The Tampa Bay Lightning introduced 'Bolts Social Central' for the 2013 season. This interactive wall is just one of many ways to interact with a professional sports team within the venue itself.
For two years, I was a professional sports team on social media.
From 2010-2012, I was the lone mastermind behind @DetroitRedWings. With some good fortune, amazing colleagues and the best fans in professional sports, our organization built the largest social audience in the National Hockey League. From 8 Mile to Sydney, Australia - some 9,000 miles away, those words that kept you connected to our club on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest were mine.
Of the many things I learned at the helm of @DetroitRedWings, the most important was a trial and error process of what makes a brand pop in the social sphere ... even if the team's performance doesn't. Unlike many commercial companies, teams have distinct advantages in brand favorability, brand awareness and a consistent stream of news around the club.
Those same teams also carry a conservative mindset that prevents many from taking chances. Most have other sources of revenue including TV and ticket sales that make social media marketing less of an emphasis than it would be elsewhere.
If you feel like your favorite team is doing a good job socially, whoever is running the feeds will probably admit to the following confessions. If they aren't, you may want to send this to them so they can get on the ball.
The super fan is not the target audience
If a team has 1.5 million followers in the social space, but only 150,000 of them are watching a game as it happens, what does it say about the audience?
It says that 90 percent of them are doing something else. Nine out of 10 have lives that are beyond a singular devotion to a team's brand.
While people follow teams for many reasons, the majority press the 'LIKE' button because sport is woven into the fabric of the local community. In Detroit, those who follow the Red Wings will follow the Detroit Free Press or the Detroit News for news, Michigan or Michigan State for college, Mayor Dave Bing or Governor Rick Snyder for politics, and the Tigers, Lions, Pistons and Red Wings for sports.
The best teams on social media craft a content strategy that targets a casual fan who needs a compelling reason to tune into the broadcast, or a just cause to spend $20 on a player-tee, or evidence that $150 would be best spent on game tickets rather than dinner and a movie.
As for die-hard fans? The true-blue supporters who get the team logo tattooed on their bodies and plan weddings at the stadium. They produce some of the most compelling content aimed at those 90 percent of casual fans who may not ordinarly tune-in. They aren't the target audience, but their passion carries the torch for a team's digital capabilities.
We know who you are.
Any good community manager, whether it's with Nike, the St. Louis Cardinals or the Tulsa Shock, knows who is interacting with their brand socially. Some of us admit to stalking you as much as you stalk us.
But 'Big Brother' we are not, at least on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Instead, we're searching for community influencers, or people who can carry Klout within the digital space. We're also looking for impressionable consumers where that extra special touch can make all the difference.
If you are a season ticket holder who tweets a message to us saying that you'll be at the game, we might stop by and say hello. If you tweet that you are at your very first game and there's a Zamboni ride that we don't know what to do with, we'll try and find you. If you are sitting in Section 216 and tweet us a picture of a broken chair, we can pass it along to the building's operations staff.
And if you make 89 sexual innuendos about how you'd like to take the star defensemen and show him a few things, we'll see that too.
Just so you know.
We're still developing our voice
Teams are known commodities in the local community. They manage media, as opposed to pitching them. There is a section in the newspaper dedicated to sports and we'll get a minute on the local news every time we play a game.
Ironically, this all makes it more difficult for teams to find their social voice. Why attempt to be funny, edgy or humorous when you don't have to be? Better yet, why take that chance when any missteps could result in an organizational PR disaster?
And when the person making the case for a saucier brand voice isn't high up on the totem pole, the end result of restrained creativity may come across as forced and disingenuous.
The Los Angeles Kings, one of the few teams that do it right, recently posted an opening for a Digital Producer who had two very specific qualities - a degree in graphic design and a sense of humor.
Those who follow the club notice the hilariously smart and witty banter that isn't afraid to toe the line between sass and crass. The fans eat it up on a nightly basis.
We can (and will) make money off of social media
You don't need to be a genius to know that teams can push ticket messaging through social channels.
That isn't the only profit driver.
Teams can introduce integrated social sponsorships with local businesses they already have established relationships with. These are a far less intrusive way of advertising than say, buying a bevy of sponsored posts on Facebook, or promoted Tweets on Twitter.
Southern California McDonald's locations sponsor a 'Player of the Month' promotion with the aforementioned LA Kings that rewards fans with a coupon for casting a ballot online. People love discounted food, but team and client enjoy the tangible ROI that exists through the coupon's bar code, tracking consumer redeption and additional spending at the point of purchase.
As former NBA legend and now Doctor, Shaquille O'Neil told a group at SXSW, his goal is to 60 percent make you laugh, 30 percent inspire you and 10 percent pitch a product.
Eventually most teams would like to do the same.
We have a love-hate relationship with our Twitter/Facebook/Instagram obsession
Despite making his fortune off the internet, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban doesn't have a soft spot for fans on the internet while at the arena.
"Wi-Fi in American Airlines Center sucks. That's on purpose," Cuban said during a recent social media conference.
His point is simple. The in-venue digital experience is improving, but it is also taking the emphasis off the game and onto mobile and tablet devices. At the Amway Center in Orlando, members of the Orlando Magic's business team admitted that all of the bells and whistles associated with one of the league's nicest arenas mean that fans spend more time interacting with the building and less time watching the action.
And yet, we've seen venues rush to try and compete against an ever-improving television experience. MLB Advanced Media plans to roll out Wi-Fi in all 30 MLB ballparks over the next few years, introducing an MLB @ The Ballpark App to match. More NFL teams are building bigger Hi-Def video boards and are making 'Fantasy Stats' part of the stadium experience.
Personally, I love going to a sporting event and having a running stream of information about the event I'm watching. That being said, there is a balance between too much and not enough. Are we at this breaking point?
Needless to say, it's a love-hate relationship.