Impact of social media on Australian sport

An Introduction

With Facebook having just signed up its 350th million member, it has recently become the 4^th largest country according to population and now has 1.5 million pieces of new content being added every day. Combine this with Twitter becoming more and more popular (they refuse to release figures on their users), and we see a wide range of new methods of keeping up with fans have emerged. How can Australian sporting clubs and organisations effectively integrate social media and Web 2.0 into their business?

Sporting organisations and clubs need to accept social media is the next step in customer service, and that those logging onto your website or Twitter account are your fans (read: your customers). Make these platforms act like they are a full- functioning part of your business; have a full-time social media staff member, update your social media platforms daily (or at worst weekly!) and ensure all your platforms are streamlined – that is, your Facebook Fan Pages should consistent with your MySpace, your YouTube and Flickr accounts

Who Is Doing Social Media Well?

Let’s have a look at how teams, athletes and sponsors are using social media to increase the experience of their brand:

NBA’s Houston Rockets and Allen Iverson

The NBA’s Houston Rockets Twitter account @HoustonRockets recently tweeted out a competition for free court side tickets to the following night’s game. With-in 2 hours, they had their winner and re-tweeted (copying another user’s message) the winner’s messages describing how happy they were saying they had knocked something off their ‘bucket list’. The account also replies to fan tweets asking about player injury status updates, reminds fans of when and where the next game is on TV and gives in-game updates throughout the matches. @HoustonRockets typically tweets two to three times a day and this increases on game days.

Recently when NBA star guard Allen Iverson was waiting for a team to sign him in the off-season, he openly courted teams to offer him a contract. Once he did sign with a team, where did we hear it from? Not from traditional news sources such as newspapers or the nightly news, but from Iverson’s Twitter account directly

English Premier League

English Premier League clubs Chelsea and Liverpool, through their major apparel sponsor Adidas, recently started an online campaign to find the clubs’ ‘12^th’ man. They invited fans to upload a 12-second video to YouTube on why they should become the 12^th man of their club. This exercise not only added to the subscribers of Adidas’ YouTube channel increasing brand awareness for their sponsor, but allowed fans to share with each other their own experiences of the club, no matter where they were in the world.

Social Media Opportunities in Australia

The possibilities of how social media could affect Australian sport are endless:

• Injury updates tweeted directly by the player themselves before the teams are named mid-week.
• During trade week or the off-season a player could tweet about the team he would like to go to.
• Players meeting up directly with fans after or before the game.

When a high profile Australian sportsperson begins using social media to attract their own publicity, maybe by breaking an important news story via Twitter, how will the Australian media react? Would it be positive, negative or would they even embrace it?

Imagine if Luke Ball had taken to tweeting before the recent draft and bypassed traditional media or comments from his agent. Doing so would have allowed the player himself to break down the perception that the media is giving the public, that he was tampering with the draft. He could have tweeted  “I’m happy to play for any team that drafts me”, but instead we got constant rumours for weeks that he was unwilling to play for certain clubs.  You can imagine what such a tweet would have done, most likely he would have gained a large number of followers on Twitter that night and probably many more by the end of the week.

To improve their fans’ experience,  AFL, NRL, A-League or Super 14 teams could start tweeting out photos from the dressing room before the game, photos of the players as they run out onto the ground or even hand out box seats or seat upgrades via twitter whilst at the game. The MCG recently had a wi-fi network installed at the stadium which will allow fans to log-in to social media sites such as Twitter and access high quality data through Twitpic or Twitvid at great speed through their smart phone from their seat at the ground.

What is Social Media Best Practice?

• Be consistent: Throughout your social media ‘footprint’, consistency is key. If you have uploaded a video, post the link to your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts.. Not all members of each platform are members of the other, so the same message needs to be relayed to all fans – this also applies to direct E-Marketing.
• Be yourself: Fans come to your site for transparency, for something unique that they can’t achieve through traditional outlets such as press releases or website news. They want that extra special something that makes them feel like a fly on the wall.
• Be active: Online users will often come to your website two or three times a day. If you are not posting news or links on a daily basis your consumers will go elsewhere. You need to stay active to keep the attention of your users even in down times. ‘Content is King’ and one must entertain his subjects.
• ‘Dialogue not monologue’: Create fan polls, react to comments posted on forums, articles or Tweets, become engaged in what the customer is saying. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, so allow your consumers plenty of opportunity to place feedback. If a fan has an ‘authentic interaction’ from an athlete or celebrity this is an incredible experience for them and often can strengthen the bond, between brand and consumer, club and fan.
• Spread the word: You have an online community or ‘e-tribe’, so use them. Encourage your users to retweet messages, use Digg as a method of spreading the gospel of your website or even give away prizes for fans that use your brand in a Twitter #hashtag or Facebook update. This will ‘activate’ other fans and they too will become part of your community.

As we look forward to the next stages of social media, we need to be wary of a few things:

• Sponsor and product integration: How can this be achieved without it becoming a marketing campaign and eventually turns fans away?
• Commercialisation of social media: How can you turn your loyal fan base into a paying fan base online through the building of applications for smart phones, or member-only based services?
• Constantly changing technologies: The future of the web is on portable devices such as iPods, smart phones and gaming platforms such as Xbox and Sony Playstation – how can we ensure these platforms achieve equal status to their web counterparts?

Social media has elevated a fan’s experience beyond just wearing their favourite team’s scarf or guernsey to the game. Fans can now carry around their favourite team in their pocket wherever they go. They can now be involved with like-minded fans at anytime of the day, from anywhere in the world.