One of the best parts of marketing a professional sports franchise is that you undoubtedly have some die-hard fans and as such brand advocates. You also have an emotional connection between fan and brand which can easily be combined with the abundance of video, audio and digital content that is naturally produced through sports broadcasts and media.  However sports marketers like all others are looking for ways in to not only share that content with fans but to really engage those fans and create a dialogue where the most passionate fans help spur on other fans and at the same time feel that their voices/opinions are being heard and acted upon by the franchise. It would seem a perfect marriage for social media marketing.

There are however only a handful of sports teams that you can point to who are really taking advantage of the content, the advocates and the new channels available to them via social media and Social CRM. One team who seems to be getting it right is the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. The Warriors won a 2011 Gartner and 1t01 Media CRM Excellence Award for their work on the “2010 Warriors Draft Challenge.” Continue Reading…

In the world of social media, it seems as though there is always a new tool, application or website to keep up with and, often, it can become difficult to discern which opportunities are worth your increasingly limited time. By now, you’ve likely heard of Pinterest – the social sharing phenomenon with over one million daily users. The site allows users to create and share virtual pin boards featuring everything from fitness tips and home improvement ideas to recipes, fashion concepts and favorite products. It’s fresh, simple and incredibly effective. Continue Reading…

Our lives are becoming more and more like video games. This is partly because games have advanced by leaps and bounds over the last thirty years, becoming better and better at imitating reality. And partly this is thanks to Generation Y, the children of the 1980s and early 1990s who grew up just as consoles and computers were working their way into every home.

A large and growing proportion of the workplace is dominated by employees who are used to viewing life through the lens of video games. Gamification isn’t just a buzz word; it’s a bona fide trend that can transform the way a modern company does business. Continue Reading…

So, your Facebook contest was wildly successful. Congratulations! You have tons of new fans, a fresh audience for your product or service, thousands of potential leads—now what? After the contest wraps up, how do you keep all those folks coming back?The real challenge of running a Facebook contest isn’t handling the logistics of the contest itself, but rather, figuring out how to maintain a connection with all those Facebook followers once the hoopla dies down. Ideally, you want to make your Facebook page so chock full of relevant, entertaining or compelling information that it becomes worth your follower’s while to return again and again—whether or not you offer them an actual incentive to do so.

Providing that kind of value to your Facebook fans can be achieved using a variety of strategies. Here are a few of my favorites… Continue Reading…