Tag: twitter

#SMSports Trends Winning on Twitter Right Now

By Guest On February 25, 2015 In Twitter, Uncategorized with 4 Comments

We all know that Twitter + sports make a great combination. During peak game times, there’s a good chance you’ll find sports dominating the trending topics. The platform is perfect for our industry.

Even though Twitter and sports are a match made in heaven, it’s great to take a step back and look at ways to improve platform use. I’ve spent time looking at the latest trends working for teams and leagues, and I compiled a list of the ones winning right now. Many of them translate across platform. If you are looking for new ways to dominate Twitter, here are some ideas:

Simple graphics and copy.

Sometimes simple is better. We live in a world filled with limited attention spans. If you make it hard for fans to digest and understand content, you’ll lose them before they think about engaging, sharing, etc. I love the trend of keeping things simple in both copy and graphics:

[graphics]

[copy]

Don’t overthink your content. As the examples prove above, complicated and overstated isn’t always the way to go.

 

Starting lineup graphics.

Michigan and Washington have found ways to spruce up starting lineup announcements through graphics. Michigan is using player cards that have an old school look and feel; Washington’s graphics are crisp, sharp and clean. Both are great ways to make content more visual and interesting:

 

GIFS.

In case you didn’t know, the NBA is all about the GIFS. You can view an awesome Twitter timeline with examples here (courtesy of @JuliePhayer).

While I think GIFS are often overplayed, it’s hard to deny their popularity. They’re a great way to show humor and humanize teams when used the right way. With GIFS, I think it’s important to highlight players and personnel as much as possible and not force pop culture just for the sake of it. Instead, use pop culture references strategically and sparingly to make a bigger splash. Here are some great examples:

 

Emojis.

A couple weeks ago, I asked people on Twitter what they thought about brands using emojis. The answers were quite diverse and interesting. And whatever your thoughts about them are, there’s one thing for certain: There’s an emoji craze going on.

Much like GIFS, emojis are often abused and overused. When used at just the right time and moments tough, emojis can help make a statement and make a team account more human. The key (again) is to use them strategically and sparingly. Here are some good examples:

 

Telling it in a screen shot.

You can’t always rely on people to click through, so you need to prioritize. Do you want to get the message out or drive people to your website? Lately I’ve seen a few examples of schools, leagues, etc. opting to post a screen grab instead of linking to more. If the message is important enough, then I think it’s a good move:

 

Use of multiple photos.

I love the multiple-photos feature from Twitter because it’s a great tool for teams and leagues to paint a full picture in one tweet. Instead of cluttering your timeline with a ton of tweets, see if there’s an opportunity to put together a statement / story in one tweet:

 

Look and feel based on the uniforms.

Since the start of basketball season, I’ve been swooning over the @Lakers’ score graphics. The colors change up based on the uniforms they’re wearing that game, but they still keeping a consistent look and feel. They are using gold at home, purple on the road and Sunday white / black. The concept is a great way to integrate gameday initiatives into a team’s social presence:

 

Video call to action.

Twitter has an awesome new CTA feature on their hosted video card: The ability to let users watch a video on the bottom right, while browsing other ones. It’s a great way to keep fans engaged longer:

 

 

 

Now it’s your turn to sound off: What trends have you seen lately on Twitter that have stood out to you? Be sure to share them below!

Thanks for 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.

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Hashtags Are Not The New URL

By Guest On January 26, 2014 In Twitter

BIa04mrCAAAl6RS (2) 2During #SportsConf a couple weeks ago there was a phrase that got a lot of traction:

“The hashtag is the new URL.”

I want to love it. I want to jump on the bandwagon and say, “yes, yes, yes”.  It has a nice ring. It’s catchy. I get the basis of it. Even so, I am going to have to politely go against the grain and disagree.

Let me start off by saying I believe in the power of hashtags. In fact, I love hashtags so much I made a hashtag light (pictured above). Nonetheless, hashtags are not the new URL. Here’s why:

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Four Takeaways from Pew’s 2013 Social Media Update

By Guest On January 6, 2014 In Lessons Learned, Social Media

aiga_symbol_signs_clip_art_16701Pew Research recently came out with their Social Media Update for 2013. Research is wonderful, but what’s more important are the takeaways and stories you can piece together from it all.

I’ve spent some time with Pew’s latest numbers and thought I would share my four biggest takeaways.  There is nothing groundbreaking here, but I thought the reminders are still worth sharing.

Please Note:  They sampled 1,801 US adults, age 18 and older.

No. 1- Facebook is still king.

71% of online adults are now Facebook users (Pew).

Despite all the recent chatter about Facebook, statistics like this show over and over again that Facebook is still king. While I do agree that younger demographics are also engaging on other platforms (and probably more), we can’t ignore these statistics.

We also need to keep in mind that not everyone is experiencing the same Facebook fatigue as we (social media managers) are. It’s still important to cater to the platform and think about paying to play for bigger reach.

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The Red Sox Won a World Series & Hit a Home Run on Twitter

By Guest On October 31, 2013 In Twitter with 1 Comment

The Boston Red Sox didn’t just win the World Series last night. They also hit a home run on Twitter. The @RedSox account did a great job mixing up their tweets from commentary, to behind-the-scenes content to game moments throughout the day and night. More importantly, tweets didn’t just read like a box score.

I decided to have some fun and take a look at a few numbers from their coverage of Game 6. Below are the tidbits I found (please note, all numbers are approximate):

  • The official account tweeted more than 110 times.
  • Their earliest tweet came at 6:03 a.m.  Their last tweet was sent Halloween morning.
  • The account earned more than 163,6oo retweets in one day.
  • Their best performing tweet garnered 24,331 retweets.
  • Before they clinched the World Series, behind-the-scenes coverage generated an average of 577 retweets. After they clinched it, behind-the-scenes content averaged 1,861 retweets. Who says winning does not help?
  • In terms of media, photos generated the most retweets on average with 2,211, followed by Vine (1,921) and Instagram (840).

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