships are in. it’s about relationships + alliances… NOT about hand outs.

mmahoney13@JasonPeck I think the Sponsor should be emphasized more in many cases, esp PGA Tournaments and even teams. they enable us to do more

sponsorpitch@JasonPeck IMO, not outdated & no need to hide from the term + lots of different types of biz ‘partnerships’.. something more narrow needed

EmilyRCampbell1@JasonPeck There r still true mktg sponsorships out there even tho’ some local partnerships may lean more toward philanthropy.

briangainorRT @JasonPeck poses a great question – thoughts on “partnerships” vs. “sponsorships”? How do you see your relationship with partners?

Darren_Heitner@JasonPeck I love the idea of banning the word “sponsorship”, all successful “sponsorships” are partnerships. Both sides should win.

Sponsorships vs. Partnerships – My Thoughts

Let’s see how Wikipedia defines the terms.

“A partnership is a type of business entity in which partners (owners) share with each other the profits or losses of the business.”

“To sponsor something is to support an event, activity, person, or organization financially or through the provision of products or services.”

The partnership definition that Wikipedia gives isn’t completely relevant to this conversation–which is about using the term sponsorship vs. partnership when describing deals between sports/entertainment properties and brands. In most cases, no brand is going to be willing to equally share in the losses of the property’s business–unless it’s a special deal where the brand is actually able to share in the profits, too. I’m not aware of this happening very often.

The sponsor definition is interesting as it emphasizes giving support. In my opinion, this “giving support” aspect has not been emphasized nearly enough in discussions and articles about sponsorship. For example, all we heard about for awhile was that since Wachovia wasn’t doing well, they shouldn’t be wasting money on sponsoring their golf tournament (and they actually removed their name from it, even though it was paid for). Or that Northern Trust shouldn’t have had a party for their best executives at their tournament. People hear that, instead of hearing about how much money from each PGA TOUR event goes to charity or that the money spent on parties/events provides jobs for cooks, caterers and others. But I’m getting off subject here.

My thinking about this sponsorships vs. partnerships issue is that it’s more of a reflection on how each side sees the other and how they approach relationships. My feeling is that it starts with properties. Do you want a sponsor (someone who supports you via money or services) or do you want (can you get?) a partner (someone who has a greater stake in your success)? While some smaller properties may be happy just finding sponsors, some of the most prestigious properties can be more selective and seek partners who have very strong brands and who must commit more than just money to the relationship.

What do the big leagues/events call these relationships?

Let’s check out some websites to see what wording some of the major pro leagues and premier sports events use when publicly describing their relationships with brands.

• AVP – sponsors (listed on bottom of home page)
• MLB – sponsors (here’s the link)
• NBA – not clear from their website
• NFL – not clear from their website
• PGA TOUR – title sponsors for tournaments and huge list of marketing partners
• USGA – partners (logos listed on bottom right of their home page and here)
• The Masters – no official wording but relationships with IBM, AT&T and Exxon Mobile
• US Open (Tennis) – sponsors (list is here)
• Breeders’ Cup – partners (list is here)

The funny thing is, for some of these properties (and many teams as well), it’s hard to even tell who their sponsors are by looking at their websites! Or they hide them and make you really look around. That would not make me happy I was a sponsor/partner-no matter what the relationship is called. It definitely didn’t make me happy when I used to spend a lot of time researching that stuff.

As consumers’ attention becomes even harder to get (because we have more choices now than ever), my feeling is that the term “partnerships” will be used more often. Properties who used to sell out every event and may have been content just getting money are now in the same boat as brands–they need eyeballs and attention, too. Now both sides are asking each other for access to market to their customers, and the best relationships will be those where both sides help each other. Sponsorships certainly aren’t dying–I just think the word “partnerships” may be more beneficial in describing these relationships and ensuring that both sides are getting what they want and working to help each other succeed.

But maybe I’m completely wrong. Maybe the words should be used interchangeably and there isn’t really much difference between them. Maybe good sponsors are essentially partners. What do you think?

“We made a point to Charlie and the team that it’s nothing we ever want to happen again,” Skiles said. “You know, (we) don’t want to blow it out of proportion. But anything that gives the impression that we’re not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business.”

A few days later, Shaquille O’Neal sent fans an update via Twitter hinting that he would be giving them halftime “tweet”.

“Attention all twitterers I’m a tweet at halftime and not get fined like vill a new wave a whteva his name is,” Shaq wrote. He followed through on his word, and Suns coach Alvin Gentry knew about it beforehand and didn’t care.

Using Twitter to provide real-time updates to fans during games is an awesome way to give fans access to the players they love and get them closer to the game. Fans still crave the same thing they always have–access–but teams need to make sure they’re taking advantage of new technologies to deliver this. If fans are closer to the game and players, it’s good for the teams; creating stronger fans equals more revenue.

I’m all for preserving the game and making sure players are focused, but the benefits of using Twitter outweigh any potential negatives. Besides, how much focus can you lose by sending a 140-character message? Is this really any more distracting than when players are asked to give halftime interviews?

It looks like the new Women’s Professional Soccer league also sees the value of Twitter in involving fans in the game. But they’ve taken it a step beyond just tolerating halftime tweets. During the league’s first game on March 29, players will be allowed to use Twitter to provide real-time updates throughout the game, from the sidelines. It will be interesting to see if this is a one-time-only thing or if it is something the new league will embrace throughout the season. For a league that is seeking to attract fans in any way possible (and what league isn’t?), I think this is a great move that will generate some buzz and have some of the bigger leagues watching closely. What do you think?

From a Twitter search, it looks like the NCAA is being mentioned on Twitter at least every minute, if not more.

Topics such as the NCAA, March Madness and Big East are ranked as the top trends on Twitter right now.

You can see some of the most popular NCAA-related links on Twackle.

If you’re a brand targeting NCAA basketball fans, do you think it might be a good idea to monitor the conversation here and maybe get involved to build relationships?

Win a Suite (22 tix) against the Blazers tomorrow night. Respond #Timberwolvesgiveaway by Noon tomorrow to be entered. (1 winner @ random)

The Minnesota Timberwolves sent this out from their Twitter account as a way to reward people for following them on Twitter and surprise/delight a fan. The T-wolves only have a little over 150 followers now on Twitter, but I’m sure this will help them grow that number and give an amazing experience to one lucky fan. It’s great to see an NBA team embracing Twitter like this!

Ideally, teams, athletes and agencies should be taking a serious look at social media and discovering how they can leverage it (internally and/or externally) to achieve their goals, such as building new conversation streams, authority, trust and recognition, extending sponsor and ticket promotions, or simply improving the way they communicate and tell their stories. And that means dedicating some money/time/resources to this, and possibly hiring a community manager, if you’re a team.

But if you can’t afford to spend any money right now, here are some quick tips to engage people through free social media tools. These aren’t full-blown recommendations or necessarily the best ways to go about getting involved in social media, but if you’re looking for FREE you can’t beat this stuff. Remember, PARTICIPATE, don’t just promote.

1) Create online identities and protect your brand

Create identities on websites where your audience is and take control of your online brand. Get on Twitter, create Facebook and LinkedIn pages for your company, and if you’re a team or athlete, get a MySpace page, too. Whether you’re an athlete, team or agency, you need to make sure you have control of your name online so people know they’re getting accurate information from an official source. I’ve heard that the main reason Shaq got on Twitter at first was to take control of his name after he realized that someone was tweeting from a fake Shaq account. These online identities are places for you to tell your story and connect with people who share your interests. Plus, you can reach people through these tools that might not usually visit your website.

2) Start a blog

Doing a blog the best way requires planning and effort. But if we’re talking about free tools to save money then you can still participate. Wordpress is my choice of platform, and you can get a hosted blog on Wordpress.com or free software so you can host it yourself. Obviously, you need to decide what to share/not share based on your organization’s comfort level, but I bet you can still find something interesting to write about. After all, you’ll do whatever it takes to survive in this economy, right?

3) Reach out to sports bloggers

Do you know how many sports bloggers would kill to receive even more information about their favorite athlete or team? A LOT of them. Let them know you’ve started a blog and tell them you’d appreciate any help they can offer in getting the word out. Better yet, let them use your official blog as an outlet for their opinions and involve them in the content creation process. Save money and time by empowering others and letting them write about you. If you’re an agency, reach out to a university’s sports marketing program and see if anyone wants a blogger internship. I bet they do.

4) Put your videos on YouTube and your pictures on Flickr

I’m sure you have highlight clips, promotional videos and commercials that are just sitting around collecting dust. Put them on YouTube! Put your pictures on Flickr! Every picture, video and other piece of content is an opportunity for your brand to make an impression on someone online.

5) Promote these online identities and link to them

Link to your main website on each of your profiles and link to your profiles somewhere on your website, so people know you’re out there and can find you. Sign up for Friendfeed and pull all your pictures, blog posts, videos into your profile there. You can also get tools that make it easy to update these profiles. Twitterfeed broadcasts your recent blog posts to your audience on Twitter. The Facebook Twitter App pulls your Twitter updates into your status message there for your entire network to see and comment on. This is very powerful stuff.

6) Join groups on Facebook and LinkedIn

Joining groups is a great way to find people who might be interested in your product/service/team/athletes. It’s free, too. Another way to find people to connect with is..

7) Use Twitter search

Do a search for your name and keywords to see what people are saying about you and connect with them! To search for multiple keywords at the same time, use a service like TweetGrid. Last night, I did a search for “Lakers tickets,” and found that someone needs tickets for the game. Wouldn’t that be a great opportunity to delight and surprise someone and turn them into a stronger fan/customer?

Involve your employees

Encourage your employees to create profiles on these sites and use these social media tools. A variety of perspectives can be interesting. Set guidelines for how to use these tools, but be flexible. You don’t want them to have to come to you for approval every time they want to update their Twitter accounts. Just tell them not to be stupid. Remember, your biggest concern (for the purposes of this article) is generating free coverage/influence/relationships.

9) Participate, comment and respond

Spend a few minutes each day interacting with your fans and influencers via these tools and by leaving comments on their blogs. This shows that you care and are serious about building a relationship with them, instead of just out there to promote yourself. If someone writes something about you, thank them for it. Think of social media as customer service on steroids. Extraordinary customer service will bring results. Just look at what Zappos has done.

Like I said earlier, this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide or the only or exact things you should be doing. Putting that kind of plan together takes a lot more than a few minutes of writing. But if you’re strapped for cash, these are some things you an pretty easily implement that can have an impact on your business. If you put in the effort/time, this can definitely start bringing in results.

As with anything, you should desire how to measure this, whether that is attention (traffic/page views), authority (technorati rank, trackbacks/links to your content), participation metrics like comments or influence (the number of followers and subscribers you have). *These things come from Peter Kim’s framework for measuring social media.

How have you used free social media tools to connect with your fans and customers?

Twackle joins the ranks of StatTweets and SportyTweets as aggregators of sports content on Twitter, though Twackle goes a step further by integrating content and conversations from all fans, instead of just accounts that were created to post team updates and stats. So far, Twackle has sections for all the major leagues, and other sports such as MMA, horse racing and action sports. If you have a Twitter account, you can sign in to Twackle using your existing information and contribute to the conversation by posting under each individual league/team/player section there. If you’re not on Twitter yet, don’t worry; you can still see what is being said about their favorite sport or team (and certain players). They also have a Facebook App if you’d like to use this while you’re on Facebook.

The site is currently monetized via Google ads, but according to SBJ, Octagon plans to monetize the service by selling ad-based tweets that are occasionally inserted into the data streams. I think this could work, as long as the ads aren’t too intrusive and are for promotions that sports fans would care about. But I’m still not completely convinced, as I know that most Twitter users hate feeling like they’re being marketed to. What do you think?

Overall, I really like this initiative from Octagon. You could just create your own feeds and searches using Twitter’s search tool or another service to monitor keywords you’re interested in, but Twackle makes it easy to see various sports content from Twitter all in one place. I messaged their VP, Jim DeLorenzo, today on Twitter and he called me to discuss Twackle less than 5 minutes later (great example of how companies can use Twitter for awesome customer service and engagement). He was very helpful at explaining everything and mentioned that they will soon release a feature so fans will be able to see the top 10 most popular URLs currently being passed around Twitter for each sport. One thing I would suggest would be to create a video tutorial for the home page to walk people through Twackle’s features and show people exactly how to use it.

So what does this all mean? People in sports are realizing how powerful Twitter can be in communicating with fans/customers and seeing what fans are interested in. More and more athletes, teams and organizations are using Twitter to share news, connect with fans and strengthen their brands. Fans often share and discuss breaking news on Twitter, before it hits mainstream media (I found out about A-Rod and steroids on Twitter, and other sports/non-sports stories, such as the attacks in Mumbai, “broke” on Twitter).

Twitter has grown about 900% since last year and recently received an additional $35 million in funding. It isn’t going away anytime soon. Teams and athletes should at least establish a listening presence here and an official account to protect their brands and make sure people are receiving accurate information. Then, depending on the organization’s goals, comfort level and available resources, it can start publishing updates, participating in conversations and doing some other meaningful things to engage fans.

P.S. – If you don’t know what Twitter is, watch this video.

1 -Let’s briefly talk about your experiences with marketing your company online. You’re active on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon. How did you decide to jump into social media and start participating?

I first got started with SM (social media) through a friend of mine who was trying to convince me that blogging would help my business to grow. For the first few months, it became an addiction and I had to learn to pick the SM sites that I most enjoyed, and that I felt would most benefit me on a business aspect. Being in the construction industry, it was hard to find people to connect with (within the construction industries) so I went for locals (triangle and NC in general). I am noticing more people in my industry blogging and micro-blogging now, and hope that continues to grow. Oddly enough, the main reason was to promote my business, but I now rarely do that on twitter, plurk or Facebook. It is more about connecting and networking with people.

2 – How has your involvement with social media affected your business and sales?

I would have to say that social media has given me great satisfaction in growing my business. My blog and the SM I participate in is the ONLY advertising I do. I have had articles written about me, been recognized as someone bringing high tech ideas to a low tech industry by people such as Darren Rowse, Wayne Sutton, and others who have noticed me on twitter and found my blog. The internet is how people find the products they need, there is no need to avoid that, instead we should embrace it.

3 – What is the #1 thing you’ve gotten out of your involvement in social media?

Probably the invaluable plethora of information I have discovered through the people I have met, both online and in person at tweet-ups and events like BloggerBash. The information I am talking about (what I was looking for) has to do with wordpress, blogging, SEO and other things which have helped me bring my website to the front page on most of the searches I wanted to be on. I also have become involved in a community that I didn’t even know existed a year ago.

4 – We are both big fans of the Tar Heels. Where do you currently get your news and information about UNC sports?

Currently, I get my info from ACC.com, espn.com, and only recently did I discover InsideCarolina.com.

5 – To your knowledge, has anyone from the athletics department at UNC ever tried to connect with you via social media online?

No not that I am aware of, but if they did, I would certainly enjoy it.

6 – How would you like to be connected with them online (if at all)? What kind of information would you be interested in receiving from them?

Any of the sites I use (twitter, plurk, facebook, friendfeed, etc…) would be great. I like updates mainly on anything basketball ie: scouting reports, injury reports, scores (I do miss the games sometimes) stats, upcoming game schedules etc..

7 – Do you think an athletics department like UNC should have a single presence on social media sites for all sports, or should it be broken down by sport?

I would prefer it to be broken down. But if that isn’t possible, having them all together may get me more interested in all things Carolina Blue!

8 – As it stands, TarHeelBlue.com is a very informative site, but InsideCarolina is where most of the conversations about UNC Sports take place. Would you be interested if UNC turned tarheelblue.com into more of a community site, with features such as forums, comments, ability to connect with other fans etc?

Wouldn’t that be great! I would certainly participate in anything like that.

9 – Many sports brands (and brands in general) are hesitant about getting involved with social media. I’m sure you also probably had some uncertainties when you brought your business into this space. What would you tell UNC if they were wavering or unsure about whether they should start using social media to connect with their fans?

All I can say is, no matter what the uncertainties are… it is viral! Next thing you know there would be Carolina Blue TweetUps and other fan get-togethers based on the communities created around social media. I think people are scared to hear what others may not like about the brands that turn to social media, but what they don’t understand is that these people are the ones that USE those brands! You should be listening!

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Thanks, Keith! I’m very interested in how people would like their favorite teams to connect with them online. I know how I feel about this, but am always curious about what other people think. How would YOU like your favorite team to engage you online?

Watch Kip’s video here.

There are a growing number of people who prefer the more personal/real-time connection that Twitter offers vs. Facebook. So how does this relate to sports? Everyone agrees that teams need to be where their fans are, and many teams are doing one or more of the following things:

• Adding social media elements (user generated content, videos, blogs, etc) to their main pages.
  • See the Washington Wizards Blog for an example of how they’re using blogging to connect with fans
• Building their own social networking sites
  • See what the Indianapolis Colts are doing with MyColts.
• Establishing presence on existing social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc)

While the Twitter audience is not nearly as large as Facebook or MySpace, it is growing and it may soon make sense for teams to test out the service. Why not let one of your most avid fans be the team’s main Twitter guy (or better yet, have a contest for people to send in video saying why they deserve this). Then let the guy (or girl) tweet team promotions, ask and answer questions, monitor what people are saying about the team, and offer fans a more personal connection than what they’d get by being “friends” with a team’s profile page on Facebook/MySpace.

Twitter is free–the only cost is time. Why not give it a try?

You can follow me on Twitter – my username is JasonPeck