Taking a break from the usual social media round up, this week we are having a look at six posts on our favourite topic – social media and sport. Sport is an inherently social activity and there is now a unique opportunity for teams, organizations and the athletes themselves to connect to their fans, and we are starting to see some good examples of that.

1. Why Teams Should Get Involved With Social Media – Jason Peck

A good, concise argument for why and how sports teams should be on the social web. The opportunity is there for teams who want to hear what there fans think, what they want, how their experience can be improved and this should be the first stage for all social media entrants. Put your customers (in this case, fans) at the centre of your strategy and you will be on the right track!

2. 5 Social Media Lessons the NBA Can Teach Businesses- Jalen Rose

Some organisatons are doing social well, very well! The NBA are one of those and ex player and now ESPN analyst, Jalen Rose has a look at how the corporate world could do well to use similar strategies and tactics with their customers.

3. Professional Athletes on Twitter

OK – not a post at all, but a site which shows, by sport, which athletes are active on Twitter. (I didn’t realize there was a Lingerie Football League , and will now research it thoroughly… especially as so many players seem to be on Twitter!)

4. Interview: Why Manchester City Get Social Media – Ash Read

While many UK sports teams haven’t embraced social media as a way to bring the fans closer to the club, a few have and Manchester City are probably the ones with the most coherent strategy. This interview is a useful window into how a team should focus their activity. Check it out.

5. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) wins via Social Media – Alex Lopez

Once critisised for ‘not getting it’, the UFC, led by their President Dana White are one of the more active organizations on the social web. As the post says, they have made themselves and the fighters more accessible to fans on a personal basis than any other sport.

6. Sports teams, leagues tap SAS Analytics to boost profits – Winnie Palaran

Interesting one to end with as we are now seeing sports teams use social media monitoring effectively. This post looks at how the San Francisco 49ers are using SAS Analytics to listen to their fans who are unhappy, thinking about not renewing season tickets, have ideas on how to improve the game experience etc. By harnessing those insights, the club is putting themselves at a competitive advantage over teams not actively listening and integrating.

Have a good weekend.

For non-football fans, Andrey Arshavin is Russia’s most talented and flamboyant player, currently plying his trade with Arsenal. His talents on the pitch are there for all to see but a recent article in the Evening Standard highlighted his willingness to engage with his fans in a far more personal and human way than many (if not all) of his Premier League counterparts.

His official website is not the most cutting edge in terms of design and interactivity. There is no ‘real time’ features in the way of chat rooms, forums, or integration with social media. The questions in the ‘Ask Andrey’ section have been vetted and then written and posted on the site, so the authenticity could be questioned, plus some stuff may have been lost in translation!

Humanising Celebrity

However, the personal nature of the questions and answers shows a willingness to engage and give his fans a window into his life outside of football. The text in the header is a good mantra that many other athletes could adpopt,  “On the pages of this website you can learn a lot about me. Not only as a footballer, but as an ordinary person. I’d be glad if my website helps you to communicate with each other”

Give Mr Arshavin some better tools (Facebook, Twitter, live streams) and I reckon you could have a new web celebrity on our hands…check out Chad Ochocinco , the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver , for the benchmark of what mega talented, ever so slightly insane, athletes can do with social media.

To non-fans, it may seem banal to want to know what colour Arshavin’s bath sponge is, his thoughts on extra terrestrial activity and body art….but to his fans, this is the type of stuff they want. You won’t get this type of content on a Sky Sports press conference or posted on the Aresenal official website and that is probably a good thing, but as a fan, this type of personnal connection is what creates a bond that is intrinsicly hard to break. The same goes for athletes who engage in an authentic manner on Twitter and Facebook – check out Shaq. Now compare that to what many of the Premier League footballers have allowed to happen to their pages on Facebook – Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney for example.

Personal Branding

These pages should not be used as ‘bear traps’ to move traffic to generic football news websites, they are a potentially golden piece of real estate for the players to build their personal brand – not just their professional one. Ignoring all the commercial possibilities which are flying out of the window for the players, their agents and their sponsors…. they can be used as a way to raise awareness for the good causes and charity work they do and be a trusted communication point for when things go pear shaped.

The real time web and democratization of content means that whether, these athletes like it or not, it is now impossible to ‘control’ the spread of information about them, good and bad. Ask John Terry, Ashley Cole or Tiger Woods. In the past, with a press gagging order in place, any runours would gradually vanish…not so anymore. Athletes are always going to find themselves in some kind of trouble during their careers (we wouldn’t want it any other way!) so creating a channel where you have a loyal group of engaged advocates who feel they know the person behind the celebrity can be a powerful tool when having to rebuild your personal brand.

Let me know in the comments any athletes you think are using social media for good, evil or nothing at all!

Sports teams and athletes are at an enormous advantage to corporate or consumer brands. They have a huge amount of content, they have an exisiting, passionate offline community who want their rpoduct. On top of that, sports fans are one of the most brand loyal groups of people I can think of and sport itself is inherently social. It brings people together around the game itself, in bars and pubs, in people’s homes…and online can help augment the game experience by bringing the fans into the inner workings of the clubs on a daily basis.

A sports team’s product isn’t just the game each week that the fans will pay to come and watch and broadcasters will pay to distribute. Fans want interaction with the team and players and not through the traditional methods of the press and staged TV interviews. In the UK, Football is going through a rough time financially and we may see more clubs going the same way Portsmouth and Crystal Palace have recently -  into administration. I am not saying for a minute that a social media program will solve these structural problems, far from it, but it can keep the fans,  from feeling like the clubs don’t care about them and keep them coming through the turnstyles or buying their favourite players shirt – wanting to stay loyal, wanting to be brand advocates. Long term, that’s surely the game.

A team’s ‘customers’ want to be as close as they possibly can to the club and the players…this is in stark contrast to consumer brands. If you sell mobile phones, insurance or detergent, do your customers really want to be your friend? They will take any freebies or decent offers but its no small ask to keep them engaged on a regular basis and enjoying every bit of content, they just aren’t that interested. Not so in sport.

So, what can a club or team do to harness this opportunity?

Make sure you have a ‘fan engagement’ strategy – This is different to an online marketing and PR strategy. It needs to provide an experience the fans can’t get through traditional channels.

Have at least one community where conversations can take place – An interactive area of the clubs website,  An official Facebook fan page, a private social network. Be active and conversational here, don’t treat it as another PR vehicle.

Think what ‘exclusive’ content you can reward your fans or members with. There is boat loads of this! Exclusive footage from training, locker room interviews (within reason!), injury news from the physios, community projects….

Bring the fans into the fold. Consider empowering the fans, if you check your Facebook groups and forums I bet there are plenty of unofficial communities already thriving – harness that. Why not create Fan reporters, team tweeters, a fan zone that has some clout with the club. In Spain, Barcelona are ‘owned’ by the fans…other teams would do well to adopt a similar mindset.

Consider what Mobile can offer. Mobile is going to be big for entertainment – The devices are getting better and the teams already have a glut of content which can be distributed to people’s pockets. Think, what can we get to the fans via mobile? Arsenal and Chelsea both have iphone applications at around the £2.99 mark which is a good start. Sure they are the big fish, but the same will be true for clubs of all sizes, just on a different scale…the same principles apply.

Another key difference is that sports fans will pay for this type of content and level of interaction. Not huge amounts, as some fans will testify that it is expensive enough supporting their team but this is a question of value rather than pounds or dollars. Anything that provides a level of joy and touches the tribal part of our brains, a few quid here and there to make me feel it’s MY club is fine by me.

New Revenue

I think clubs have genuine untapped revenue streams here, not only through online advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales but in streaming and distributing their games and content to much, much bigger audience than they currently do through TV broadcasting contracts. For the clubs with international audiences (especially Asia and Africa who have a lot of growth in terms of intenet access ahead of them), if and when the devices and connectivity improve, they can have millions more people watch their games and additional content and pay micro payments for the privilege. We aren’t there yet but it is coming.

Youtube have begun streaming live sports events.  We have seen England football matches being streamed live, admittedly not very well yet but that is to do with the devices and the connectivity, Virgin are trailing 100mb broadband, Conservatives have said they will make high speed connectivity priority if they win the election this year, smart phone penetration is on the up…and that is just for the games, what about news, updates, promoting community and charity work?

Players

For the athletes and players there is also the opportunity to build a huge amount of brand equity. This can be used a positive platform for a media career, raise awareness for good causes they are involved with, create a more authentic and trusted voice for the individual than old school press releases. Some are doing it well, (more in the US but we are seeing signs of it this side of the pond). Chad Ochocinco has his OCNN channel, Shaq has been a Twitter exponent for a few years now. Having the players active on these channels does come with its own set of potential pitfalls, but ignoring the new communication channels and opportunities isn’t going to make them go away. The clubs, agents and athlete’s representatives need to find a balance where the players can be treated like adults and decide the type of relationship they want with their fans…they may need them after they retire!

Organisations, brands and sports clubs are all in the same boat with needing to be more trusted and that takes time and comes with authenticity and engagement. Its all people to people communications, after all!

Update: A good example of exactly what I was talking about is Manchester City. Read this excellent post by Ash Read covering similar lines of thought.