A social opportunity for people with the same interest getting together and meeting at games? Single fans? Romance starting at the stadium/arena? Creativity is the only limit, in the quest for new sponsorships!
Una opportunità di utilizzo delle reti sociali per tifosi con gli stessi interessi per conoscersi e condividere un evento sportivo? Single? Un modo romantico di conoscersi allo stadio o al palasport? La creatività è l’unico limite nella ricerca di nuovi sponsor!
Una oportunidad de conocerse a través de las redes sociales para los aficionados con intereses similares, compartiendo el mismo evento deportivo? Solteros? Una forma romántica de conocerse al estadio? La creatividad es el único límite en la busqueda de nuevos patrocinios!
Can a Social Media strategy work by itself? Or better: should a Sport Organisation focus just on Social Media?
My personal opinion is no.
Considering the European scenario and the needs of Sport Organisations there, social networks would touch only one of the many aspects that should be worked on.
A much wider and comprehensive strategy is needed in order to translate traffic into monetisation, a strategy which takes care of both areas: Audience AND Monetisation.
Social Media can help in widening the audience and improving its quality in terms on engagement and interaction BUT Monetisation is another story.
To make online marketing efforts really successful we need data, we need to know who our users are in order to target them with specific initiatives, competitions, offers, content. You can’t do that in the long term via Facebook or Twitter: you can, with one off instance, but then?
Ever tried to post on Twitter only to find out that is was down? Do you really want to exclusively give up your relationship with your fans to external entities? What if one day you’ll wake up finding out that Facebook has changed its policy and you cannot interact with your fans in the way you used to?
Social Networks are incredibly powerful tools that need to work together with your web/mobile based applications, which need to be the core of your online strategy.
It´s Sunday morning and I am reading the newspapers.
On the (NBA) basketball section of a daily sport paper, with huge relevancy, there is a very well known department store advertising… wall paint (!!!).
We are not even talking about products that could be of interest to a general public, we are talking about buckets of paint that only a professional painter could be interested in…
Smart choice?
The difference between the Internet and the other media is that online the advertiser would have been able to monitor interaction of the user with the advertising: in the press? Zero times Zero, so mistakes can be perpetuated.
Think, then Advertise!
I am proposing this week a brilliant post by Ash Read for the SportsNetworker. His point of view as a NBA fan reinforces the need for Sport Organisations to embrace change, no matter the size of their Fan base.
As some of you may know I’m a huge basketball fan and I live in the UK. A few years ago this meant following the NBA could be difficult at times. It often resulted in struggling to stay awake at work or school after staying up until 4 a.m. the previous night to watch a game.
The explosion of social media has made it so much easier to keep up with what’s going on not just in the NBA but across the world of sports. It has also given fans unparalleled access to their favorite teams and athletes. Personally, I feel there has never been a better time to be a sports fan. Here are some of my best reasons why:
* Behind the scenes access: At no time in the past have fans had such insight into what goes on behind the scenes. This was really highlighted at the recent NBA All-Star weekend where many players were sharing behind the scenes videos and images on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The NBA also did a great job of sharing content and engaging fans in the All-Star weekend, an event that for many people has lost its shine. You can check out some of the video content shared by the NBA during All-Star weekend on the leagues TwitVid account.
* Interaction: Social media has opened up the opportunity to interact and engage with teams, athletes. A few years ago if you wanted to speak to your favorite athlete you could send fan mail and wait a long time for a response. Now you can speak directly to them and you might even get an instant reply.
Many athletes use social media to show us what they are like away from sports. It gives an insight into their personal lives, allowing us to feel closer to our favorite athletes when they show their true personalities.
* Everyone has a voice: In the past only a select few journalists, writers and reporters were able to share their views about the world of sports. Now social media has opened up the doors for all sports fans to write about their teams and share their views.
Whether they are writing a blog and sharing views or sparking discussion on Twitter and Facebook, there is space online for everyone. It has become a lot easier for fans to make themselves heard.
* Multimedia content: I’ll always have to stay up until 4 a.m. to catch an NBA game live in the UK, but the fact that I can now catch highlights online any time saves a few sleepless nights.
Multimedia content and video on demand services allow fans to keep up with their team at a time which is convenient for them. Fans love multimedia content and from an organization/team viewpoint, this content generates the most responses from fans. It can add great value to their social media profiles.
Sure there may have been times when your team was doing better and winning more games, and here in the UK at the moment many of our football clubs are in deep financial trouble (which could be a counter to this argument). However, I feel it’s an exciting time, and the best time EVER to be a sports fan. Thanks to new technology in the coming months and years it’s only going to get better.
A lighthouse, an orchestra director, a coach on the court, a reference for its clubs: this is the role of a league.
So it should happen for a league’s online presence.
It is nonsense, in my view, to have the single entities (league and clubs) going on their own.
What’s the point of a club fully embracing the latest online technology, reaching out to its online fans and at the same time providing added value to its sponsors through the latest tools and platforms, while at the same time many clubs of that very league are lagging behind?
Or having a cutting edge league’s online presence while its clubs are displaying old and ineffective websites?
If we measure the success of a league with popularity, rights and sponsorships sale, not to mention revenue coming from tickets and merchandising, then we can easily understand that this can be obtained, for most of the leagues in the world, only if the whole association is moving as a single entity.
We are working on projects for a couple of leagues turning their online presence upside down and proposing the idea of a league’s network, so common in the US but so unknown in Europe.
The advantages? Huge list, but for this time I want to focus just on advertising: possibility of running advertising campaigns to a wider audience (as a network rather than as individual entities, so weighting more at negotiation stage but also being more appealing to advertisers), standardization of ad formats that can then run across all the clubs’ websites.
Integration of video ads within the video content.
In the last couple of years there has been a big buzz around Behavioural Targeting and Social Media, so sought after by Advertisers as they allow them to tap into Audiences offering products that are relevant to their potential clients.
Cars to car lovers, cat food to cat owners, rugby balls to rugby fans.
So what is the black gold for a league if not the possibility to leverage its niche, very defined audience, and be the link between Advertisers and their potential clients: the League’s own Fans?
He is not talking about being tough and aggressive, but about sharing and giving.
I think this is very much applicable in many aspects of life, not strictly to business: I can see it as a very powerful way to aggregate people and generate solid and active communities in the Sport sector: the way we communicate with the fan base, the way we approach them and how we benefit them without expecting anything back.
And we will get back ten, hundred times more than what we have given: it’s the power of sharing and growing together.
I'm writing this post sitting outside a cafeteria, by a bakery and a DIY tool store.
I am thinking of the challenge to pass on to Sport Organisations the message for a successful online presence and I am projecting it on those two shops, letting my mind wander….
Imagine if the bakery was selling hammers and screwdrivers close to baguettes and ciabattas.
Not the end of world in theory, but what would be the chance that a mother of two would take home a drill with the bread for her family?
Would the environment inside the shop transmit trust either in their baking skills or in their DIY expertise?
I’d bet that one of the two categories of items sold inside the shop would suffer, being targeted to two totally different types of customer that will unlikely end up buying both kind of items.
Probably I would also bet that the shop will shut down sooner rather than later for having ignored the needs of their customers.
Now look at the US leagues and the way they target fans:
NBA is usually oriented towards Content: news, videos, interviews.
MLB is focused on Merchandising: a lot of sales initiatives, a lot of ideas to approach the fan, being it father’s day, a birthday, the start of the summer and what not.
NHL is heavily keeping fans’ attentions on their auctions of memorabilia and customising their communication around the fan’s favourite team, while NFL is heavily promoting their Fantasy Football platform.
Every Sport Organisation has got its own needs and so their audiences: this should trigger a review of the Organisation’s online own goals, strategy and technology, which should be personalised and not a mix of everything, which is a step towards failure.
The starting point is the fan and not the Organisation itself: there are so many of them acting online like a one euro (one pound, one dollar) shop: generic, untargeted and self centred.
But it’s never too late to change!
There are things that you see, you stand up at, and start clapping.
Lampard is showing me around
I gave my personal standing ovation this morning to Adidas and Chelsea FC.
Got an email from Adidas on behalf of the football club (the importance of a database and data collection on your audience, remember?), asking if I wanted to become Chelsea FC's 12th man…
Hell yeah! I thought and clicked on the link.
I inserted my name and surname, my nationality and there I was, full screen video, walking outside Stamford Bridge, cheered by fans, then inside the off limit area.
The press is breaking the news...
I was greeted by name by the staff at the entrance, who also showed me the newspaper of the day breaking the news of MY arrival at the club, and got a warm reception in front of the locker room by Ballack. While stepping in the “sanctuary” of MY new team, I noticed MY name on Ancelotti’s list, stuck on the door.
Once inside, Frank Lampard took me to my locker, where a Chelsea uniform with MY name on it was hanging from the wall.
Then off we went, on to the pitch, greeted by dozens of thousands of fans.
What an amazing initiative!
Goal? Promoting the sale of personalized official uniforms and creating a viral video engaging fans and creating involvement.
Petr Cech's welcome was quite warm
Technology? Nothing new, a widely used software can make your name appear on the fly on any pictures or videos, the video was shot with a handy cam: it was the idea to be absolutely spot on.
What a marvellous example that technology is only a medium: it’s content and creativity that make the difference.
And now… sorry guys I have to run: Ancelotti is calling me for training!
Damn egg! Damn chicken! I start thinking that the world and all the misunderstandings related revolve around the big question mark... what comes first?
As I am progressing through our road show and meet a lot of Sport Organisations, I realise that the big bottleneck is right there.
While in many other cases, industries and situations, there is no clear answer to the “big question”, in case of Sport Organisations the solution is right there.
One President of a League told me last week, showing me a nice initiative developed online: “this idea was great, and we had such a low response. The sponsor wasn’t happy”.
The initiative was really good, I must admit it.
But it was a drop of water in the sand: who was it directed to? To their audience right? But what audience? They have no interaction or engagement with their fans in their online presence, they never planned to create and grow an audience and neither have one.
Their website is a “read only” website, a brochure where fans have no place whatsoever.
And here comes the bottom of the issue:
A great initiative by itself doesn’t build a great audience.
It is a great, active, engaged audience that makes an initiative effective and successful.
Start developing your online strategy and the results will come.
Right at the peak of US Open, I am playing around with their Iphone application.
I cannot think of a more complete tool to follow the tennis tournament on the go.
News, Players' profiles, Scores (matches in progress and completed matches), Schedule and Draws keep the most demanding fan updated in real time, while photos and videos add visual and editorial contribution, including footage of press conferences and interviews.
A comprehensive guide for the spectators at the two arenas includes maps, transportation and directions, seat charts and even a dining guide.
The application is built, hosted and sponsored by IBM.
Rafael Nadal
Another sponsor is American Express, bringing the Iphone user an online live radio which the user can contribute to by sending questions from the phone application itself and several collateral benefits for Amex members.
The cherry on top of the application is the “Tweets” section, which lists the official Tweeter US Open feed, plus a few celebrities’ too.
This great application works in parallel with the website, which is also fully “social networked”, with links to Facebook and Tweeter pages, posts, comments (which are searchable by geographical area), most popular stories and photos, plus downloadable wallpapers, widgets and various competitions, and the live video and audio broadcasts.
Next time I will need to show someone examples of online interaction and engagement, why hopping around the Internet collecting examples when the US Open online presence alone is a full and complete showcase?
