Catgory: Lessons Learned

You Can’t Slap Social Media on Everything

By Guest On August 1, 2014 In Lessons Learned with 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2014-07-31 at 5.23.50 PMBREAKING NEWS: NBA game balls are officially social.

If you were hoping that NBA game balls could now tweet, interact, like and engage with NBA fans, think again. The only thing social about the NBA game ball is that it now proudly boasts the league’s Twitter handle on it.

Yes, the NBA announced today that the official game ball is going to be adorned with their Twitter handle– @NBA— in pint-size font.

After the announcement on Twitter, my timeline started blowing up—“the NBA is smart, it’s so social, hail NBA game ball.” But as I sat and watched the coverage unfold (that included tweets from media outlets like ESPN, Mashable, etc.), I couldn’t help to think the whole thing was a little silly. Why are we talking about the NBA placing their Twitter handle on a ball?

Just because the NBA had to cut through a lot of red tape to get the Twitter handle there, does not mean that it deserves a standing ovation. There’s nothing social about placing a Twitter handle on an inanimate object. Oh the irony.

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Social & Digital: Nike Doesn’t Just Do It. They Get It.

By Guest On July 3, 2014 In Best Practices, Digital, Lessons Learned, Social Media with 3 Comments

Nike has dominated the World Cup from a brand perspective. Period. If you think this happened by chance, think again. Nike is a company that understands digital through and through. Just last week Nike CEO Mark Parker made some powerful comments during their earning’s call that reinforced this belief:

“An ongoing two-way dialogue with consumers is also a critical element of our digital ecosystem. It provides us insights that drive innovation, strengthens consumer connections to our brands, and provides a platform for consumers to interact with each other. Through our social media platforms, we leverage the power and passion of sport to deepen our relationship with our consumers.”

Nike doesn’t just “do it” when it comes to social and digital. They get it. They understand what companies need to invest in in order to make social and digital successful.

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Five Smart & Savvy Social Media Plays from US Soccer

By Guest On July 1, 2014 In Lessons Learned, Social Media with 1 Comment

If you’ve been following US Soccer on their social media / digital channels during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, it’s clear they took a look of time to prepare for the event. Not only are they cranking out stellar content on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, but they are tapping into brand ambassadors and celebrities left and right (I’m sure this didn’t happen by chance, but by outreach). And while I could probably list 20 or more things that US Soccer is doing right, below are five winning tactics we can all take away from their smart and savvy social media play:

No. 1- Create fan-first initiatives.

While US Soccer is not engaging with fans directly on Twitter (one of the few things I wish they were doing), they’ve had some very fan-friendly activations for their faithful following including personalized jerseys, good luck wishes in the locker room and a doctor’s note:

During a live and major event, it’s easy (unfortunately) to ignore the fan piece—there’s a story to tell, content to produce and game updates to give. I know it’s exhausting, but teams and leagues have to take the time for the fans when emotions are high. This is the time to leave a lasting impression.

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Six Takeaways from Twitter’s World Cup Initiatives

By Guest On June 13, 2014 In Lessons Learned, Twitter

Twitter has come out in full force for the 2014 FIFA World Cup like we’ve never seen before. They brought back hashflags, made it extremely easy for fans to follow along and let the Twitterverse proudly choose their side and wear it like a badge of honor on their profile. When you look at the social media numbers surrounding the World Cup, this was an extremely smart move.

I’ve been swooning over Twitter’s World Cup activations the past few days and have six big takeaways from their success that I think we can all carry into our work:

1st– Make the point of entry easy. 

Each point of entry for Twitter’s different activations is super easy. As you can see from the photos above, they literally walk you through the steps. And, it was also easy to skip steps (which is very much appreciated).

Anytime you run a social media campaign, there needs to be as few steps as possible. If the point of entry is long and tedious, people won’t have enough patience to figure out how to participate (unless there is a grand prize of $1,000,000, of course).

Additionally, Twitter’s activations were seamless because they were not run by a third-party platform. I know this is easy for Twitter to do, but it’s a great lesson to activate on the platform where people are and not make them jump back and forth.

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A Look at How Teams Handled Selection Sunday on Facebook

By Guest On March 17, 2014 In Facebook, Lessons Learned

Selection Sunday is a holiday for the basketball faithful… a day where fates are found out and the bracket is born.  With all the chatter and excitement surrounding selections, the day is an opportunity for programs to leverage exposure on social media.  Any program, large or small, should take advantage of the chatter.

I took a look at the Facebook Pages of all the teams in the tournament and was surprised to find that not everyone took advantage and posted on Selection Sunday (though most did).  Of the schools that did post that evening on Facebook, these are the ones that stood out:

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