Jason Peck recently asked 16 sports industry thought leaders (a few of us who write here among them) to share their thoughts and predictions for sports and social media in 2010. The result was an awesome ebook full of some solid insights.

In this post I’d like to build off the foundation Jason (and the others) created and identify the top 10 trends to anticipate in 2010. My methodology was relatively simple. I read through the ebook a couple of times and took diligent notes on the reoccurring themes that emerged among the contributors’ predictions.

Here are the results:

1.) Transition to Social from Traditional – This is trend is happening everywhere, not just in sports. We’ll continue to see companies pull dollars out of traditional media and invest in growing their communities, engaging their fans, and providing unique experiences. This was never more evident than when Pepsi announced they were launching the Pepsi Refresh Project instead of buying Super Bowl spots this year.

2.) The Rise of Online Video – As Brian Gainor, the Blogs with Balls guys and others mentioned, Flip Cams are beginning to pop up everywhere. The cost of entry to getting video on the web with fancy cell phones and new technology is easier than ever and bloggers, fans, and even athletes will be taking advantage of this fact. We will be able to connect more intimately than ever before, but will the space become over saturated by novices blasting their messages? By athlete meltdowns ala Marbury?

3.) Hyper Localization – With Google, Craiglist and Yelp leading the way, and iPhone apps like Four Square emerging as power players, teams will begin experimenting with disruption models intended to inform local markets, ‘direct traffic,’ and provide on location calls-to-action. Can game day tweet-ups, and last minute discounted ticket sales entice people eating in Uptown Charlotte, or maybe working late, to walk a few blocks for the Bobcats game? (Okay. So maybe the Bobcats are a bad example.)

4.) Personal Athlete Branding – Superstars like LeBron don’t need Twitter, but aging veterans looking to increase their relevancy and offer up an additional platform or value-add for sponsors might. And what about role players? Retired athletes? Charlie Villanueva is the perfect example of a guy I might not have cared about unless he was on my fantasy team, until now. Unfortunately, like the Blogs with Balls guys mentioned in the ebook, I fear this means we’ll see an influx of smarmy “online gurus.”

5.) Increased Restrictions/Less Free-Flow of Information – And because half of these guys (see: Larry Johnson, among others) can’t figure out what they can and can’t say, or when (not during games guys) they should say it I think we’ll continue to see increased restrictions and more rules and procedures coming from the executive brass. I’m okay with that, particularly with the athletes just as long as universities don’t restrict their fans.

6.) Real-Time Interactions (Increased Fan Interactivity) – Mobile is a HUGE part of this. Steve Cobb discussed this in the ebook, but what it boils down to his convenience. Fans want to connect with athletes, they want to connect with each other and they want to do it all the second they think of it. With the increased capability of smart phones we might see relevant fan tweets popping up on jumbotrons during games within the next year. What about an app for fans of opposing teams to “square off” and shit-talk each other during games?

7.) More Best Practices – Perhaps this goes without saying, but with increased adoption across the board and more teams and brands trying different things, some of them are bound to be successful.

8.) Specific Goals & Refined Methods – Whether it is seeing others succeed or tasting it themselves, brands will realize the capabilities of the social web. With more best practices and proof of concept, teams, athletes, and smarmy “online gurus” will all start trying to “swim with a purpose,” as Russell Scibetti said in the ebook. With other teams/athletes figuring it out, others will not be able to justify playing casually in the sandbox anymore.

9.) Increased Attempts to Monetize – Part of justifying social media entails actually making money off of it. While it’s true that it’s usually inexpensive to get started, more advanced strategies involve resources like time and people that aren’t always so cheap. Showing positive cash flow as a result of your social media efforts gets the big boys to buy in and open their wallets to try new ways to continue engaging fans. And where there’s fans, there’s usually sponsorable content.

10.) Fine Tuned Measurement – No longer is throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what will stick an appropriate strategy. With clearly defined goals, it’s critical to have measurable objectives. All of these won’t necessarily equate to dollars (i.e. sentiment, traffic, subscribers, etc.) and it’s important to measure these things too (depending on what matters to your brand, obviously), but brands will become increasingly responsible for measuring ROI (yeah, as in dollars) also.

Which of these trends do you think will emerge as the MOST important in 2010? Which of these is YOUR company most concerned with in 2010? What are other significant trends that we might have missed?

About Ryan Stephens

Ryan is an Associate Media Analyst at Sports Media Challenge where he helps champion social media strategies for sports, lifestyle and entertainment brands. In his spare time he serves as 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. Feel free to leave your thoughts on his article in the comments section below, connect with him on his blog at Ryan Stephens Marketing or on Twitter @ryanstephens, and read the rest of his bio here.

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Jason Peck is one of the O.G. bloggers who covered sports and social media.  Anything athletes, teams, sports professionals and other sports organizations were doing online, Jason was covering.  He is someone who inspired me to share my own thoughts about a growing passion of mine over the last year.  And a few of his articles gave me the moxie and drive to create SportsNetworker, which leads you here today as a part of this growing sports community.

Even though Jason didn’t come hear me speak about LinkedIn viral marketing at blogworld (I won’t hold it against him, lol) I thought it would be a great opportunity to show my appreciation for his pioneering efforts in this space with a video interview.  Watch below to hear why Jason started blogging on sports and social media, what it has done for his personal brand, and where the industry is headed in the future.  Make sure to check him out on Twitter as well, as he constantly shares killer content.

About Lewis Howes

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Sports marketing thought leader, Jason Peck, said something two weeks ago that really resonated with me. After hearing a company say they controlled their brand in social media he said this, “The words influence, facilitate and protect your brand should replace control.”

Frankly, I couldn’t agree more…

… Provided it’s your fans who pay money to come see your games/events and who are already having the conversations you’re trying to control, and will have them regardless. Seriously, get over it. Better yet embrace it!

You can’t CONTROL what your fans are doing, especially when there’s 80K+ packed into a stadium. Most of them love you. They’re going to take pictures, text/tweet their friends about the game, and stream video from their iPhones. Some are frustrated with you – they’ll write negative blog posts about you, hammer you on forums, and turn an awkward photo into a caption contest for how bad you suck.

You can’t police that many people on the interwebs.

So what can you do?

Influence. Facilitate. And Protect.

And maybe it’s just a language barrier. There are some brands that are actually doing all three, but cite control. Marketing is about perception. Many of you reading this had a crazy marketing professor that showed you a bunch of advertisements and explained the subliminal messages involved. Some of them were a reach to say the least. But it’s not a reach to say that fans perceive ‘control’ as stifling.

If you try to control your fans chatter, you’re a stodgy old brand that isn’t with the times, that just “doesn’t get it.” Professional sports entities, and collegiate teams are already viewed as behind the times by many so why amplify that perception by trying to censor your most passionate fans?

Back to – So what can you do?

You can put the spotlight on the positive!

What if you built a passionate community of your best fans?

What if you encouraged them to submit photos and videos and the like, or filtered and aggregated it into one place for them? I bet they wouldn’t go searching through YouTube all day, but instead visit your website/community where they knew they could find what they were looking for.

You wouldn’t have to accept the media that portrayed your team and/or players in a bad light, but would it be the end of the world if you did? What if you took a negative blog post from a fan and posted it front and center for everyone to see and asked fans for their input? I bet most of these fans would have your back with all kinds of explanations… explanations you could use to perpetuate positivity throughout the community.

I understand. I know it’s scary not have control. You couldn’t stop that bad message from being posted, but you can do something with it once it’s up that helps build brand affinity for your team.

What if you highlighted the fan who had the most posts on the forum during the week leading up to the huge rivalry game? What if you posted the top 5 fan submitted photos from last week’s game? What if you let two respected forum members square off in a debate over who should be your team’s starting QB with additional comments from others?

If you have an active and engaged community with tons of rabid fans, don’t you think companies would pay to sponsor some of the contests you run? Buy ad space on your site? The university could even increase merchandise sales through your community. There would be tons of opportunity for monetization.

There are a multitude of ways to increase affinity for your brand by cultivating a community of passionate people while influencing, facilitating and protecting what’s important to your efforts, but controlling what your fans are doing is NOT one of those ways.

Relinquish control and witness what happens.

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Photo Credits: Fan ; Top Posts

About Ryan Stephens

Ryan is an Associate Media Analyst at Sports Media Challenge where he helps champion social media strategies for sports, lifestyle and entertainment brands. In his spare time he serves as 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. Feel free to leave your thoughts on his article in the comments section below, connect with him on his blog at Ryan Stephens Marketing or on Twitter @ryanstephens, and read the rest of his bio here.

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