Sports Technology – Page 3 – Digital and Social Media Sports

College, Conferences, Content Marketing, Digital, Fan Development, General Sports Business, Sports Technology, Sports Venues

12 Lessons for College Athletics at PACNet18: Simplicity, Superfans, and Sorting Through Strategy

Think back to your days at college. When weekends meant parties that started at 10 and trips to football games and basketball games with friends. Maybe you snuck in a little booze to pregame. You recognized so many faces there, and nothing beat the feeling of the place going nuts, cheering or chanting in unison as the music or marching band blares.

But then you graduate and get a job. And the allure, and ease, isn’t there anymore. Colleges are seeking to keep the students coming back as alumni and, nowadays, to keep students coming at all. Revenue isn’t as easy as it once was for college athletics departments all around the country, but there is no shortage of ideas and solutions.

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These were among the themes at the annual Paciolan Conference 2018, where thought leaders in college athletics, venues, live events, and digital and tech came together for a few days of learning and mingling. It is put on each year in Newport Beach by the eponymous Paciolan Ticketing company, owned by Learfield. Here are 12 lessons I gleaned from the conference:

Text is tantalizing – 98% open rate, keeping fans within text

It’s the most direct, and intimate, way to reach fans of any age, and it has been for years now — the text message. With the dominance of mobile, and the growth of messaging, those not in WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, and, and even those in the messaging apps, are still texting. Even your mom and your grandma can text, and the 98% open rate on texts means texts are seen.

There are ticket sales and service happening via text message, and presales, event day alerts, and plenty of ‘dark social’ mentioning your game, team, or event. And the goal is to go from a text message to mobile web and signing in and registering pay info and…we want fewer clicks, so whether it’s a text or elsewhere, the goal is frictionless flow.

Keeping fans in the platform, wherever that is. More versatile technologies

Whether it happens on Facebook, your website, your own app, or somewhere else, keeping fans in that comfortable, consistent environment is increasingly important. Fans don’t want to feel like they’re coming in your place and then bouncing between other partner sites, apps, or even visual identities. Native solutions are the name of the day, and what was once a sea of apps is now a river of solutions evolving to exist and execute in a single app or environment. And whether it was technologies for ticket sales, group sales, upgrades, parking, engagement, payment, and more, it was more about how it could align with what you’re already doing and operating on. API and SDK and dynamic are thrown around more and more, and it’s better for fans. But even the best ticket and engagement flows can’t save a sub-par game day experience.

The power of traditions and creating new traditions

College athletics is notorious, in a good way, for its traditions. Traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, lending a sense of comfort and nationality to alumni of the school. The pageantry they bring to games is a powerful, unmatched tool. But that doesn’t mean new traditions can’t come along.

This salient statement came from a great keynote by Jack Swarbrick, Athletic Director for a little school known as Notre Dame. They have a ton of fabulous history and tradition at Notre Dame. But even Swarbrick knows generations evolve and, with them, new traditions can emerge, too. And tradition is properly rated as a tremendous way to drive emotional investment and a reason to come out to a game. This led to another insight from Swarbrick on the promise, but misrepresentation, of tech to help hold up and bring back attendance at games.

Game day experience has to be ‘fundamentally different’ from at-home – community, interaction; not just tech

It’s well-established that technology solutions like WiFi can be an integral and valuable addition to a venue and to fan experience. But it can’t be the only thing. You can have drones delivering beer to your seat that you ordered via your phone while streaming another game and getting your fantasy alerts while plugged in, charging, but even then you’re still short of the La-Z-Boy at home. Swarbrick used the words “fundamentally different’ to describe how the live attendance experience must vary with the stay-at-home option.

What does that mean? That’s for schools to fill in the blank — an experience that simply can’t be matched at home, an experience that inspires the feeling of togetherness, of being surrounded by thousands of others living it with you. And, yes, being the center of attention for thousands for just a fleeting, lifelong story moment, when you can make a cameo on the video board. What can you deliver that makes it so fundamentally different that not attending feels like a lesser option?

No dead time at games

There are going to be timeouts and media timeouts and intermissions at games and events. But this is the generation of mobile — where there is something stimulating literally every waking minute. So to have times when there is nothing but background noise or ad reads or static logos or commercials on the screens – it’s unthinkable and unacceptable to fans these days. Marketers have acknowledged that and have sought to rectify it — with DJ’s and music, constant contests and cams and content, and on-site and mobile engagements and activations that make the game just a fraction of the full fan experience. Fill any dead time or down time, time when fans could possibly think for a second if there is something better they could be doing at the time. This is constantly on the mind of college athletics folks, I learned.

Omni-channel engagement for millennials – and recognizing activity on each

We’re long past the realization that fans are engaging in many places. But we’ve moved on to more – to what fans are doing and want to be doing in those places and on those platforms. It was interesting to hear the marketers there how they approached each platform, knowing the different intent and best uses of each, aligning it with how fans or students used it. Emails got lots of opens, but didn’t get a lot of clicks for one school, so they focused on visuals to disseminate info. Instagram and Snapchat were also visually driven, but more creatively consistent with the platform. And Facebook and search ads drove clicks and conversions, with messaging and creative structured differently.

It’s important to know the behavior of fans on each touch point,and to define goals, success, and ‘conversions’ on each. Then the strategy and creative can be adapted appropriately. It’s not one-size-fits-all, and it never will be.

Let student athletes be at the forefront of donation efforts

Donations remain a vital part of a healthy college athletics institution. But boosting and giving can’t just live on the egos of rich grads, the mandates for season ticket holders, and the endowments of namesakes. Storytelling is at the forefront more than ever, and when fans know the student athletes they’re supporting, the fiscal and emotional investment is so much stronger. It’s why external relations teams are working more and more with content teams, and why the stories of student athletes are being told in higher volume and with beautiful creativity and skill are being told more than ever. Sure, fans will give to an institution, but it’s more powerful when fans are giving for the sake of other people at that institution.

Scale successes – from Olympic sports to revenue sports and vice-versa, especially for giveaways

There smaller, less ‘mainstream’ sports, where getting triple digits of attendance is a big win. But while college athletics marketers understandably spend more time and resources on the big revenue sports, it doesn’t mean they don’t toil and stress over how to increase support for every other sport on campus, too. And it’s often these smaller sports where they’re able to, and have to, get more experimental and creative.

They can be a testing ground where a good idea that can increase attendance by a few dozen at an Olympic sport may drive a thousand or more increase at a bigger sport. Whether it’s giveaways, themed events, on-site activities, ticket deals, music, contests, or any number of creative ideas — scale the successes to other sports, to derivations of ideas that work that can engage even more fans. Because especially younger fans, alumni, and students are a challenging but coveted group…

Efforts to Win Over Young Alumni

The most successful in this challenging but important endeavor are getting them started early, and making it easy. There were several tactics mentioned throughout the days there that helped increase the likelihood that students who attend games and support their school and teams would continue to do so after graduation.

One of the key principles seems to be to get them started early. Make sure they know how life as an alumnus doesn’t have to mean life without going to games. There are young alumni ticket plans that help gradually increase to life as a full-fledged, full-paying/donating season ticket holder. It was important to make students aware of the great options, and to have physical presence at some tent pole events, especially those leading up to graduation. Mississippi State had a clever tactic, too, with having points from their student loyalty program roll over to an alumni/donor program, essentially creating that use-it-or-lose-it feeling for their recent grads.

The messaging around donation for young alums was also a topic of advanced discussion. Treating recent grads, who may or may not have jobs and may or may not have oodles of student loans to pay off, the same as others decades from getting their diploma, is foolhardy and borderline irresponsible. Being vague about giving ‘what you can’ was similarly put down as a less-than-ideal way to craft the message.

My thought is a good move, therefore, is to make specific ask or offer an instant incentive. Just like getting fans to a game, it is so important to get ’em started early. It’s better to ask for a matched $18 donation to celebrate the class of 2018 than to be vague or present packages in the hundreds or thousands. I like the idea of Clemson’s IPTAY – I Pay Ten A Year ($10/year). It’s better to have 90% contributing a small amount than 9% contributing large amounts. But it’s not just the donor database marketers are interested in growing.

Capturing the anonymous fan

This is a consistent concern across all sports, live events, and venues – anyone that sells a ticket for admission. There are so many fans coming to games and events – with friends, with a free ticket, with a secondary market-purchased ticket – and these fans remain mostly anonymous to marketers, disconnected numbers in a database. There was silence, at first, when this question was posed for a panel, followed by a handful of tactics that all had varying degrees of success.

There is the good old-fashioned,but still mildly effective, enter-to-win sweepstakes; and they’re getting more digital, mobile, and even social and engaging. Gated WiFi, where fans enter an email address and perhaps other info, in order to access WiFi. This is often a good way to collect names and emails, but is not always welcome by fans and prone to throwaway email addresses used only for such convenient purposes.

A third tactic, seen even more so in the pros, are on-site activations with tech and/or partners that allow fans to create memorable, shareable mementos that they can then post to social media or have emailed or texted to themselves. Fans get something cool to share from the event, and marketers get the personal info from fans they want and need to get more and more those heretofore anonymous fans identified into their database.

Digital fan journeys – and optimizing everything

We’re long since past the understanding that fans don’t experience or act in a silo. They are coming into contact with the team and brand a number of ways on a number of different platforms. And the better we imagine and understand the mind of the fan, the context of the activity, and the path of these journeys, the better the results.

In action, this translated into putting ticket buying messages in places where fans’ intent to buy was likely stronger [i.e. Schedule pages] rather than making them jump through hoops and hurdles to get there. Along with context comes customization, too, with messaging and creative that reflect a real-time understanding of information and data. Some of the examples seen at the conference show we’re closer to the right offer and right message at the right place and time than ever before.

Target fans at a granular level, engagement > reach

We’re always trying to get bigger, to reach more, to add more rows to the database. But it can’t be at the expense of not fully engaging and maximizing the fans that are already emotionally bought in. It also means being more strategic with fan engagement strategies, and actually planning and executing different strategies for different fans for whom there are different feasible goals.

While it’s not a perfect connection, one point that stood out to me came from a representative for YouTube Sports, who specifically works with their college sports clients. The expectation is that he would have clients post more — to reach more, get more views, and increase the chances of discovery. But, quite the contrary, the advice was to actually consider posting less, to instead focus on quality content.

It’s less about reaching as many fans as possible every day, and instead favoring cultivation of communities, with fans that come back and feel a relationship with their teams and their schools. To extend the example, fan that stumbles upon a YouTube video one day indeed has some value, but the fan that comes back to visit and watch and engage again and again, well, it’s not an apples to apples numbers comparison game. Engagement is increasingly thought to be superior to reach, as we graduate to a more mature mindset for metrics.

Similarly, a marketing manager for Clemson Athletics detailed how they, among other ways, have broken their fans down into cohorts, most simplistically with ‘current’ vs. ‘potential’ fans, particularly prominent coming off a national championship in football when it was harder, but more important, to discern the bandwagon fans from those that have been, and will be, there all along. The cohorts were identified and messaging and marketing strategy was developed differently, while keeping a cohesive brand of showing what it means to be a Tiger at the center of it all.

This was my second trip to PACnet and it was encouraging to see that true progress has been made from year to year. The challenges that were on the minds of many last year have given way to solutions and ideas (and, yes, new challenges) this year. And just about all of it is evolution and change in a positive direction — more empathy and compassion for fans, more personalization, customization, and fewer tricks and less friction. We can envision the future, even as it seems like we’re in a race against time, battling a war we may lose in favor of live attendance. But it’s resulting truly great, communal, memorable, shareable experiences for fans. And if that’s a side effect of doing better business, that’s a winning recipe for all.

Analytics and Data, College, Content Marketing, Digital, Fan Development, General Marketing, General Sports Business, Mobile, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships, Sports Media, Sports Technology, Sports Venues, Streaming and Video

Learning From the Pros – Lessons from 100+ Episodes of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast

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Learning From the Pros – Lessons from 100+ Episodes of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast

Analytics and Data, Digital, Social Media ROI, Sports Technology

The Redskins are Honing Their Digital and Social Content with Analytics

Remember the Internet before data? Even the old-school traffic counters, while no doubt lending a bit of social proof, seemed more novelty than anything else.

And then came Facebook likes, YouTube views, Retweets, email opens, page visits, time spent, video completions, ‘reach,’ and, well a lot more.

There’s so much data and so much knowledge to be gleaned from this content and engagement data that sports teams could hire a full-time position just to analyze it. And, in fact, many have. The Washington Redskins are one of those organizations and I recently had the chance to pick the brain of Geoff Blosat, the Digital Media Analyst for the Redskins, about the monumental task that he faces every day – making sense of tens, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of data points coming from all of the Redskins trackable fan touch points and content.

It’s not just about a top ten list for the content team to view each day and even a general performance report for the marketers and sponsorship team. It’s about what comes next. The best coaches look back at the previous game to inform what they’ll do for the next game. Blosat realized the power of information to inform Redskins strategy early on, and it solidified his belief and enthusiasm or his role.

“In one of my weekly reports, I came up with this article series idea,” said Blosat, who has been with the Redskins since 2015. “And I remember that first week, it was our #1 article on Redskins.com. And it’s really nice that we’ve been trying a lot of new things with data…with measuring results.”

So as you review the reams of content, don’t just stroke your chin and pat yourself on the back – be reactive when an insight is discovered. And don’t limit it to just the next Facebook post. It can inform ad creative and messaging, content series, in-game content and promotions, sponsored social and digital content, email marketing content and creative, and so much more.

But it’s one thing for Blosat and those in his role across sports organizations to analyze digital and social media to discover insights. The communication is the key. One must take into account to whom they’re speaking, what matters to them, and how the data or insight can inform their previous or next moves. Making it digestible and making it a conversation and not a prescription are also essential elements, said Blosat.

“It can get overwhelming at times because there are so many data touch points (with fans)…But the biggest thing with data is when you create insights and look into results is (to) understand what’s most important that you’re communicating,” said Blosat. “And once you realize what’s most important – those two, three actionable insights — that’s what you go and run with.”

Don’t write a book with every report – it’s no secret attention spans are shrinking these days (you mean you’re still reading this?!), but instead, as Blosat suggests, break into down into just two or three ‘actionable insights.’ The Redskins’s devotion to data is part of a league-wide interest in assuring it’s teams know which content is performing on which platforms. The NFL actually makes a good amount of data available to all its clubs, and Blosat doesn’t let tunnel vision on the Redskins platforms get in the way of him paying attention to macro trends.

“If a team is, say, really over-indexing in article views on their website, [then I will] take a look at (their most popular content)…,” said Blosat while noting that, when thinking about audiences, one must consider how audiences (and audience traits) differ by team, by location, and by platform. “They could be trying something that we haven’t done, or something we’ve thought about doing in the past…”

On the field and the court, coaches and players are making data-drive decisions every pitch and every play. It doesn’t mean you need to do a 180 on your strategy because of one piece of content that breaks the mold. But it does mean you should be thinking actively when it comes to data, communicating what it means, and getting better on all platforms.

Iterate success, ask questions, find answers, repeat. Blosat and the Redskins are drawing up a smarter playbook. It’s the new, better way of doing content. Or say the data suggests.

[Listen to my conversation with Geoff Blosat]

Conferences, Fan Development, General Sports Business, Sports Media, Sports Technology, Streaming and Video

Sports Media Adapting to the Modern Fan

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Sports media outlets used to be just about content. The games on the channels were more important than the networks broadcasting them. It’s not like consumers had a plethora of choices from which to get their sports content in the past.

But that has all changed. It’s no longer just ESPN and the local paper. Or even a half dozen sports content websites. It’s thousands upon thousands. So how do the big guys maintain their place at the top of the mountain, particularly in the free-for-all world of digital and social?

They build brand.

Cultivating a brand, and having an active brand presence on every platform on which fans are consuming is an increasingly important concern for players in the social media game. These notions were recently elucidated at the annual Sports Business Journal World Congress of Sports, held April 20-21, 2017 in Dana Point, CA. (Check out a recap)

“SportsCenter is not a show, it’s a brand,” said ESPN Executive Vice President of Programming and Scheduling Burke Magnus. “It lives online, social, mobile, our OTT [over-the-top] apps.”

ESPN has long been more than just a set of TV channels, and nowadays they recognize the need to be that omni-channel brand that fans know and trust. As the cable paradigm continues to diminish, too, sports media brands like ESPN know it may be a direct-to-consumer play, not protected by the bundle.

President of Turner David Levy emphasized the need to ‘control platforms’ and not to dice up the distribution, especially in sports. Appreciating the shift in the ways fans are consuming content was a central motif of the conference’s opening panel. Michael Neuman, Executive Vice President, Managing Partner, Scout Sports and Entertainment – ‎Horizon Media, noted in a tweet: “[The] Biggest theme of opening panel is “decentralization” of media consumption and inability of youth to embrace current delivery.”

So how are sports media businesses seeking to combat this conundrum? Build a unique brand, of course.

For Turner and Levy, it means serving a cross-section of the interests of their fans, earning more of their attention every day. “The definition of a network is changing,” stated Levy, specifically speaking about Turner’s brand now including Bleacher Report. “The future of B/R is a cross between sports and culture (music, fashion) and maybe live games.”

Perhaps the best manifestation of finding success with a unique brand in sports media is Barstool Sports. Their irreverent, authentic, informed, unfiltered take on sports stories and content has found some startup success in an increasingly crowded sports marketplace. They’ve done it by letting the punch line that are Internet takes and memes drive much of their hyperbolic content.

“We are SNL [Saturday Night Live] if it were born out of the Internet,” said Erika Nardini, CEO Barstool of Sports: “We have the fan base and loyalty…

“Brand has to be part of the conversation.”

The lesson lies in the fact that fans are no longer coming straight to you in droves. Consumer have so many choices for content and their attention must be earned; you’ve got to make yourself easy to reach and then you’ve got to them want to come to you.

Conferences, Digital, General Sports Business, Sponsorships, Sports Media, Sports Technology

Leaders in Sport – #LeadersWeek 2017 Summit Recap

Analytics and Data, Content Marketing, Digital, Fan Development, General Marketing, General Sports Business, Mobile, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships, Sports Media, Sports Technology

4 Years of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast: Key Lessons from the SMSports Pros, Part 9

It has been a privilege and a pleasure to attempt to cull down insights and wisdom gained from over four years and 100+ episodes of the Digital and Social Media Sports podcast. The learning is a never-ending process, there is more innovation and experimentation and change happening daily, and all we can do is keep up, enjoy the ride, and navigate this wild but fun world together.

See part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here, and stay tuned for the consolidated e-book!

Creating emotional connections between fans and players is powerful
It’s always powerful to hear about content and campaigns that transcend the game. Content that fans connect with on a deeper, emotional level. It’s not easy to produce and takes earning trust and buy-in from the team and the players. The best way to do that, I’ve learned, is to clearly communicate what you’ll be doing and why and to let the athlete dictate, at times, some of the creative direction. The social media pros that have had success here have that connection with players and have earned that trust. They help all sides realize that everybody is on the same team, with mutually beneficial, and intersecting, goals in mind.
If fans don’t engage with your content, they’re engaging with somebody else’s
There is still a lot of strategy revolving around the tune-in. But there sure is a lot of content consumption happening on digital and social channels and the days of only saving your best stuff for the linear broadcast are ebbing, if not over. But fans want content before, during, and after the broadcast, they want the content that isn’t always candy-coated. A sometimes divisive theme over the years has been the conflict of wanting to drive fans to specific channels versus offering content on any preferred channel (and packaging it properly). It can sometimes mean challenging an executive or a traditional way of thinking, but FOMO typically wins out in the end.
Look for insights that come with the wins and the losses
While it particularly stood out in a conversation with Washington Redskins Digital Media Analyst Geoff Blosat, a compelling insight that has arisen in conversations over the years has been to learn from the tougher times. Learn from the good times, too, of course, but the different atmosphere around a fan base after a loss can often reveal what keeps their attention and affection, regardless. Experiment, find positive emotions and reinforce their devotion to the team. No matter what tactic a team takes, and no strategy is necessarily the right nor the same, it’s important to look at the data – not just from the big ones with the big metrics, but the ones that stand out, too, even in the down times.

Content that follows fan interests
Social media can be a place to cultivate a community, but also to learn from the community. Be aware and proactively listen. What are fans talking about, retweeting, commenting on the most, reacting to? Remember that social media can be your free focus group. Don’t take everything on social media as gospel, but it is a direct channel to fans and a place to discover what fans are saying and thinking about you, the team, the experience, and the brand.
Make the most of all of your content. All of it
One of the best and most interesting evolutions of social media over the years has been he rising popularity of raw, previously cutting room floor content. The side stuff, the making of the polished story, the in-the-moment video that is captured and shared seemingly on a whim. Another area to watch in this ecosystem is trying to maximize the value of great content, including amplifying an Instagram Story, or developing something that starts serendipitously on social media into a wider, multi-channel theme or campaign.
Creating evergreen videos often needs to be a puzzle built with pieces
There’s a lot of content created in the moment, but also a lot of content in the can for future use. And the best content creators make the most out of everything they have, while also remaining ready to pivot on a dime and react to news or changes. I’ve been able to have some fascinating chats with pros specializing in video for digital and social and in-game. If a player gets traded, if marketing wants to promote a certain player, if you want to able to re-package content – it can help to create content in an organized, cohesive manner, where pieces fit together, but can also be repurposed apart and inter-changed.
Not all content should look produced
So many times we’ve heard on the podcast about creating content for platforms, and knowing what fans expect there and how people use the platform and speak on it. The best put in the effort and do not just press send simultaneously to fire content to a number of places. And a polished piece of produced content isn’t always what fans want. It should look like it belongs there. And as we simultaneously serve so many different channels, it’s important to remember how content is supposed to look here, and deliver it.
Different platforms require different measures of success
Engagement rate, views, shares. These terms comprise common KPI’s for social media and sports pros, but a key insight emphasized to me by some of smartest pros over the years is that measurements across platforms are not apple to apples. A view on YouTube vs. web vs. Facebook or any other channels is not the same thing or same level of engagement, and it would be foolhardy to treat it as such. Comments on Facebook and Instagram are not the same thing as replies on Twitter. Screenshots on Snapchat, quote tweets, retweets, snapbacks, and, well, there is a lot of metrics out there and, while all agree it’s essential to measure social media, it’s just as important to understand the context of the metric, and to allow it to inform strategy and content appropriately. I’ve heard many definitions of engagement over the years – there is no single magic metric.
The value of benchmarking your social media content
With all that said in the above point on data, another compelling idea brought up has been benchmarking. That doesn’t mean going by the book with every eMarketer report, especially in the unique world of sports and social, but it does mean one can and should benchmark against their own content (and the content and success of one’s peers). Sports is often a work of routine, but if you can tweak some variables each week, as you go through the next routine, you can really get actionable insights about what’s working, what’s not working, and what adjustments are moving the needle in the right direction, and therefore worth iterating or building upon. If there’s one goal we can all share, it’s to beat yourself every day and every week on social media, set new records, and find new things that work.
Making sure fans get quality when they come to you and your content every day
The consumer is in the driver’s seat now more than ever, and the paradigm isn’t reverting back anytime soon. With so many posts in the feed, so many videos to watch, stories to swipe through, and content to click, fans are making economic decisions as they decide whose content to engage with. This not only means there is a need to make fans want to come to you, but also to make sure, when they do decide to look at your content, the experience is always awesome. Go mediocre once, or worse, and that weighted variable in the equation with which fans sub-consciously decide what to do with their time, whose content is worth clicking on, can decrease. Many feel the compulsion to post something always, to not forego reach. But the long-terrn must always be considered. Give fans crap once and many may never come back.
Always coming back to content fans want
There is no content that falls into the compulsory category anymore. Users have too many choices and more power over what they consume. Most pros that work in the space develop an intuition for content and for how their fans will engage with, or not engage with, content. But when all content – every post, every graphic, every video – meets the standard of content fans want to see and not content they have to see in order to get the good stuff – that’s a win for everybody, and the new standard today. A key question I’ve heard again and again is whether this content is quality, and understanding fans will sniff out the crap.

After all the conversations, all the lessons learned, the deep dives and real-life anecdotes, it all just comes back the fans. If it’s using a specific platform, creating a content campaign, integrating or activating a sponsor, imagining a game experience, one will always be steering in the right direction if the answer is yes to the question of is this the best thing for the fan? Something they would want or enjoy? The trick is to be brutally honest, and not let bias or a gut feeling gone wrong get in the way. And to be a student of it all, to obsess over every ways a fan touches the team and the brand, and how to enhance it and deepen it. A constant curiosity has led me to dive into the generous and smart social media and sports community to pursue this podcast and the incredible interviews I’ve been lucky enough to do and people it’s been a privilege to meet.

Who knows where we’ll be four years from now. But I can guarantee we’ll still be obsessing over the fan. There will be more creative content, more knowledge about what fans want, a higher standard for innovation and execution, and the acceleration will only continue. All we can do is share more, have more conversations, connect with others, and do something that matters every day. That’s the best kind of engagement.

Analytics and Data, Content Marketing, Digital, Fan Development, General Marketing, General Sports Business, Mobile, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sports Media, Sports Technology, Sports Venues, Streaming and Video

4 Years of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast: Key Lessons from the SMSports Pros, Part 8

The more I look back on four years and 100+ episodes of the Digital and Social Media Sport Podcast, the more I appreciate how lucky I’ve been to connect with so many incredibly bright, generous, talented individuals that work in this space. It’s an awesome community, and so I hope to give back just a little by continuing to summarize some of the best insights I’ve gleaned over the years and the chats. This is part 8.

See part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, and stay tuned for more!

Defining fan cohorts can be instrumental to effective strategy
Many are wise enough now to realize that generalizations about large swaths of people like Millennials are often foolhardy, if not irresponsible. But it doesn’t mean recognizing common traits among your fans to better create and position content and marketing doesn’t matter. Because not all fan or customer bases are created equally. There are different reasons they come to you, different motivations and interests. This was clearly spelled out in an enlightening interview with Kurt Stadelman of EA Sports, who laid out the ideas behind the way they create content and marketing, looking at a few well-defined cohorts the company targets and serves. This is not just a good concept for EA Sports, but can be applied to anyone in social media and sports, evaluating the cohorts amongst their fans.
Traditional PR still matters for sports businesses
As much as we recognize the value of what happens on digital and social media, there is something to traditional media, particularly linear TV, that establishes legitimacy, even if greater reach can be achieved on digital platforms. You know something has made it when it hits a TV broadcast or show, and it’s still a coveted platform to reach fans and consumers. It’s something important to keep in mind, even as it diminishes, and was a key insight from a chat with SportTechie’s Diamond Leung.
Driving sales on social is not just posting links and Buy Now CTA’s
News flash: the majority of ticket sales do not happen on or from social media. But there are a lot of fans on social media that will buy tickets. It has been a motif in many interviews I’ve had over the years, and that is the notion of how social media is used best – as a tool to drive interest in the team and the games – not as a tool to post endless sales messaging and glorified ads. There is something to be said for making ticket sales a single click away, to eliminate friction, but too often the expectation that the path from social media engagement to purchase is linear, and downright irresponsible to think more sales will come from posting more sales messages. Create that makes fans excited about the game and the team and the atmosphere and the giveaways – and they’ll buy tickets, with or without you posting that daily link.
Social should be relevant for fans everywhere
Fitting in the category of good problems to have, several social media and sports pros face the challenge and the opportunity of engaging fans that live within minutes of the stadium or arena or track, and fans that live in another state, country, or continent and who may never attend a game. While social media is becoming more localized, which is another subject altogether, it remains a charge of the pros to create content everyone can enjoy and to make everybody feel like they can be close to the team and part of the community. How are you relevant to fans next door? How are you relevant to the fan miles away? Ones at the game and not at the game? Important questions to consider.
Learn from what doesn’t work as much as you learn from what does
It’s natural to celebrate the social media successes, the posts you circle, screenshot, and showcase. The ones that get engagement rates worth talking about. But not every idea is a winner, nor should it be. Experimenting and failing is part of the game when trying to innovate. And a key insight I’ve picked up over some conversations with smart people is to pick out the failures, and learn from them. Was it the way content or the idea was presented, a player or type of content not getting love, a time of day that never seems to work well, or whatever it may be. It’s often said to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. But the first step is identifying and learning from both sides of the coin.
Show up for the moments
So much of success in social media can be speed, but more importantly it’s about being ready at the right time, when emotions are flying, to deliver. Anticipate the moments and prepare for them – visualize, game plan, imagine the perfect scenario unfolding and what you would have at the ready for it. Consider all angles and goals, all creative and platforms, and all the PR-minded and marketing considerations to take into account. It’s not easy to be ready for the moments, but the best consistently are.
There is value in reaching a unique, coveted audience
We’re all often chasing the highest number in the most efficient manner. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that. But it gets more strategic when you think about the actual audience you’re engaging and if it’s right and, therefore, the best use of resources. Not every platform is the next big thing, but any platform that gets an engaged, considerable user base is worth evaluating to determine if the users there right for you. Everyone is chasing the same thing – attention – but not everybody covets the attention of each audience equally. This is a key consideration, I’ve learned from many, when looking at where to spend time and resources in an increasingly crowded social and digital world.
Learn from outside sports
It’s easy to get immersed in sports – the daily routine, the fact that most of your own feed and network is all about sports. But there’s a lot of smart, innovative stuff happening outside sports on social media, as well as a treasure chest of lessons to learn. It may be a new way to use a platform, a clever engagement technique, a marketing campaign that is driving good results, eye-catching creative, and so much more. The best in social media are constantly learning, on the hunt for knowledge and ideas and insight. You can never stop being a student of social media – in and out of sports.
Understand the sponsor’s goals when creating sponsored content
A lot of stories start with sponsor deals that call for “x” number of social media posts. But, thankfully, much has evolved since then, sponsor teams are now working more in tandem with social to assure better content for the fans and, just as importantly, the sponsors. But it’s not just about a creative play on words or a branded top play. The best truly understand what the sponsor is looking to accomplish, what their digital and social strategy and is like, and what success will look like to them. Doing social media sponsorship means being a student and doing the homework of researching and understanding the partner, and then thinking about what their objectives and how to drive metrics to accomplish them.
Relationships, relationships, relationships
It’s no surprise that the topic of relationship building – what networking should be about – has been a common motif over the years on the podcast. I am particularly struck by those that seek relationships an relationship-building opportunities, whether in-person or via social channels, especially for the more timid. The hardest part is just doing it – and you’ll find, much like how I get generous people to come on the podcast, most pros in this space, this community, are open and eager to help. But the best relationships, too, are not about taking. Don’t always network with ulterior motives, meet smart and cool people in your space, learn from them and let them learn from you, and make relationships with people that would call you for coffee if they were in town. You’ll always get further with people than with business cards.

The value of ‘accidental’ exposure

While it’s always important to engage your avid fans, there’s certainly value with those moments or that content, which reach beyond – to the casual fan that may take notice and begin a journey on a spectrum to increasing interest and avidity. It is a goal on the minds of social media pros – not the only goal, but certainly one of them. Some call it virality, but it’s more about finding content that’ll make someone say wow, make someone feel the need to share it or tell a friend about it, and make someone want to come back and sample some more. It can also go to another magnitude when an influencer, or at least someone with a large reach, shares your content. It’s always welcomed, but can’t be expected to achieve great levels of accidental exposure. But you can certainly tip the scales in your favor.

Analytics and Data, Content Marketing, Digital, Fan Development, General Marketing, General Sports Business, Social Media, Social Media ROI, Sponsorships, Sports Media, Sports Technology, Uncategorized

4 Years of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast: Key Lessons from the SMSports Pros, Part 7

As I’ve looked back on over four years and 100 episodes of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, I am blown away, myself, shaking my head in amazement as I revisit all the great insights and lessons I have been lucky enough to draw out of these generous pros. My quest to help distill it all continues with part 7.

See part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, and stay tuned for more!

Overprepare and be ready for some content to go unused
A story I’ve heard often, and have lived myself many times, is of the tons of content, carefully crafted, thoughtfully produced, and at the ready, can often end up on the cutting room floor, a folder of tears, if you will. But the best are always ready, knowing this is a necessary reality of being prepared. Social media moves so quickly and real-time is so important to truly capitalize, and therefore it is paramount to have content and a plan for any outcome. Ask any social media pro about their folder of tears, and you’ll no doubt get a story about a sweet graphic, campaign, post, or video that never saw the light of day.
Resources follow revenue
The next social media and sports pro that says they have ample resources and wants of nothing will be the first. (Insert sarcastic joke about the Clemson Athletics department here). There are so many platforms to serve, so much content you want to produce, and so much analytics and analysis to do. And it’s all accelerating faster than organizations can keep up with, and certainly faster than revenue paradigms typically evolve, as well. But just about any request for more – budget, staff, equipment – is going to be met with a demand to show how it’ll lead to more revenue (even if there are multiple steps along the way). The monetization of social media question doesn’t have a single right answer, but the best are taking the time to analyze and model how it can lead to social media, justifying the question of resources. The answer, at the end of the day, is always revenue.
If it doesn’t match your brand, you shouldn’t be doing it
The old saying goes (to paraphrase) that brand is what people say about you when you’re not around. Well, many brands in sports have largely been built over decades, long before Twitter was even a gleam in Jack Dorsey’s and Ev Williams’s eyes. Yet, Twitter has become a place where brands in sports are established, where voices, look, and feel are being cultivated. And many social media and sports pros I’ve spoken to over the years not only recognize this reality, but take the responsibility to be caretakers of that brand quite seriously. More than dropping a tweet to fish for numbers, at the expense of a brand value that is priceless and perpetual.
Make an effort to integrate sponsors organically
The holy grail for social media and sports sponsorship is authenticity, content that both involves sponsors, but doesn’t feel forced. It’s not easy. It takes effort. But while we all recognize the desire to do this, not everybody makes the effort and sticks to it. Many of the top social media and sports pros have developed a sixth sense for it, though, understanding how to identify and how to create organic opportunities for partners to play. There are a lot of opportunities for exposure, for engagement, for content and sponsored content or integration need not be an idea with questionable connotations. Do better.
Celebrate the little victories when the big victories aren’t coming
If there’s one thing every social media and sports pro can agree on, it’s the inability to control what happens in the game or match or race. There will be wins and there will be losses. There will be highs and lows. But it doesn’t change the charge to continue to drive engagement and emotion on social media among the fans. It has been instructive to speak to several sage social media specialists over the years who have helmed teams that have gone through periods of losing. I have learned a ton from them and it starts with still finding ways to celebrate what fans love, to make the smaller victories feel a little bigger (carefully), and to foster fans that care and can still enjoy the team. It’s not always easy, and not recommended, to be the eternal optimist. But it’s paramount to continue to find reasons and ways to celebrate all those moments and reasons every game, every day that fans have to stand and cheer.
Align athletics with the greater mission and goals of the university
I’ve had the opportunity to pick the minds of several sports pros in the college athletics space, from big brands to small schools and many in-between. Athletics is, for many, the front porch for the university to many, so it’s imperative that messaging and brand is aligned. When sports can draw the attention of many potential students and donors all around the world, it’s an opportunity to further promote not just awareness of the school, but more about what it stands for and what they can offer beyond the sports. There is a grand mission for every university to get their values conveyed, and the savvy social media and sports pros in college appreciate it, and communicate with the university to represent it on that front porch.
How can you look big-time?
Everybody wants to be in the cool kid group when it comes to the competitive world of social media and sports. It’s where many fans form their perceptions, so it can be important to stand out from the crowd. And to find a way to stand out. It can be darn near impossible to be on every platform and to do it well, especially at the smaller level, but focusing on what you can do well, and on what will ultimately lead to accomplishing the primary goals – that can be the game changer. On the level playing field of digital and social, anyone can stand out for doing something special.
Consistency of quality content is a challenge for social media and sports pros
This can be tough in the pros, with varying degrees of time to put together content, but even more so in college, with so many handles, so much content, and such disparity in resources across sports and across schools. Conference content conglomerates can suffer if the stream from one school, for example, is far superior to another’s. And while the football team may have sick, graphics and video, the tennis team may not have the resources to create such quality, let alone doing so while maintaining a consistent brand. One of the things many social media and sports pros in college hold dear is that consistency in look, feel, and messaging across all its accounts and every sport. Every team comprises the whole of the university’s athletics, and that institution should have a consistent, powerful message.
Your platforms can and should be a dynamic space
Every day brings something new in sports. That’s the beauty of it. And yet, too often, the presentation remains the same. That is not to say something for consistency, but different scenarios can call for different content, emphases, and visuals. While this emanated from a conversation with West Virginia Athletics’s Grant Dovey about the dynamic nature of the Mountaineers website, the idea can apply across social media and sports. While templates can help and can hold value, sometimes the special situations give cause to deviate from the norm, to surprise and delight.
Building trust and buy-in by recognizing goals
Dovey also brought up the importance of realizing that the goals of some of the most important people when it comes to creating content – the coaches – is paramount. For the coaches, it was about reaching recruits, and reaching recruits, and then reaching recruits. This same principle applies across the board – how do you win trust? By understanding exactly what the goals are of others – driving donations, collecting leads, selling groups, creating sponsor assets, getting sign-ups, and, well you get the picture. It can be easy to get stuck in the KPIs of social media, but every day, it’s important to take stock, talk to others, and think about how you can show there’s something in it for them and it’s worth the time and attention.
Focus on building a community, not just a fan base
Of the stories I’ve heard or lived in social media and sports, some of the best and most heartwarming are when there is such a community, that fans become friends. When Facebook or Twitter or Instagram can lead to meetups at a game or an event, or relationships form from seeing the same faces at each game. Social media should create a community that feels together, that wants to physically and digitally high-five each other when something exciting happens. A community with stronger ties is a more engaged invested fan base, the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Category: Sports Technology

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