Tag: social media

You Don’t Always Have to Play By the Rules

By Guest On December 9, 2014 In Best Practices, Lessons Learned

As a social media manager, I’m sure you are use to questions like this: What is the optimal video length, when is the best time to post, etc.? People love to have data to back up their decisions. And while I love studies and data that can help guide decisions, there is one thing I’ve learned:

Social media studies and analytics that aren’t tied to your team, league or brand are merely just a guide. They aren’t rules to live by. Test and see what works best for your audience. It’s all in the context. 

Brad Harrison, the social media manager at Atlanta Motor Speedway, sent me a great example that speaks to this. A few weeks ago the Atlanta Motor Speedway and City of Hampton welcomed big rigs to the city streets for its Hampton Hauler Parade. This year, for the first time, the haulers actually paraded through downtown Hampton. It presented a golden opportunity to get their audience engaged. Here’s how the team decided to cover it on Facebook, according to Harrison:

“When it came to posting a video of the parade, we kept it simple: Instead of limiting the video length to two to three minutes, we opted to run the full length (which was 11:24 long).

Screen shot 2014-12-09 at 4.34.07 PM

By rule, we tend to limit our video’s length. But in this case, we decided that those parameters, while a good rule to follow, at times need flexibility. The move paid off in a large way: NASCAR fans are passionate and posting content where they would see their favorite driver’s transporter resonated strongly.

The post itself had the highest engagements of any post within the past year on our Facebook channel. It had an organic reach of 512,768 and was viewed by 95,136 people (our Facebook page has just more than 113,000 fans currently).”

We all know most studies would say an 11-minute video is way too long for social. In this case though, it worked for AMS.

The lesson is simple here: Pay attention to your fans and what works for you. Industry standards and rules are meant to be broken if you have a grasp on the why.

Do you have any examples of when you broke “the rules” in social and it worked well? If so, share your example below!

As always, thanks for reading!

Five Social Media / Digital Activations From the World Cup To Note

By Guest On June 16, 2014 In Digital, Social Media with 2 Comments

Major brands have come out in full force for the World Cup from a social media and digital perspective. After all, this is THE most social sporting event we have ever seen.  Below are five social / digital activations that have caught my eye so far (note: this is focused solely on social media activations and not the stellar content / video we have seen from brands):

1. US Soccer: Surprises & Delights

If you tweet at @USSoccer in support of the team (while using the hashtag #USMNT) there’s a good chance you’ll get your very own personalized jersey:

Screen Shot 2014-06-16 at 2.08.55 PM

This is probably my favorite social media activation from the World Cup so far because it’s simple, easy and thanks fans. US Soccer didn’t have to advertise this initiative and force it down fans throats for it to be successful. Their fans would already be tweeting in support of their team, with or without this campaign. Quite simply, this is a great way to say “thank you”.

continue reading »

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.

continue reading »

Faces of the Big Ten

By Guest On May 21, 2014 In College Athletics

People remember stories. Tell them.

I believe that stories are the thread that connects consumers to brands. A brand that knows how to tell a powerful story is memorable. After all, emotion is one of thing that ties humans together.

We need more storytelling from teams and leagues. There’s too much on-the-field action and not enough human-interest pieces.  There’s too much stats coverage and not enough behind-the-person coverage.  ESPN has seen success with their storytelling pieces from 30 to 30 to their College GameDay features, and it’s time to take notice.

Fans don’t only care about what the players do on the field. They also care about who they are off the field. Why? Because their personal struggles and gains, tragedies and triumphs are what makes professional athletes relatable. It’s the human emotion.

continue reading »

Do Social Media Hubs Add Value?

By Guest On May 7, 2014 In Social Media with 6 Comments

I’ve never been one to embrace social hubs with open arms (and by hubs I don’t mean a social media directory, but a place on your site where you expect people to interact and consume content).  When you work so hard to build a community online, I’ve never really understood why you would want to pull people away from it. To me, hubs have always seemed to negate what our industry is really about… being social.

Every time I see someone tweet that a new hub is off and running, I ask the same questions over and over again- do they add value, what’s the goal, what makes the hub so special? Too often in social media we equate launching something as a success. We celebrate a team when they get on a new platform or we celebrate a brand that launches a social hub without really digging much deeper into the why.

continue reading »