My two cents – in a word, “No”.

Here’s why…

Let’s say you have a Pro Sports Team Facebook Fan Page – and a brand – one that is not currently a sponsor of yours – shows up and engages your brand on Facebook. The viral nature of Facebook makes this action visible to many, possibly thousands of other people. Is this kind of brand interaction “fair” to your other (paying) sponsors who are not actively engaging your brand on Facebook?

Perhaps fair is the wrong word, but you get the idea. Social media is a platform – and yes – it is a free one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that brand interaction in this space does not have a price. In fact, I would counter that it does.

As teams and leagues begin to negotiate the social media space (check out the NHL’s new Fan Page that launched recently) these kinds of questions need to be asked and addressed. These are the kinds of answers and strategies that I build. More on just how to do that in a later post…

What do you think? Can brands be Friends?

A new video hit the Pittsburgh Penguins Facebook FanPage… click here to have a look (runs 2:22). It positions the marketing focus for the team’s 2009/2010 season.

This is not exactly what I expected to see, but it is always nice to be surprised. True to social media good form, the feedback from the fans has mixed reviews. Take a moment to review the comments and you’ll see some of the additional value that spaces like this provide organizations that are interested to gauage their market’s opinions and discussions.

What do you think of this alternative positioning – Does the organization or product defy the ordinary?

Your network used to be the people you knew, the people who referred you, the people you had some degree of trust with. Then there was the rest of the world – your customers, your prospects and the people who will or would buy from you. These are the people you “followed up” with.

Communicating with the people you know = networking

Communicating with the people you don’t know = selling

This is old school thinking.

If there is one thing that most sellers are genuinely poor at – it is following up. Most follow up opening statements go something like this:

“Hi, it’s Carson from Direct Contact calling – it’s been a few months since we last spoke so I thought I would give you a call today.”

This kind of follow up has absolutely no value for the buyer. It is simply asking/stating that “It has been at least 3 months since you bought something or last said no to me – are you ready to buy something now?” All this kind of salesy talk does is reinforce stigmas and frustrate buyers.

In the paradigm of Sales2.0, this kind of separation no longer exists. Effective sellers do not follow up with but network with their prospects and customers. Who exactly is in your network today? Everybody is. Your customers, your prospects, your friends, your contacts… etc… Sellers are connecting with business people daily – surely there are referral opportunities between prospects and customers in your pipeline right now.

So how do you do that exactly?

Give people something they value – information.

There are a couple of very easy ways to do this. RSS feeds are a great example.If you don’t know what an RSS feed is – click here – and then come back to this post.

Using RSS (or Google Alerts) to collect information to share with your market is an effective way of staying in touch and providing value at the same time. Include the article link in an email with a brief statement such as:

“I came across this and thought of you today – hope things are going well. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you and keep in touch.”

Pretty simple. To the point, No selling allowed.

Stop following up and start networking.

Here’s a list of the NHL club’s “official” (i.e. owned and operated by the club) Facebook FanPages ranked by total population – with some analysis to follow…

Montreal*: 491,271

Pittsburgh: 119,073

Vancouver: 94,714

Chicago: 75,806

Philadelphia: 73,366

Boston: 66,307

Washington: 47,881

Buffalo: 45,028

Minnesota: 32,463

NYR: 22,210

Colorado: 21,452

Dallas: 20,876

St. Louis: 20,066

Anaheim: 19,188

San Jose: 19,129

Carolina: 19,125

Ottawa: 18,542

Toronto: 18,494

Calgary: 16,526

Edmonton: 16,201

New Jersey: 13,014

NYI: 9,172

Nashville: 9,078

Florida: 5,981

Tampa: 4,808

Phoenix: 4,787

Los Angeles: 4,707

Atlanta: 2,381

Columbus: 933

*Montreal leverages a 3rd party app for their Facebook Fanpage.

Analysis

Montreal’s “official” page uses a WaterCooler app – I blogged about this in an earlier post. It works in a much different way… Pittsburgh’s 2nd place rank seems quite obvious as they possess some of the games’ brightest talents and stars and are the current Stanley Cup Champions.

Vancouver stands out here at #3. Without a Stanley Cup in its history, the primary reason that the Canucks rank so high is their positioning and focus on social media.

I am most surprised by Toronto – an original 6 team in a huge market with loads of history and success; Toronto’s numbers are not strong compared to their brand, profile, status in the league and widespread fan base.

What are your thoughts on this list?

Last year, many teams and leagues recognized the potential and flat out requirement to be more involved in social media – but how far have they come in adopting these sites for fan engagement or integrating sponsorship opportunities?

This is the high season for sports – the kick-off of the NFL season, MLB playoff races, the NHL season is about to start and the NBA is just around the corner. There are more eyeballs on more teams and leagues than any other time of year. Right now.

But is this opportunity being leveraged?

For the most part – I would suggest the answer is no. Despite interest, there is a lot of tire ticking and/or reluctance. There are also teams who are looking to be leaders but are not willing to put up the investment in time or dollars without the classic ROI path in advance.

There are some teams who are fully engaged – nothing new for the Phoenix Suns – well regarded as thought leaders in the sports and social media field. And there are other teams out there I am in conversation with and aware of who are taking the steps now to organize and launch major social media initiatives and sponsorship integrations.

This is the exciting future path – this is where thought leaders are taking the industry, and this is where the others will follow in time.

Just a quick note as I have not posted in awhile – thank you for checking in…

It’s been a busy summer relocating from Toronto to Vancouver. Lot’s of exciting things on the horizon and more information to share.

Stick with me and stay tuned!

Check out the link for the webinar by clicking here. Hurry – it’s this Thursday, August 6th!

This great presentation comes from a contact of mine - Trevor Turnbull at zu. These are the folks who built StampsConnect which I posted about a few weeks ago. I received some great feedback on this site – this should be an informative webinar and I encourage you to join in and check it out.

I first met Trevor via Twitter during the Pens/Caps series of the NHL playoffs – since then we have traded lots of good ideas. Zu is working on some exciting stuff, so be sure to attend.

The other week, I posted about StampsConnect – a true social media aggregator site developed for the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL. Recently, Calgary’s other pro sports team – The Flames – came out with their social media package titled “The C of Red” via KickApps (now adopted by the NHL league wide).

So let’s compare and contrast what Calgary has on the go.

StampsConnect vs. C of Red

First off – “The C of Red” hits a little too close to the “Red” brand/tag used by the Washington Capitals. (POST SCRIPT: Please review the comment by Rowan regarding other NHL teams use of “Red” as a tag or brand. My apologies to the Flames, I was wrong.)

KickApps is more of a “push” strategy, as opposed to a “pull” strategy employed by StampsConnect. In order to be a member of the C of Red, fans must sign up via the NHL in order to participate. With StampsConnect – users can simply view and leverage the social media content already out there on the Internet now. These same social media sites – namely Facebook and Twitter – are available to the C of Red as well, but exist completely outside of it.

StampsConnect succeeds because it is so simple – by leveraging the web tools and content that is already there, fans do not have to sign up for anything new, or “float” between platforms/logins to be part of the community.

Ultimately – these networks build loyalty and fan investment and will drive revenue indirectly as such. There is limited opportunity for sponsorship via KickApps itself as this would result in traditional web advertising possibilities. However, via true social media networks – sponsorship is much more dynamic and open to possibilities – not to mention the viral component of user visibility that provides a greater marketing footprint.

Summary

It remains to be seen how NHL teams will be using the KickApps platform – and what kind of engagement their fans provide vs. existing social media networks. I believe the goal is not to build isolated networks that borrow concepts of sharing and connection – but work with sites that are already doing this like Facebook and Twitter. Smart teams will be making the most of these opportunities and layering on sponsorship activation to provide a ROI in addition to fan loyalty and engagement.

This post is long overdue – it’s been a busy week for me but I wanted to get these ideas out…

I learned of Michael Jackson’s death via Twitter – I was going about setting up mobile alerts for @lakingshockey, @vancanucks and @darrendreger to follow the NHL Draft strictly via Twitter as opposed to traditional media. It was some time later until CNN reported that Jackson was dead – perhaps up to an hour later. Real time has a great deal to do with what social media is all about – and a massive entertainment news event like this proved it.

I had to turn off updates from @lakingshockey as they kept inundating me with messages during the day with links that I was never going to visit. By the time the draft had rolled around, I had heard enough from them and switched them off – a powerful lesson there… For events like the draft, all I wanted was to be kept informed via mobile. I was not interested in scouting videos or interviews – I just wanted to be kept in the loop. @vancanucks kept it short and to the point – no too much info until the draft began.

@darrendreger (from TSN.ca) provided some great insight during the draft, such as:

I’m just outside the Bell Centre, a Habs fan just paid a scalper $100 for a ticket to the draft.3:30 PM Jun 26th from mobile web

hilarious. Bell Centre chanting… 67…as the Leafs go up to make their pick.8:09 PM Jun 26th from mobile web

There was plenty of “factual tweets” such as Tavares selected first overall, or breaking the news of the Pronger trade, but Dreger’s comments added some colour to the event and brought some of the immediacy and authenticity that Twitter can convey.

So here are some take-aways:

1. Social media is faster than traditional media: Your market will be expecting “real time” now, and you can provide it to them
2. Keep event based tweets short: This is not a time for tons of links
   
3. Make it personal: Add to the experience; give something unique/real
   

What is the hotest new social media site in the world of sports marketing?

The site is www.stampsconnect.com and you should check it out.

It’s the new social media aggregator site from the Calgary Stampeders of the CFL. The site was launched today to coincide with the 2009 season kicking off tomorrow (July 1).

What Makes StampsConnect.com Different?

You might have seen PlanetOrange.net, the social network hub of the Phoenix Suns – widely regarded as leaders in this kind of thing. It is great to see that other teams and leagues are now stepping up and doing some engaging work – especially from a (relatively) smaller market team like the Stampeders.

StampsConnect is 100% user generated content – it pulls content from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr and brings it into a single hub – this is most often called an aggregator. The site employs a “pull” strategy – StampsConnect pulls in content from other sources into a single place. As more and more teams look to 3rd party social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, I think it makes increasing sense to build some structure around that in order to centralize and manage it. In addition – it provides another opportunity for advertising and sponsorship activation.

If you are interested in StampsConnect and want to learn more – please use my Contact page. I will be happy to connect you with the development company.

Lastly – a question…

What do you think about teams using an aggregator such as this? Does it provide a useful layer of media? Will fans use it or simply access each social network site individually?