This is a guest post by Ryan Stephens
Sports companies and brands have traditionally been slow at adopting web 2.0 and social media strategies. This is unfortunate because fans are all over the web having conversations about your brands without you. Joining this space, and potentially becoming a prevalent figure in this space will give your sports company the added advantage of gaining valuable insight into your fans’ culture and conversations. It is not crazy to think that you could leverage the knowledge you gain in this space to increase revenue for your company or your team. People like Lewis are helping lead this movement.
Today, I want to discuss various ways you can use Twitter, an extremely hot social networking and micro-blogging service that lets you broadcast a 140 character message to your followers, to start embracing this movement and promoting your sports company.
1.) Network With Other Prevalent Sports Figures
I would not encourage diving into uncharted Twitter territory headfirst. People that use the platform to only promote their own work will quickly lose respect of others that are contributing to relevant communities, be it sports, social media or both. First, I would suggest reading up on some of Twitter’s best practices. Then, once you have a general feel for how to add value, consider following prevalent sports figures currently on Twitter.
Here’s a couple to get you started:
@LewisHowes
@KathleenHessert
@JasonPeck
Following and learning from other sports marketers, networkers, and social media enthusiasts enables you to see how they are using Twitter and gives you some indication as to how you should approach your own Twitter strategy. Reach out, add value to their networks, and connect so that you can learn new things from each of them. In addition, if all of us that are passionate about helping lead sports into web 2.0 start collaborating chances are we can all benefit one another and the sports industry.
2.) Point Consumers, Fans and Advocates to Your Content
Once you have got the basics down and started connecting with other prevalent sports figures, you can promote your sports company (or brand, etc.) by pointing consumers, fans and advocates to your content. When I write a blog post that I am proud of and I think it will genuinely add value to the lives of my followers I send out a tweet with the link. It’s no coincidence that on these days, my blog receives the most amount of traffic.
Let me reiterate that you should refrain from tweeting everything you produce. Here are a couple of tips for promoting your content via Twitter:
a.) Make sure that it is some of your best work or something that you are pretty certain is unique, helpful, and/or will benefit your followers.
b.) Promote your work about a 1/5th of the time you promote the work of others. I would even say for every 1 item of your own, you should share 10-12 links to others’ work. (More on this later.)
If you follow these two rules you are ensuring that people realize that you are there to help them (and that is what they care about) and that you produce great work (because they are essentially getting a sample of what should be your best stuff).
3.) Utilize Twitter for Event Promotion
If you have an upcoming event you can promote it on Twitter. You can do this by posting updates as the event grows near, announcing speakers of the event, and engaging others in content relevant to your event.
Let’s say I was one of the people in charge of the Princeton Sports Symposium. Here are some things I would definitely consider tweeting about:
a.) Announce the date, time and location of the event
b.) The keynote speaker and a link to a bio
c.) Announce a different topic to be discussed at the conference each day leading up to the conference with a link to a relevant discussion or blog post.
d.) Have a poll over twitter and give away a free ticket to one of the people that participates in the poll.
e.) Ask who is going to be in attendance and make plans to attend an after party, lunch the next day, meet up in the airport, etc.
These are just a couple of examples; be rest assured that I did not even scratch the surface as there are probably hundreds of other things you could do to promote an event using Twitter.
4.) Use Twitter to Give Your Company a Unique, Transparent Voice
One of the most compelling things about people, companies and brands is the stories that we identify with, the stories that define a company and what it means to us as consumers. Twitter is a very humanizing tool in that it allows you to participate in the stories being told about your company. It makes your company more approachable and connected, and if you are using it correctly it can give you an authentic and transparent voice.
I could care less (and so will everyone else) if your PR team has a twitter account under your company’s name is shilling everything you do and produce. But if you are a real person and let us see into your company it becomes easier to identify with you and your company. By now, most of you know that Shaq is on Twitter. It is easy, if you are at all familiar with Shaq, to realize that it is really him. He’s incredibly authentic and funny; Twitter is providing a new way to connect with a mega superstar. Be unique and transparent and your story, your company immediately becomes more interesting.
5.) Promote Other People’s Work Within the Sports Community
I saved this one for last because it is the one that is most important to me, and the one that most people and companies mess up. In fact, I would not promote any of my own stuff until I had promoted the work of others, especially in the sports community. Why is this?
First and foremost you need to show your followers that you value what they want to read, and certainly sometimes this is your content, but it is ridiculous to think your content is always more valuable than the thousands and thousands of other blogs out there. Most of the time someone has already said it better than you ever could, in which case you should link to them.
Also, if our goal as sports marketers and networkers is to increase adoption of social media and web 2.0 in the sports industry we should be advocating this change and shift collectively as a whole. It means more business, more connections, more shared knowledge, more innovation, and so forth and so on for all of us within the sports world.
Are you on Twitter? Is your sports company on Twitter yet?
There are plenty of other ways to promote your company using both Twitter and social media tools in general. If you are using alternative strategies consider sharing them with me (and other readers) in the comments section of this post. Also, if you have any questions, by all means, I would love to help you anyway I can with respect to Twitter, social media or the intersection of sports and social media/web 2.0.
Ryan is a social media consultant who is passionate about the power of web 2.0 and its ability to cultivate conversations, build relationships and spread of ideas. After gaining valuable experience interning for marketing guru Seth Godin this summer, Ryan has continued working to create strategic marketing initiatives for a wide range of clientele. Currently, he wants to help sports companies join the conversation and engage their fans by utilizing social media. You can connect with him on his blog at Ryan Stephens Marketing or on Twitter @ryanstephens.
Excellent information to help anybody in the sports world….THANKS.
Great Post Ryan! Extremely helpful!
Best,
Tia
M2Fitness Pros
http://www.m2fitnesspros.com
@Scott & @Tia
Thank you both for the kind words. I'm glad you both found the post
to be informative and helpful for people in the sports industry!
Well I do agree with your point about sports companies been slow for adopting web2.0
We were just cricket fans and programmer and we made a social network for cricket fans http://www.TheCricFanClub.com in April 2008 and its gorwing very quickly.
I will like you guys can have a look and provide any feedback for this site?
I have been thinking about doing Twitter for a little while now and am glad i read this before just diving in. My biggest hesitation was not knowing the best way to use it – now I have an idea of what to do and what not to.
Time to strategize!
Thanks for the shout out…and I may be one of the few people who actually enjoyed the ShaqFu video game.
Ryan, I really like your suggestions and the way that you broke them down. These ideas and tips will work for any company, of course they will need to be modified to fit that particular model, but what a great start!
Thanks!
Carol Dunlop
http://www.optimumbodysculpting.com
@Hiren – I do not mind taking a look at your site. In fact, with the popularity of cricket especially in other parts of the world (not the US) you probably have a great niche, potentially one that you can monetize. All that I ask is that you send me an e-mail at: ryanstephensmarketing@gmail.com and include some specific aspects of your site that you would like feedback on.
@Andrew – Let me know if you need any help at all during your adoption of Twitter.
@Jason – Anytime. I enjoy your content and I am confident that people like you, Lewis, Kathleen and others can continue to help lead sports networking, marketing, connecting, etc. into its next phase.
@Carol – I'm glad the fact that most of this could apply across the board to virtually any industry was not lost on you. While this article was specifically for the sports audience, as it has been slow to adopt and use these tools, the vast majority of the content is certainly applicable to many other industries.
Thanks Ryan – great tips, and I've been using Twitter for a while and I really like your distinctions.
Thoroughly enjoyable article, Ryan.
There are too many people out there in the corporate world that are failing to connect with those out there in the blogosphere etc, which is becoming an increasingly popular place for people of all walks.
Even more importantly, there are many that are catching on with all of these web 2.0 innovations and those that are left behind are even further behind the 8-ball than before!!
Keep up the great work.
— mookie
A Stern Warning
hey ryan..can u pls temme how to include poll option in twitter..
great article.
you should tweet http://twitter.com/clubhousegas…
This is really,really good stuff I will save it and put it to good use.
Awesome post!!
I am not in the sports industry field, but I think that these tips might possibly be adaptable, to other arenas (no pun intended ;-)…
Thanks for posting this… And feel free to “follow me” on Twitter!
Very insightful piece. That must have been a remarkable experience to work with the best in my opinion. I just completed reading Godin's book ,Meatball Sundae. The book runs quite well with this topic! Thank you.
Hi Ryan – I found a reference to your post on one of my LinkedIn updates. I think this is a triple play: LinkedIn, blogging and twitter!
So cool that you worked with Seth – what a genius and what a fun niche you're working in!
Sharing a few strategies . . .
RE: finding followers, enter your search term, like your team, city or sport into the twitter search engine and then subscribe via RSS. For example, here' s the feed that's running right now for sports: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=sports
You can also set up email alerts with http://www.tweetbeep.com and then follow or comment on updates that relate to your sport or event.
RE: events, you can live tweet the event/game from a twitter event ID [or just use a hash tag identifier with every update like #playoffs] and then post the transcripts on your blog later. I use this strategy to cover blogging, SEO and social media conferences.
@wiredprworks on twitter.com
Nice, really a great breakdown. I think that sports are an interesting dichotomy where there is one side of great innovation, but another of conservative cautiousness.
Very good content, I really enjoying this site. Just promoted it on my Twitter feed. Keep it up!
Jon Kerr
twitter.com/jjkmedia
I really think twitter is a good tool, the way it help you multiply your contact no other tool does that. You got to know so many people just in a short time.
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