Hope yall are doing well. Now that the Tar Heels have started playing basketball and are still doing some exciting things in football, I couldn’t be happier as a sports fan.

I just wanted to let you know I’ll be speaking at the Triangle Social Media Club this week on Thursday night at Twine Interactive. If you live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and are even remotely interested in social media (who isn’t these days?) you should check out this club. The Triangle Social Media Club chapter was first launched in October 2007 by Ignite Social Media. As the chapter has expanded, it has partnered with other companies and individuals to continue hosting events in the Triangle, NC region.

I’m planning on talking about purpose-driven communities and maybe even discuss some ways companies can extend the reach and engagement of their existing loyalty programs by adding a community aspect. Karlie Justus, a PR office for the NC State Fair, will also be speaking about how she helped implement the Fair’s first social media campaign. I’m really looking forward to hearing about this, and I’m sure it will be very interesting.

If you’re interested in the event, you can RSVP here. Hope to see you there!

I also want to thank Dr. Tim Newman, the Coordinator of the Sport Management Program at York College for recommending me to Erik and sharing some of his time with me. I met Tim early this year on Twitter, then in person at the CSRI Conference in Chapel Hill. It was good seeing Tim again and meeting his wife and one of their daughters. Here’s the video interview Tim did with me. Tim-thanks for the opportunity and hopefully, I’ll see you again soon. And have a safe trip/awesome time in Malaysia!

Since Group Story is an NC-based company and since I’ve known George for a little over a year now, I thought it’d be fun to do an interview with him. I also think sports fans and athletes will be a good audience for them, and you can hear George explain why in the video. This is actually the first interview George has given about Group Story–he claims he’s camera shy, but if you watch the video, you’ll see why I don’t believe it. (hint: I think he gives a good interview).

Interview With Group Story Co-Founder George Junginger from Jason Peck on Vimeo.

Group Story has been chosen to demo at the Internet Summit in Raleigh on November 4-5. Check them out and drop me a line if you’re going to be there so we can meet up.

You can see some of my notes here and here. Also, you should check out a series of video interviews I did with 10 really smart people talking about their visions of a killer mobile+social app. If you still can’t get enough of my face, you can watch a short video of me being interviewed by Lewis Howes, a star speaker, entrepreneur and author.

I learned a ton and met some awesome people at BlogWorld. It was hard to narrow down my thoughts to just three main takeaways but here’s my attempt:

1) Go To More Good Events

I’ve always enjoyed going to some of the local events in Raleigh but lately have started going to other events outside NC. I’ve been fortunate to meet some awesome people at these events. No matter how much things are moving online, there is no substitute for meeting people face-to-face. It was great to be able to put faces to names and hang out with some people who I’ve “known” for awhile online, but hadn’t ever met in real life. As many have said before, one goal of online interactions is to create real-world relationships, and going to good events is one way to move things along. It was great to be able to meet people like Beth Harte (community manager for MarketingProfs-even if it was just for 2 minutes), Suhkjit Ghag (social media evangelist at Sony) and David Spinks (community manager for Scribnia).

Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue going to amazing events and meeting great people. I should have done this more in the past.

2) Focus More

Amber Naslund said in her panel on time management strategies for social media, “sometimes you have to kill your babies.”

She was referring to projects that have stalled or that you’re not passionate about.

I’ve had a variety of websites and projects since I started blogging in 2006. If success is defined as them making money, then yes, some have been and are successful. But I realized there are some projects I have that I’m not that passionate about. They’re taking time away from things I am passionate about, such as sports and social media and online communities. I need to focus on things I’m passionate about and phase out of the other stuff.

3) Give Back More

If you look at some of the most successful people in life and online, the common denominator is that they give. A lot.

They give their time and ideas. They give others a platform to speak and be heard. And they give opportunities for other people to shine.

I’ll be honest. I’ve done a crappy job at this lately. I could make excuses and say I’ve been busy with work, but ultimately, excuses suck. I really need to step up my game.

This has kind of been in the back of my mind for a while. Meeting Lewis Howes in person turned this into something I can’t ignore.

If you don’t know who Lewis Howes is, you should get to know him. In the last year, he’s developed one of the best resources on sports and new media (SportsNetworker.com), co-written a book on how to master LinkedIn, and become an awesome speaker.

While I’ve been too “busy” to blog or collaborate or shine the spotlight on others, Lewis has been doing just that and has become a force in the sports industry.

I feel lucky to have the privilege to know you, Lewis, and hopefully collaborate on some things in the future. Thanks for being so awesome and making me realize that I need to do a better job at giving back more-my time, attention, thanks and ideas.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and have a good night.

One of the most interesting moments during the conference was when video guru Steve Garfield had everyone with a recording device take part in an experiment. We all shot video all the same time, and were encouraged to post it online somewhere. Steve believes (and he’s right) that the revolution in video is due to the fact that we can now record and share video from the same device. Check out the video below to see this experiment.

Here are my top three takeaways from the Inbound Marketing Summit, since you probably don’t have time to read my 11 pages of notes.

1. Companies that are doing a great job with social media have integrated it into all aspects of their business. Responsibility doesn’t just rest with one person or department.
2. Companies that do a good job of getting found (in search engines, by bloggers, in real-life, etc) and trusted are successful. It’s more important than ever to focus on building trust with your audience.
3. Content (creating the kind people WANT to read) is crucial to building relationships online. The sooner companies can figure out how to create interesting, remarkable content, the sooner they can gain a competitive advantage. Never outsource content or social media accounts. Companies should own it.

If you went to #ims09, what were some of your top takeaways?

I’m really looking forward to BlogWorld in Las Vegas later this week. I’d love to connect if you’re going to be there!

Here’s my schedule:

Inbound Marketing Summit – October 7-8 in Boston

BlogWorld – October 14-18 in Las Vegas

Social Media Business Forum – October 23 in Durham

Speaking at York College – October 26 in York, PA

I hope to see some of you at these events!

FanFeedr

One of my favorite things about the site is that when you first visit, a helpful screen pops up to tell you what to do. When people first visit a new site, not knowing what to do is often a barrier to signing up and utilizing the site, so this really helped clarify things for me. I also love the fact that they utilize Facebook Connect to offer a simple sign up process.

The site utilizes social elements by enabling people to follow their friends and see what news they’re interested in. Fans can easily comment on, email, rate, or share any articles they read via Twitter or Facebook. This is accomplished by a nice horizontal ribbon that appears at the bottom of the screen when you click through to see an article.

FanFeedr also has an iPhone app and a robust set of APIs for publishers to take advantage of. I’m really looking forward to following this company’s growth.

When Jeff Brunelle, from Carrot Creative, said he would be happy to put me in touch with FanFeedr’s founder/CEO, Ty Ahmad-Taylor, I had to take him up on it. Please see below for some questions Ty answered via email, after we had a nice phone conversation last week.

1) Where did the basic concept of FanFeedr as a personalized, real-time sports news aggregator come from?

The core concept came from a problem I had myself: I spent far too much time hunting and pecking around for sports news and information on multiple websites. Twitter was emerging at this time last year, and I also saw some of the conceptual success my friends at FanSnap experienced with their event-ticketing vertical.

2) What kind of sports fans do you think will use FanFeedr?

We believe that we can capture most of the market, from the casual fan to the Fantasy Sports player, primarily because the consumption lens is similar to Twitter and Facebook, and much less editorially-driven. Specifically, you can get all of the news about your favorite teams, or some of it, or just bits of it (e.g. “just show me video about my team”) in an easy-to-use manner.

3) The site has a nice mix of features that are news-focused and focused on sharing/socializing. Which features do you think are most important and make FanFeedr special?

Without getting too abstract, and comparisons to Rothko are both appreciated and deflected, often at the same time, we are trying to address a user’s media consumption needs along their social graph.

4) What has surprised you the most about the sports industry since you started working on FanFeedr at the end of 2008?

I came from the music industry when I worked at MTV Networks. Pop, rock, hip-hop and country. Sports people are as passionate as music people, but the level of detailed knowledge about the game continues to astound me.

If you go see a great concert, you will hear music person say: “Minus the Bear has one of the best hooks I have heard in the last five years.”

5) What’s next for FanFeedr?

We are adding Fantasy Sports lifestreaming: right now, if you are in a Fantasy Football league, your wins, losses, player drops and adds are not exposed to anyone besides the 7, 9, or 11 other people that you play with. We want to allow you to expose your activity to your social graph (i.e. friends) on FanFeedr, Facebook and/or Twitter.

6) Where do you see real-time sports news going in the next year or so?

As more athletes get onto Twitter, you are going to see greater connections with fans, as the final barrier to sports consumption, what the athlete thinks, becomes less opaque.

7) What do you think is the biggest opportunity for teams and leagues to utilize social media?

The teams and leagues can use social media for much better CRM. The Oakland A’s don’t have the clearest picture of what their fans do online, for example, because they haven’t done a good job of painting a picture of those fans. Put another way, social media inverts the retail store paradigm: a sports brand doesn’t own the store (which is Facebook, Twitter or MySpace.) The brand is a leasing space, and has to create an pleasant experience for users in those media.

If you had $1 million to spend on FanFeedr right now, what would you do with it?

You can’t shoot, edit and distribute “Hangover II” for that amount, so focusing on the core business:

• Market research
• Product development
• Customer service
• Sales and marketing
• Employee hiring

A few businesses and teams get this, but overall we’re still not there yet. Many teams are getting involved, but not always with a purpose or clear strategy. A Facebook page that has 100k people on it is worthless, without the proper strategy behind it. If you’re a team, you don’t really want Facebook fans, you want ticket buyers.

The video below describes some ideas for ways that teams can use social media the right way and what benefits they (and their fans) can get from this.

The last idea in the video is one I look forward to exploring more, and would love your thoughts on. It’s one thing to do some basic videos occasionally and make them exclusive to Twitter or YouTube to drive awareness and engagement. But hardcore fans are always willing to consume more, in my opinion. Why aren’t teams capitalizing on this?

More and more fans now want to participate, be involved in the creation of ticket packages, get exclusive, behind-the-scenes videos, articles and real-time updates, get personalized merchandise, vote on ideas for sponsor promotions, etc.  Clearly people want content in new forms as indicated by the explosion of sites like Twitter. Why aren’t more teams taking some of these concepts, creating new content areas and fan clubs and charging fans for access to drive revenue?

If you’re a die-hard Lakers fan, wouldn’t you pay for the right to see Kobe’s real-time updates right after the game, before the press get a crack at him? Wouldn’t you pay to have access to short, 30 second videos from Phil Jackson before and after practice? Wouldn’t you pay for a chance to ask a member of the Lakers staff or ownership any question you wanted once a month? I know I would.

I think teams may need to rethink a lot of the things they’re doing online. There should be a balance between using these free social media tools to expand an audience and keep a pulse on what fans want/think vs. charging people for access to really cool content and opportunities. Some of the things teams and players are doing on outside sites could be moved in-house (and on team communities, so they have a better value proposition) so they can be better monetized and packaged for hardcore fans. I think this is the only way teams will see a good ROI from their efforts and will be able to justify spending money on new opportunities that serve to engage fans in more ways.

I’m always interested in hearing what you think. Thanks for watching/reading and I look forward to your thoughts on this.

A Digital Journey – Keith Burtis

Notes/key points

• Never approach a network or individual with a greedy, one-sided agenda
• Passion can be a magnet in getting people to join a community
• Scale and build community one relationship at a time
• When customers can interact with people creating a product or service, the perceived value is almost always greater

I met Keith later in the day and he is a great guy-very easy to talk to. He’s obviously done a fantastic job at putting some of these principles into practice to help him and others excel in business and in life.

Social Media Integration – Greg Cangialosi

Notes/keypoints

• Technology is really just an enabler – it’s always about people at the end of the day
• Social Media Adoption Curve
  • Education
  • Observation
  • Broadcast
  • Participation
  • Relationships
  • Collaboration
• Email is currently the glue of the social web (love this metaphor. Very accurate)

Social Business By Design – David Armano (keynote speaker)

Notes/key points

• Control doesn’t exist. Brands can only hope to be good facilitators. Facilitation leads to engagement
• Examples of social business – Comcast (ComcastCares Twitter account), Starbucks (they let their community’s ideas drive development of promotions and rewards. This is exactly what sports teams and many other businesses should be doing).
• Social media has the potential to affect all aspects of business. Soon brands will stop saying “we are doing social media” and will start saying “it’s how we do business.”
• Pretty much this entire presentation. Seriously. Great stuff, David.

I’ve been reading David’s blog, Logic + Emotion for at least three years now. When I started blogging in early 2006, his blog was one of the first I read regularly. In fact, one of David’s awesome diagrams inspired this post article that said I was still unsure about Twitter in December 2007.  It was great meeting him briefly after his keynote, and I look forward to seeing what he and the team at Dachis Group do with social business design.

The Basics of Social Media ROI – Olivier Blanchard

Notes/key points

Olivier has written about social media ROI extensively on his blog. Here’s the basic process he discussed.

1. Establish a baseline (year-over-year growth, monthly growth) before social media vs. after
2. Create activity timelines – keep track of all important marketing efforts (press releases, attending conferences, videos, blog posts, whitepapers, etc)
3. Look at sales revenue (# of new customers, total customers, revenue per customer, etc)
4. Measure transactional precursors (brand mentions, website traffic, etc)
5. Overlay timelines/activities
6. Look for patterns
7. Try to prove relationships

This method makes a lot of sense. However, I’m not sure how you handle it if your company does a lot of different forms of advertising (print, billboards, radio, etc). Trying to find/interpret overall results could be pretty challenging if you’re unsure about how you’re other marketing efforts are performing. Plus you have to look at how employees are performing, as they can have a big impact on the direction of your company, so it gets even tougher. But just because I don’t know how to do it, doesn’t mean there isn’t a way. Props to Olivier for making this presentation fun and coming up some very interesting thoughts about this subject.

I definitely enjoyed hanging out and learning at Social Fresh and look forward to keeping in touch with a lot of great people.

Here’s an interesting picture taken from Compete.com:

According to Compete.com (probably not 100% accurate, but usually pretty close), both sites attracted roughly the same amount of unique visitors last month as they did in July of 2008. Here are the numbers:

• Planet Orange – 1,767 unique visitors in July (1,413 uniques in July 2008)
• MyColts.net – 8,290 unique visitors in July (8,137 uniques in July 2008)

Unique visitors is only one indicator of growth, and I didn’t look at other important metrics such as number of active members, time spent on site, revenue generated from community members, etc. But according to Compete.com, the communities haven’t grown much in terms of unique visitors over the past year. Why haven’t these sites grown more?

I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that it’s a combination of things:

• Lack of promotion
• Lack of integration with existing marketing efforts
• No clear value proposition stated on the home page
• Not enough unique/exclusive content and access
• More focus on fans on existing social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, etc)

But those are just a few guesses. I really have no idea why these two communities appear to have stagnated in growth. I wonder if other team communities have also stagnated. What do you think?

Are official online team communities a good idea? I still say yes (when executed properly), but would love to hear your thoughts.

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?

The platform includes standard community features such as profiles, blogs, pictures, and videos, as well as a ticket marketplace (powered by AceTickets.com) that enables fans to buy and sell tickets. Very cool idea with the ticket marketplace, but I wonder about the long-term viability due to ticketing agreements teams have with the StubHubs and Ticketmasters of the world. The platform also enables the communities to have aggregation features, similar to a Digg or Reddit, so users can submit and vote on stories about their favorite teams. You can see more about the platform on TruMedia’s website.

TruFan plans to monetize via advertising, merchandising, ticketing and sponsorships.  A few weeks ago, I was able to have a conversation with TruMedia’s CEO Rafe Anderson about the platform and where they’re going with it. See below for some of my notes from the conversation.

More about TruFan

Their focus is really on the local scene, enabling fans to  keep up with their favorite teams, no matter where they live. One thing they’re doing is helping to support local media properties—for example, they have a partnership with Boston.com to power fan vs. fan debates, known as Slugfests. I think this is a great way for them to get some additional exposure while also helping local media websites stay relevant and become more engaging.

Facebook vs. TruFan

I asked Rafe something to the effect of “now that many teams are engaging fans on Facebook and MySpace, why do you think fans should join TruFan communities?” Rafe said that while Facebook is a great way for teams to communicate and market themselves, fans don’t get the full benefit of local engagement there. TruFan’s value lies in being able to provide an outlet for fans to connect around extremely niche content.

Consolidation

We discussed a little bit about the fact that there are sports communities (official team communities and individual startups) popping up everywhere. While Rafe said he thinks there is room for multiple players, he believes there will be a lot of consolidation over the next couple years. Online sports properties will be able to create a lot more value together than apart.

My Thoughts

I think TruFan is on the right track by partnering with local media and focusing on scalability. They also seem to be thinking about the right things re: monetization.

The only concern I have is that as more teams have their own official  communities and start paying more attention to them (if they can monetize successfully), will fans join these unofficial communities? Also, will sports teams themselves figure out how to partner with local media to share content? This question has been brought up before on Sports Marketing 2.0. How will this affect TruFan and other non-official team communities who want to do these types of partnerships?

There is probably room for multiple team communities in the same market (just as there is room for official and unofficial team websites, blogs, etc.).  What do you think? I certainly don’t have all the answers (I’m not sure anyone does), but certainly would like to hear your thoughts.

Special thanks to Rafe for taking the time to talk about TruFan and what they’re doing.

I wrote this about a month or so ago- some of the numbers may not be exactly correct now, but I think the overall message is still accurate.

The Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) runs some of the most exciting and accessible events in the sports world.  If you’ve seen an event live, you know what I mean. Beach volleyball players are some of the most athletic people on the planet and the AVP’s events have a cool festival/party community atmosphere.

So, the AVP has great events, awesome athletes, cool content, passionate fans and some good sponsors  (Crocs, Barefoot Wine, Russell Athletics, Bud Light, etc). There’s a huge opportunity for the AVP to leverage social media to connect with their fans, build their brand, increase traffic to their website and extend their sponsorships. Here are some social media tools and platforms they’re using (based on some quick research), along with some opportunities for ways they can get more out of their efforts. But I really think they need goals and strategy (if they don’t already have them) to maximize their social media efforts.

Twitter

The AVP’s Twitter account is difficult to find (it’s not linked to on their main website). It appears that the AVP started their Twitter account on April 3rd, but they haven’t really utilized it much (only have 2 updates and 168 followers, and they are following zero people). The biggest benefit of Twitter is that it allows brands to show their human side and share interesting content to build trust and relationships, so the AVP has a lot of room to grow here.

Facebook

The AVP’s Facebook page has about 7500 fans and appears to be updated occasionally with pictures, videos and links to AVP content. They have done a good job at including their 2009 events in this page. However, I think they could do a better job at posting interesting content (AVP-related and other volleyball related stuff) to become a resource for all volleyball fans. And they should look at ways to reward their fans on Facebook to give them a reason to connect with them there.

YouTube

The AVP links to this YouTube account on it’s Facebook page. However, there are no videos on this YouTube account. With all the great videos and content the AVP likely has, they’re missing a big opportunity here to syndicate their content to YouTube, create original content and involve their fans and sponsors.

As we know, social media isn’t just about off-site tools and platforms. On-site elements and features can be utilized to enable audiences to easily share content with their friends and empower them to create their own content (or let them be involved in the process) to give them a stake in your brand. Here’s some of what the AVP is doing on-site.

Blog

I was excited to see that the AVP links to their blog on the front page of their site in a very visible location. However, I was disappointed to see that the blog hasn’t been updated since August 2008. The blog also lives on wordpress.com, instead of on avp.com, so the AVP doesn’t have full control over the creative design of the site and they are missing out on capturing the traffic that comes to the blog. On the plus side, it was nice to see that AVP pros such as Jake Gibb and Todd Rogers had been contributing content to the blog. But a blog needs to be updated at least weekly to be effective, and they should have a content strategy in place to ensure that what is written is relevant and engaging.

Videos

The AVP has a nice video section on its website that features a variety of videos and channels. They appear to be professionally done and they include some great content. People can share these videos on other sites such as Facebook, Digg and StumbleUpon by clicking the “share” link under each video. I’d probably look at making this more visible by including the logos directly under the video and I’d also add a few sites to this list to really give people an opportunity to share this content with their friends.

Other

The AVP has some very passionate fans, but the organization is missing out on capturing this conversation and soliciting feedback on their website. It may make sense to build a community for fans, similar to what other leagues and teams have done. This would most likely increase time spent on the site and page views. More time spent with a brand = stronger fans = more revenue. There also are ways to integrate sponsors into a fan community to add value and generate additional revenue.

If the AVP is going to be successful with any community efforts (on-site or off-site through other social media tools/platforms), they probably need to hire a community manager who is very passionate about volleyball and the AVP. This would be someone whose job is to facilitate conversations, content creation, fan evangelism and feedback and help grow the AVP’s brand and community.

Of course, the AVP really needs a strategy before doing anything. They need to figure out what their goals are, what they will measure as indicators of success, how they will achieve these goals, and what tools/platforms they will use. Once they do this, they will be in a much better position to leverage social media to help them engage fans and build business. What do you think?

If social media is the tools, opportunities and conversations that enable mass two-way or multi-way communication and information sharing, then Twitter is the #1 tool right now that allows for direct, real-time interaction between people. Twitter is a very powerful connector and enabler. It enables JoeSportsFan in Philly to connect with JimSportsFan in New York and discuss the NBA Playoffs…in real-time, on their iPhones, while they’re both watching from their favorite sports bars. And then an unlimited number of fans can join the conversation or just see what is being said.

There are many, many benefits and reasons why a sports organization should be using Twitter. Here are ten of them:

1. Opportunity to provide great customer service
2. Ask questions, get feedback from fans and save money on focus groups
3. Spread news, in real-time to people who care about what you’re saying
4. Ability to address crisis situations quickly
5. Protect your brand, ensure that people are getting accurate information about you (it’s no longer about giving up control…it’s about taking back control and gaining influence)
6. Extend sponsor promotions
7. Reach a new audience that may have never visited your official website
8. Build deeper connections with existing audience
9. Connect with online influencers and learn about new ideas
10. Increased traffic back to organization’s website

**Bonus**

11. It’s MEASURABLE via the number of followers, replies, retweets, and clicks on links. Plus, you can analyze and group mentions of your organization and see how fan perceptions change over time.

I hope these reasons why sports organizations should use Twitter are helpful for you. I’ve been saying that teams should be using Twitter for over a year, so it’s good to see some of them doing this, even if they’re not taking full advantage in many cases.

If you have anything to add, feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear what you think.

On Thursday and Friday last week I had a great opportunity to attend the 2009 College Sport Research Institute (CSRI) Conference in Chapel Hill. The conference brought together some of the brightest sports minds, students and faculty to discuss issues facing college sports. I really enjoyed meeting Jeremy Bloom and hearing about his ordeals with the NCAA. Others such as Jay Bilas, Dick Baddour, Bernie Mullin, John Gerdy, Amy Perko and Andrew Zimbalist provided valuable insight on a wide range of issues.

I also especially enjoyed meeting Tim Newman (Coordinator of the Sport Management Program at York College)  and Steve Dittmore (teaches Sport Management at the University of Arkansas), who I’d connected with prior to the conference on Twitter. Tim can be found on Twitter @TimNATC and Steve is @SteveDittmore, if you’re interested in connecting with them there.

I found out about the CSRI Conference through Darren Heitner’s Sports Agent Blog, and he posted my notes from the conference there.

• Day 1 from the CSRI Conference
• Day 2 from the CSRI Conference

Teams and properties often include a lot of different assets in packages for sponsors. Signage, radio and TV spots, other media, experiences, tickets and more and the impressions, ratings and other metrics can be difficult to keep track of. When sponsors ask for results at the end of a season or after an event, you need to be able to tell them exactly what they got and what the results were to ensure that they are happy with what they paid for.

The Solution:

SponsorshipPRO+ presentation software

I was fortunate to speak with Tom Stipes recently about his company and its SponsorshipPRO+ presentation software tool that enables teams and properties to more easily track their sponsors’ assets so they can give them accurate and detailed post-event recap reports. These reports help properties demonstrate that they fulfilled or exceeded what they were supposed to deliver. He didn’t ask me to write about his software, but I wanted to anyway, because I was very impressed with its features and ease-of-use. Tom walked me through a demo (which he’ll happily do for you as well), but you can also see how this works online.

On the admin side, the tool allows properties and teams to create presentations for specific sponsors and catalog and identify assets. You can use some of the built in categories (radio, TV, tickets, etc) or add your own. Within each category, you can assign a description and results to specific assets and upload documents, pictures, and videos to help tell the story of what your sponsors actually received.

After you finish putting in information about each asset, you can easily turn this information into a presentation which you can put on a CD for sponsors. You can include a video intro if you’d like, and you can add any file type–including large audio/video files, spreadsheets, pictures, documents, etc. At anytime during the presentation, you can pull up these specific files to really show the aspects of the program and the results. If you or your sponsors just want to see everything together in a chart, the software enables you to do this as well.

The software isn’t cheap ($699 for the first license and $449 thereafter). However, I think it would pay for itself due to time saved, money saved (on printing costs–no need to print pages and pages of notes and put them in binders anymore) and features that enable you to track assets and results to show sponsors and keep them happy. One thing that may be interesting to develop in the future is an online version of the software, so people can access the data anywhere. But I can see the value in presenting this information in person, so sponsors really get a good picture of what they paid for. And you can always give the sponsor a copy of the presentation so they can look at the data again later.

Has anyone else used or tried this software? If so, what did you think?

Thanks to Tim for having me on the call yesterday and thanks to everyone else for taking time out of your day to listen. I hope it was beneficial and please feel free to contact me with any more questions you may have. If you’re from one of the organizations from the call, thanks for checking out my blog. For everyone else. here are some points I shared today about social media marketing and six main principles.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media marketing is a huge buzz word these days, but what does it really mean? I think it really boils down to this (and I’m definitely not the only one who has said this before): Social media marketing is when companies take a human approach to marketing by participating in conversations with their audiences. It’s about engaging audiences in an authentic way to provide helpful information, solve problems and build relationships to achieve business goals and gain a leg up on the competition. In the past this was difficult (and it’s still not easy), but the tools and platforms that are available now have made this a more viable option…and a necessity in many cases, depending on your audience and goals.

6 Principles

Here are 6 principles of social media marketing that I shared with the group. These weren’t meant to be how-tos or steps to take to create a strategy, so measurement and setting goals weren’t included (though I did include those pieces in another part of the presentation). These principles are more about the actions that an organization’s audience will notice and appreciate.

1) Listen

It’s been said before but I will say it again. Research your audience first.  Figure out where they are and what they’re saying about you, your category and your competitors before attempting to insert yourself in conversations online. Spend a month and make notes of the types of conversations about you and what percentage are positive and negative. Listen. Learn the various unspoken rules, guideines and dos and don’ts of the communities you’re thinking about joining. When you do start participating, listen to your audience and figure out what they like. Involve them in idea generation and product creation. Use social media platforms and tools to provide customer service on steroids. It’s about them, not you.

2) Engage

This has a dual-meaning. Part of social media marketing is engaging your audience on their own turf. Your goal may be to get people to come to your website, but what really should matter is engaging people (they way they want to be reached) to build relationships. The other part of this is providing and creating content that is engaging. If it’s not interesting or helpful or entertaining, people aren’t going to care or pay attention to your efforts. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Is whatever content you’re producing something that is interesting and good enough to share? If not, then you should re-evaluate your efforts.

3) Enable

Based on your research and listening, you can probably identify some people who are already talking about your organization. These people are great to involve in your efforts, so you should empower them and give them the tools and content to become an even bigger advocate for you. This also includes enabling people to share your content with their friends on various websites, and maybe letting people take your content and create new content from it in the form of remixes, mashups, and videos. Give people ways to feel ownership of your brand and they’ll get closer to it. Lastly, empower and enable your employees to get involved in your efforts.

4) Share

Share interesting articles, pictures, videos, links about you and your industry. Give to get. Give some more. Give and share your time, attention, expertise, questions and insight with your audience. The more you do this, the more relationships and trust you will build. Your audience will appreciate this, and that’s good for business.

5) Reward

If people are taking the time to interact with you online, why not reward them (and in some cases, you may have to reward them). Reward your loyal and passionate fans and followers with exclusive content, access, discounts and promotions. There’s also an opportunity to involve sponsors in this piece to give your fans something of value.

6) Participate

Participate, don’t promote. If all you do is say, “Look how great I am, look how awesome my product is” people will get tired of it really quickly and stop listening. The whole point of social media marketing is to participate in conversations with your audience, not just talk at them. You don’t have to start with a huge splash; this invites a lot more scrutiny and criticism from people who might not like what you’re doing. If you start slow, there are still a lot of things you can do and learn from. Participation is the key.

Thoughts?

Photo credits:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/niclindh/1389750548/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/wooandy/220929743/

“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?

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

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

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

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

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?