MIT Sports Analytics Conference…on social media

Posted on Tuesday 9 March 2010

MIT SportsI didn’t get to attend the MIT Sports Analytics Conference, but my friends at NBA sent me their notes. One of the panels focused on social media. Here are the key takeaways:

• Three keys to successful social media marketing

o Uniqueness: teams need to provide content that is only available for those engaged with their social media outlets.
o Authenticity: users want real, original content. Relaying information from other sources is a less effective use of social media.
o Personalization: Provide fans with personalized content – whether it been personal offers to Tweeter followers, location-based offers (e.g. special in-venue offers for those fans with the team iPhone application).

I wasn’t in the room, and I’m probably taking this out of context, but it strikes me as odd that each of these three points emphasizes “content” rather than “communication.” Are we sure we’re talking about social media here? When I read these points I thought, “It seems that bigger entities try to harness “social” to get fans to consume more content rather than trying to get fans themselves to engage, and create the content themselves.”

Seems to me that the keys listed above apply more directly to sports properties’ Websites, rather than social media. Uniqueness, Authenticity and Personalization are essential to any good Website. But these points don’t strike me as inherently social.

Certainly the folks on the panel at MIT are smarter than I am, but I wonder…Are we missing the point of social if our focus is on our own content ?

Or is this simply life in the big city?

Here are some links from the conference:
Twitter feed
Linked In

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    On Field after Colts Victory

    Posted on Monday 25 January 2010

    Couldn’t resist sharing this photo. Amy and I got to go on sidelines after Colts clinched AFC Championship. Snapped photo one handed with Blackberry.
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    Sports brands dot Top 100 Most Social list

    Posted on Monday 4 January 2010

    Vitrue’s list of Top 100 Most social brands is pretty interesting. Read it here

    2009 certainly marked the tipping point for social media with Facebook crossing 350 million month active users worldwide (100 million US users) according to “Inside Facebook”, December 2009.

    Adoption of social media by marketers has also followed suit, as eMarketer cites the percentage of the Fortune 500 not using social media has dropped dramatically – from 43% now to only 9%.

    Sports brands among Top 100 Most Social brands: NBA #5, NFL #12, ESPN #23, MLB #29, NASCAR #43, NHL #46.

    Forrester is also stating that social media marketing is projected to grow at an annual rate of 34%, faster than any other form of online marketing (US Interactive Marketing Spend 2009 to 2014 Report issued Summer 2009).

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    Posted on Monday 4 January 2010

    Happy to share with you an excerpt from my latest article printed in this week’s Sports Business Journal

    Teams active in social media build a strategic advantage

    Published January 04, 2010 : Page 18

    If you could predict tomorrow, would you act differently today? Think about it. If you knew with certainty that a particular stock was going to triple over the next year, would you invest immediately? Or would you hesitate?

    These questions came to me recently as I read “The Future of the Social Web,” a blog post by Jeremiah Owyang, formerly of Forrester Research. Owyang observes that social media has been
    slow to gain momentum, but has increased dramatically in recent years and Owyang sees it continuing along a “hockey-[stick]” growth rate.

    “Innovation is matching adoption,” he says, “and it’s going to happen very rapidly in the next few years.”

    Show me the money

    Owyang’s observation may sound obvious. Anyone with a pulse can see that social media is hot and getting hotter. But Owyang goes on to share what Forrester’s research has revealed: Within the next 12 months, we will enter into what he calls the “Era of Social Commerce,” in which online communities will define the future of products and services. If this is true, then social media will be linked to marketing ROI, and it will therefore begin to command more and more attention from the brands that sponsor sports.

    Are sports teams prepared for a world in which sponsors care about social media?

    Continue reading at Sports Business Journal

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