The Website

Carrot Creative put together a great site for the game, socialmediabasketball.com. They included both teams’ starting rosters, complete with names, nicknames, and the ability to follow all of us on Twitter. Even cooler? Visitors have the ability to “Like” which team they are rooting for / think will win (VaynerMedia currently leads 100-63). Finally, a live feed features anyone who tweets about the game with the hashtag #CCvsVM. So, props to Carrot Creative for a job well done.

The Game

Tip-off is tomorrow, August 12th, 2010, just after 3PM EST. If you are would like to attend to watch or to cover the event, please email info@vaynermedia.com.

The good news is that we’re live-streaming the game for all to watch, and having our good friend Owen JJ Stone (aka OhDoctah) announce/commentate/emcee. You can watch live at bit.ly/ccvsvmlive. Also, you’ll be able to follow along with anyone live tweeting from the game by keeping track of hashtag #ccvsvm.

So, what do you think? What’s your prediction? Who will you be rooting for?

We were on the offensive from the minute we got there, spurred on by Gary’s constant urgings of “let’s do something competitive!” and a surplus of alcohol generously supplied by Wine Library.

Over the course of the two day weekend, the following competitive activities took place:

• Volleyball
• Football
• Mountain Biking
• Relay race
• One-on-one beer shotgunning competition
• “Over the Top” style arm wrestling competition
• Spontaneous “how many consecutive sweet tarts can @akopec throw from the balcony into varying distance mouths below” competition
• 4 hour argument about whether Paul Pierce is overrated
• A game invented on-the-fly involving deception, stealth, and wild-eyed chases in the dark that saw @garyvee, @shaunchapman, and @keithholjencin crawling on their stomachs through the dewy weeds and mud at the cabin’s perimeter in the pitch darkness as if they were in enemy territory in ‘Nam.

There were a few people there not used to the intensity, and seeing their raised eyebrows at all this got me thinking about the purpose of all of it.

It’s not immediately apparent what the purpose is for members of an internet startup to bat around a ball at each other when they’ll never surpass weekend warrior status.

To find meaning in these casual competitions, you have to look at the place sports have in our culture, and why it’s important for professional athletes at the peak of their game to compete against one another.

“After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down”
-Fight Club

To the casual observer, any sport is a meaningless game around an arbitrary goal. Athletes’ salaries are more worthy of debate than their accomplishments on the field.

To the participants though, the games take on a meaning that is more powerful than the meanings found in everyday life.

Why? because sports tap into our competitive, animal nature. Every animal is wired for competition because of the scarcity of resources needed for survival.

The need to acquire food, air, water, mates, and sunlight at the expense of others is the primary driver of growth: stronger, better, faster, smarter, significantly more able to fly…whatever can give you an advantage.

Competition as inspired by scarcity also forms the foundation of one of the two most basic instincts: killing. The driving force that compels people to compete against one another in sports is a modified version of the instinct to survive by growing stronger and killing competition.

Sports are one of the most fascinating human inventions. They showcase our ability to re-route natural urges and re-assign reward systems. To transcend survival instincts and use them to organize a group of selfish individuals for a common goal.

“UNITY!!!”
-Dave Chapelle as Rick James

Look at how humans competed with other organisms way back in the day. We were smaller, weaker, and slower than most predators around us.

Yes, yes, we were smarter. But not as individuals. Try to outwit a grizzly bear and you’ll see what I mean. All we had going for us was collaboration.

Still to this day, nothing unites people so much as a common goal, and nothing inspires a common goal better than a common enemy.

Think about the world cup. Michigan fans and Ohio State fans, Auburn and Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma, were all rooting alongside each other as local sports allegiances gave way to a larger sentiment of our country as a whole against the other countries of the world.

World peace is an impossibility today, but imagine if tomorrow hostile aliens came down like in Independence Day. Any inter-human conflicts would immediately give way to collaboration in a larger struggle.

At our retreat this weekend, teams were formed and re-formed at random. Now think about it in the context practicing allegiances and collaboration.

Does this internal competition not make us that much stronger when play conflicts in the world of sport amongst ourselves give way to real conflicts between our entire company and another in the world of business?

It seems absurd to many that playing volleyball against each other gives us more of an ability to succeed at the game of business. I disagree. It’s all about the spirit of the game.

“You play to win the game. You don’t play to just play it. That’s the great thing about sports”
- Herm Edwards

We live in a world of scarcity, there is no question about it. Given that you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing you are lucky enough to not be experiencing scarcity of food, water, or shelter.

You’re faced with a different type of scarcity, a decidedly human scarcity: scarcity of attention. People have a limited amount of attention to give.

Let’s go back to the salaries of athletes for a second. The reason they get paid that much is simple: demand. The reason they compete is not, in the cases of the most successful, for money or any other tangible reward. They want to be considered to be the best by whomever is important to them, whether it’s the general public or a high school coach who slighted them.

The financial success of your brand depends on capturing peoples attention, and if you think you don’t measure individual success in terms of attention (and admiration), whether it’s from hundreds of thousands of like-minded strangers or just one of your parents, I call bullshit.

Whatever scarcity or competition you are facing, there are three approaches you can take to improve your position.

1. Embrace constructive competition (the Michael Jordan strategy)
You focus on winning through strength. You courageously admit that you are not complete; you learn from each contest. You seek stronger competition at all times, committing yourself 100% in every arena because you believe you have a chance to win.

2. Embrace destructive competition (the Tonya Harding strategy)
You focus on winning through injuring or otherwise discrediting others. Given a choice, you’ll gladly take a perceived victory over strengthening loss every time. For those who compete destructively, insecurity transforms hunger into greed and admiration into envy.

3. Refusal to compete (the Goth Kids strategy)
This happens far, far more often to all of us than any of us would care to admit. Right now, you’re implicitly denying competitions because it’s easy to convince yourself you’re doing alright when you decline to compare yourself to others.

I’m happy to report that if this weekend was any indication, it seems that everybody here wants to be Like Mike.

But as the tournament progressed, it seemed that interest in the World Cup was waning. Focus shifted more and more to the wrong things: “why do they flop when you barely touch them?”, “the vuvuzella is so annoying”, etc. It all came to a head when the United States lost to Ghana. As quickly as the enthusiasm had started, it dissipated, and the majority went back to being disinterested in soccer completely; “The New York Post” led the way with the following headline:

Shortly after that, Nike came out with a sequel to their wildly popular “Write the Future” ad. The sequel depicted young players thanking the US soccer team for various actions during their games. The video is full of comments like “thank you for playing with style, with class, for having confidence.” 24 seconds into the ad, one of the players channels most of our nations thoughts when he says “thank you for not diving.” This aspect of the game seemed to outrage and disgust many first-time viewers. While I partially agree with this, I can also see the other side of the story. Diving is part of soccer. A player has the chance to outsmart his opponent by accentuating a mistake; it’s simply part of the game.

It occurred to me that during this month-long soccer spotlight, two very important points were identified:

1) The World Cup showed that Americans are more than willing to embrace the game if their own players are on the field.

2) As a whole, our country isn’t ready to accept a “rest-of-the-world style” of play. Nike showed that conclusively.

The organization that should have been paying VERY close attention to the American response to the World Cup (and I mean taking copious notes 24/7) is the MLS. They have been struggling for years to get professional soccer to same level as the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL. To date, they’ve had very little success. However, since it’s inception in 1993, they have been modeling their league after foreign soccer clubs (a very logical decision), going so far as to bring international sensations like David Beckham, Cuauhtémoc Blanco and Juan Pablo Ángel into the league in an effort to create some credibility. While this helped, the league’s popularity never truly took off like anticipated. I think one glaring reason is because Americans won’t respond to an imitation of a foreign club. If the 2010 World Cup and Nike have shown us anything, it’s this: Americans want their own style of play with their own players on the field. It’s the epitome of “easier said than done”, but it seems to be the current reality.

So with the sport still fresh in everyone’s minds, Major League Soccer is at a crossroads. Should they embark on a new American style of the game, one devoid of primadonnas, diving and vuvuzellas? Or should they continue to follow the proven model and wait for the rest of us to come around? It’s an interesting question that I personally can’t answer with 100% certainty. Obviously, there are very valid points on both sides. But if you were in charge of branding for Major League Soccer, in what direction would you take the league?

Reports are indicating that Lebron plans on announcing his decision via a 1-hour special on ESPN tomorrow night. That’s all well and good (and will surely generate massive ratings), but I think it would be far more interesting if Lebron would make the subtle move of boosting his “following” count for 0 to 1, with the 1 being the team he plans on playing for in the coming years.

I understand that this concept is far less mainstream than a 1-hour special, but wouldn’t it be amazing if Lebron took over the news by simply clicking a single “follow” button?

Last Thursday, a friend of mine (and basketball nut/blogger) Peter R. Casey retweeted fellow basketball nut/blogger Lang Whitaker about a video that I was not prepared for (in a good way). “Yup, that’s going viral,” Peter commented, then retweeting Whitaker, “Here’s the YouTube link to that Nike World Cup spot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE.”

I like sports. I like viral videos (Put them together, that’s what I want! <<< Inside Joke), so I clicked on the link. 450ish views? Viral, you say? What made this video so good that Peter was determined it would go viral? It only took me 7.3 seconds to get sucked in and 30 total to realize Peter was right. This video is epic, and quite possibly the best commercial (hard to call it a commercial) I’ve ever seen. Just watch:

As of 5PM Monday, May 24th, the video had 6.85 million Youtube views. As of 8AM Tuesday, May 25th, the video has 7.65 million Youtube views. So, as predicted by Peter, the video has gone viral. Why? First, the concept is brilliant, and universal. Whether you’re a football fan or not, everyone can understand and get lost in the idea of changing the world and writing the future. Second, Nike is a massive brand. Anything they do is seen by a good amount of people. Third, the event around which the video was centered, The World Cup, is a beyond-massive brand. The World Cup is unquestionably the world’s biggest sporting event, even though we Americans would like to think it’s the SuperBowl. No other sporting event affects the world’s population as much as the World Cup. Fourth, Nike Football hired famous Hollywood director and producer Alejandro G. Iñarritu (21 Grams, Babel) to direct the commercial, and he crushed it. The cinematography & art direction is brilliant (loved the Ronaldinho Youtube touch). Finally, the cast is insanely star-studded, including appearances by world-class footballers, Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Fabio Cannavaro, Ronaldinho, Landon Donovan (to name a few), as well as special guest cameos by tennis great, Roger Federer, NBA superstar, Kobe Bryant, and fictional cartoon character, Homer Simpson.

After watching the commercial (four of five times), I headed over to Nike Football’s Facebook Page to see what they were doing there. Since I hadn’t yet liked the page, I landed on a custom tab titled, “Write the Future,” and was directed to “Hit the Like Button. Watch the Future.” I did so, and proceeded to watch a ten minute video about the making of the commercial (which included the actual full-length commercial not once, but twice). Nike Football also integrated one of Facebook’s new plug-ins, the Activity Feed, into the tab. Pretty cool!

I don’t even like football, but this commercial got me amped. So much so that I tweeted about it, posted the video on my blog, shared it with the entire VaynerMedia team, and now have written a VaynerMedia blog post about it. While I still probably won’t watch that much of the World Cup, I guarantee I will watch more than I would have prior to seeing the commercial. I also know that my co-worker, John Oates (who on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of how much he likes football, is a self-professed ~5.25), just said, “I want to cry” and “I just want to keep watching it over and over again” after watching the commercial. Another coworker, Keith Holjencin, who (designed the image for this blog post and) “knows nothing about soccer,” said he was “blown away.”

The point is, the world is talking about this commercial, and this campaign is an absolute home run… or game-winning goal? It’s a fantastic concept (“Write the Future”), it was incredibly well thought-out and well-executed, and its target audience was pretty darn widespread, which couldn’t have hurt. And if I, a non football fan, feel this way about the commercial and the campaign, imagine how passionate football fans must feel (kinda like how Philadelphia hockey fans must feel about the Flyers right now). The commercial just sucks you in until the very last second.

I have so many questions. How much money did Nike spend on this campaign? How much time did it take to conceptualize, plan, and film? Who was the decision maker that said “go ahead?” I would love for Nike to release an article with all of this information, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.

What do you think about the commercial? Had you seen it before this post? Does it change your views on football? Who was the biggest winner because of the campaign? Nike? The World Cup? The game of football? What other campaigns have you seen centered around the World Cup? Would love to hear your thoughts and continue the conversation below!

Tonight is the NBA’s Draft Lottery, where the league’s bottom fourteen teams (every team that did not make the Playoffs) find out their picks in the NBA Draft. The Nets finished the year with the league’s worst record, and thus, have the best chance (25%) at the enviable #1 pick.

It is customary for each team in the Lottery to bring a good luck charm to the event. Each team’s representative typically gets a chance to display the good luck charm on television. In the past, teams have brought everything from a horseshoe to a crystal ball.

While the Nets’ representative, new owner Mikhail Prokhorov, will bring a good luck charm to the event as expected, the team has a second (digital) good luck charm this year as well. This morning, we helped the Nets launch www.NetsGoodLuckCharm.com, a site that will only exist until shortly after the end of the NBA Lottery later this evening. The site is a place for Nets fans to come wish the team good luck in obtaining the first pick in next month’s NBA Draft.

NetsGoodLuckCharm.com takes advantage of several of Facebook’s new social plugins (Activity feed & Like button) as well as Twitter OAuth, to give Nets’ “like”-ers and followers the chance to wish their team good luck without leaving the page.

Overall, the site is really a tribute to the fans who withstood a difficult season and have shown continued support through social media (and elsewhere). And we’re all hoping they can bring the team some good luck!

What do you think about this initiative? How have you seen other sports organizations incorporate their fans into significant moments? Let’s discuss in the comment section!

We live in a world where we can now see, and even better, participate in conversations that would only have happened behind closed doors even just a few years ago. How times have changed! In the past few weeks alone, I saw three tweets from professional athletes that really made me thing about how lucky we as sports fans are, to live in today’s world.

Chris Bosh

Last week, Chris Bosh tweeted, “Been wanting to ask. Where Should I go next season and why?” Later, he clarified, “Ok… Let me rephrase the question. Should I stay or should I go?” If you weren’t aware, this is a massive summer for the National Basketball Association. Several of the leagues stars and superstars are on the free agent market (e.g. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh), and their decisions will have a major impact across the league (Some argue, and I agree, that LeBron’s decision of whether to stay in Cleveland or head elsewhere has implications far beyond basketball. If LeBron leaves, the team folds, fans stop attending the games, the city’s morale takes a hit, and so on, and so on).

What’s so awesome about Bosh is that he has given the fans a chance to have a say in his decision on whether to stay in Toronto or sign with another team. Who knows how much the fans will influence his decision, but I can tell you this, if one team’s fanbase really steps it up and shows love for Chris Bosh, their support could have a very big impact on his decision, so long as the team itself is a good fit in his eyes. What player wouldn’t want to play in front of a team whose fans showed you tremendous support from the beginning? Thousands of  fans have responded to Bosh so far. It will be interesting to see where he goes!

Jeremy Shockey

Fans aren’t the only people who can sway the decision of a free agent. Last week, Jeremy Shockey tweeted, “Dear Sharper pls dont sign with the Jags.. you have a home in New Orleans!!” Darren Sharper, veteran NFL Safety, became a free agent after the 2009-10 and had several suitors during the offseason. Shockey, understanding the importance of Sharper remaining a New Orleans Saint, voiced his opinion and his concern publicly to his 48 thousand Twitter followers.

Several days later, Sharper reportedly re-signed with the Saints. Now, again, who’s to say how much Shockey’s tweet influenced Sharper’s decision? In the end, it probably had very little do with Sharper’s return. However, the point is, that we as fans were able to see this simple but personal message sent out from Jeremy Shockey to one of his teammates, which probably wouldn’t have happened before the Twitter era. Athletes are simply more wiling to speak their minds about previously private matters in today’s world.

Chris Harris

On April 27th, Carolina Panthers Safety, Chris Harris, was traded to the Chicago Bears. The crazy thing is, Harris himself tweeted about the trade, before it even happened! ““Breaking News,” he said, “I will be traded to Chicago Bears. Carolina u have been great and deeply missed. I have a special place in my heart for you.” Just moments later, he tweeted, “Oops!! I jumped the gun! Trade isn’t confirmed yet. I’ll confirm or deny on http://facebook.com/nfl.chris.harris.” And later that afternoon, Harris posted to his Facebook wall, “The deal is done. I’m now a member of the Chicago Bears. I’ll be back here on Facebook a little later to tell you Carolina Panthers fans how much I love ya and you Bears fans how much I look forward to playing for you again.”

I’m not sure exactly what happened, whether Harris did really jump the gun, or if his representation just got nervous about him tweeting the news himself. Whatever the case may be, it happened. Prior to social media, players would never have the chance to personally break news about this kind of thing. Sure, maybe they could feed it to a reporter who would break it himself, but now players have the ability to control the message. You may not have heard about this, because Harris is a relatively low profile player in the league, but imagine if it had been someone the mainstream media cared about. Or maybe, just maybe, the media didn’t pick this story but because of fear that their job just became a little more obsolete.

Conclusion

My point is this: social media has forever changed when and how information is distributed from leagues, teams, and players, to the fans. We are seeing and influencing conversations like never before because there has been a shift in who controls the content. Please don’t take any of it for granted.

While I titled this post, “Sports Fans: Don’t Forget How Lucky We Are!,” I easily could have dropped “Sports Fans” from the title, or even called it, “Brands, What a Massive Opportunity You Have!” The point is that 1. This post can apply to all industries, and 2. Brands need to realize that they have the opportunity to engage customers and fans on a completely different level than they previously could, and in some instances, let them (feel like they) have a part in a real-life decision.

http://twitter.com/jeff_green22/status/9591728463
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9591974924
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9591798600
http://twitter.com/jHARD13/status/9591859226
http://twitter.com/jeff_green22/status/9591830820
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9592076447
http://twitter.com/jHARD13/status/9592173845
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9592244850
http://twitter.com/jHARD13/status/9592395178
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9592157954
http://twitter.com/jeff_green22/status/9592213766
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9592264417
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9592514335
http://twitter.com/jeff_green22/status/9594388406
http://twitter.com/KDThunderup/status/9594103786

As the season progressed, I grew more and more attached to this Thunder team.  At first I attributed it to the how the team was constructed; even fans of other teams seem to have a soft-spot for OKC.  Slowly it started to dawn on me that the real driving force of my affection was the fact that when I watched the Thunder play, I felt a real connection to the players.  As anyone who follows sports knows, athletes are given every incentive in the world to remain as bland and inoffensive as possible.  Rocking the boat can result in lost sponsorships or league fines.  Unfortunately, that means that it’s incredibly difficult for fans to get a real feel for the people they’re rooting for.

With the Thunder it was different.  When I watched them, I felt like I had an understanding of how the team played off one another that went beyond sterile newspaper fluff stories and ESPN profiles.  What really drove it home was when the Broingtons stopped tweeting in order to focus on their first round matchup against the Lakers.  It was only in the absence of their tweets that I realized how large of an effect they’ve had on how I view the team.

There’s a lesson here for all brands.  While its tempting to keep brand messaging traditional and controlled, there are major benefits to be had for opening up and adding humanizing aspects.  The beauty of giving your brand a personal voice on Facebook or Twitter is that as a marketing vehicle it’s unobtrusive but still effective. People naturally want to know behind-the-scenes information, its why people listen to director’s commentaries or read tabloid magazines.  Giving them the opportunity to do so can be an easy way to create a stronger attachment to your brand.

Then it hit me: is Calipari doing this so that he can have an unimpeded stream of communication to blue-chip recruits? I began to investigate how he was using his Twitter account and if his feed was full of recruiting tweets. I thought that 99% of it would consist of tweets like:

UKCoachCalipari: Hey @BlueChip, UK is the place for you. Coach Cal loves you!

But it wasn’t. His 300,000+ followers enjoyed tweets about his schedule, post-game thoughts, insights about his family and even the occasional “guest tweeter” (he had University President, Dr. Lee T. Todd, fill in for a while). It seemed that this “behind the scenes” look, which I was certain would affirm my premonitions that Calipari was a diva, exposed him as a completely normal and likeable guy who never used social media for recruiting. I felt jipped. What’s more is that in an interview with ESPN.com, he said: “The one thing I like is that it’s a little bit of an unobstructed view. They get to know what you are and how you are and how you think without someone telling them who you are, what you are and how you think. There’s something there, and Twitter doesn’t even know what it is. No one knows what it is. You know what I’m doing? I’m having fun with it.” I had my preconceived notions about this guy and he goes and uses Twitter, a platform that my job relies heavily on, to make me look like an jerk who jumps to conclusions. Great.

Even after reading that, I couldn’t understand how a guy like Calipari, who would do anything to win games, wouldn’t utilize this relatively unregulated platform to win over recruits. Having gone through the recruiting process when I was graduating from high school, I realize how rabid college coaches can be when competing for your signature. I also realize how much of an upper hand Boston College had when my whole family connected with the coaching staff. That connection was a direct result of the quality and sincere interaction I had with them, and it led to me signing there. When interacting with a recruit, coaches have an immense amount of pressure to make a lasting impression because the regulations around how much time they have and how they communicate are strictly enforced by the NCAA; violation of these rules can lead to anything from a small fine to being withheld from post-season play and beyond. What social media engagement does is alleviate some of that pressure by giving coaches more time to make an impression. It wasn’t until I read the “NCAA Social Media Rules” that I began to understand that coaches aren’t even allowed to @reply a player or mention his/her name; however, they can DM or Facebook message them, an activity that is governed under the same rules as email contact.

While social media recruiting is not quite the “Wild West” that I initially thought it was, it’s still a very fulfilling form of communication for coaches, especially since most of their recruits probably have smartphones with Facebook and Twitter right on them. This means that any message coaches send are read almost instantaneously by their addressees, making this one of the new paramount tools when trying to build your team.

And it seems the only valid way to verify anything regarding John Calipari’s social media recruiting tactics is to look at his Twitter DM’s and Facebook Messages. Until then, you’ll have to rely on your own unsubstantiated, preconceived notions.

Epilogue- Matt Sitomer (Chief of Staff) and Sam Taggart (fellow Project Manager) made a bet that NCAA coaches on Twitter will be banned by 2012; Matt thinks it will be banned while Sam thinks it will be embraced. Stay tuned to see who wins this multi-year bet.

Intro

Last week we facilitated a campaign featuring a partnership between the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the geolocation service, Gowalla (Update: please note that the New Jersey Nets are a VaynerMedia client, and VaynerMedia co-founder Gary Vaynerchuk is a Gowalla investor and advisor). Through the campaign we distributed 250 pairs of tickets as Gowalla virtual items in targeted locations (sports bars, outdoor parks, gyms) for the New Jersey Nets v. Charlotte Bobcats basketball game on April 12th. Users that found these virtual tickets were able to redeem them for actual Nets tickets at the arena’s box office.

Why

We saw this campaign and case study as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of geolocation for the marketing of unused and/or expiring inventory – especially for live events. We believe that any live event (including a sporting event) can utilize geolocation to move consumers to a venue, increasing brand exposure and helping drive business independent of ticket sales. This campaign also gave Gowalla the opportunity to provide their users with a unique reward (tickets to a live event) and user experience (winning tickets to a live event by checking-in on Gowalla).

Results

In an article titled, “Gowalla Will Try To Trick People Into Attending Nets Games” author Jay Yarow stated that “… If this stunt helps bring fans in, it would good for Gowalla. It would show that it can move consumers.” Could Gowalla move consumers? That was the biggest question surrounding this campaign, and it is our belief that Gowalla can move consumers. In this case study, we will detail how, against various hurdles / challenges, 15.2% of Gowalla winners attended the game.

The Future of Geolocation Marketing

We believe that this example is only the beginning of brands utilizing geolocation for the marketing of their live events and/or expiring inventory. Imagine the opportunities for:

Not only do these campaigns drive direct (and future) business, but these campaigns also introduce brands to new consumers and increase brand loyalty with existing consumers.

The Case Study

Below, we have provided the case study VaynerMedia prepared after realizing the success of this campaign. The case study expounds upon many of the ideas above and will give you a much deeper look into the initial brainstorm, pre-campaign buzz, implementation, execution, and analysis of this geolocation campaign.

Early Proof that Geolocation Marketing will Succeed

I think this rhythmic reliability I’m describing is a huge factor in the way I follow baseball. In general I feel like it is harder to enthusiastically follow something that occurs more sporadically, and the same goes for other types of content.

Even on the web, timing and reliability matter. You can’t rely on every customer or viewer to subscribe to your RSS feed or email notifications (try though you might). There will always be that stubborn class of users out there who just prefer to type in your URL at noon every day or 8 pm on Wednesdays and get new content. But if instead your new content is delivered unpredictably, that user can get lost in the shuffle.

Keep to the beat. Being reliable with your content makes a difference.

Overall, the discussion was dominated with Olympics-centric chatter so it was not much of a challenge to find Twitter conversation about the Olympics or the hockey game. However, what if you want to streamline conversation around a less global topic than the Olympic games?

Now that there are an increasing number of people throwing a tag on the end of their tweets, it becomes more of a challenge to use hashtags for their original purpose. Overuse has lead to dilution.

Solution: if you want to get a hashtag going around an event but want it to it to grow organically, rather than “gaming the system,” you should think about laying some groundwork first.

As March 3, 2010, otherwise known as NHL Trade Deadline aka “hockey Christmas” approached, we worked with the NHL to get the word out that the official hashtag for the trade deadline would be “NHLTrade.” The immediacy of Twitter has made it the perfect medium for trade rumors to spread like #wildfire and also for journalists, team personnel and fans to break trade news to the community, resulting in an explosion of conversation leading up to and during the trade deadline day.

To seed #NHLTrade as the official hashtag, the NHL started early, using it in Tweets starting on February 12, 2010–the day of the pre-Olympic break roster freeze. Over the course of the two week Olympic break, they posted tweets encouraging the use of use #NHLTrade for all trade deadline related tweets and @ replied fans speculating about the trade deadline. The background of the official @NHL Twitter page also displayed the hashtag and the URL for NHL Tweetmixx over the Olympic break to casually remind fans.

On March 3, @NHL started the trade deadline day with this tweet:

@NHL also tagged all tweets on March 3 with #NHLTrade an encouraged fans to respond with the tag as well

Result:

#NHLTrade trended for the entirety of the trade deadline, and was a top 10 trending topic in Canada  from 9:00 ET until after 5:00 ET. While “NHL trade deadline” also trended throughout the day in the US and Canada, the hashtag allowed fans and anyone else interested in a  streamlined option to track the trade related conversation.

While Santa did not bring any Earth-shattering trades with him for fans on hockey Christmas this year, the gift of NHL Trade Deadline, #NHLTrade and other hockey-related topics throughout the day sitting atop the top trending lists throughout the day were gift enough for those looking to continue the hockey love-fest post USA-Canada gold medal game.

As some of you may know, the New Jersey Nets are not having a great season. Through forty-six games, the Nets are 4-42. They are on pace right now to break the record for the most losses/least amount of wins (not good either way) in an NBA regular season. As a result, you can imagine how the fans are feeling at this point.

Remember this: winning cures everything. VaynerMedia also works with the New York Jets of the National Football League, whose season came to an end two weekends ago. The Jets had a great season, exceeding most people’s (apart from a few crazy and unrealistic fans) expectations, making it to the AFC Championship with rookies in many key roles, and two detrimental injuries early in the season. A majority of fans were very happy with the way the season went, and made their voices heard. However, despite the team’s success in the end, it wasn’t always pretty. When things were ugly, and the Jets looked to be out of the playoffs, the Facebook wall and Twitter feed were full of very negative comments. Just the way it is.

Anyway, sorry to go off on a tangent, but it’s all related. You see, the Nets aren’t winning at the moment. If winning cures everything, then losing just makes things that much worse. On Facebook and Twitter, many fans have understandably expressed constant disappointment in a team with a lot of young talent, but nearly nothing to show from it.

Last week, one fan left several comments on the Nets’ Facebook wall, explaining his frustration with an organization that, from his point of view, was failing to make the moves necessary to win games, and even worse, did not listen to the people who paid hard-earned money to support them: their loyal fans. For this fan, responses from the Nets’ Facebook account did not really count as listening, because he felt that whoever was in charge of the account was not in a position to make decisions. The real decision-makers of the organization, he thought, were unaware his complaints.

Bobby Marks, (decision-maker extraordinaire) Vice President of Basketball Operations for the New Jersey Nets, caught wind of the fan’s comments. He wanted to film a video for the frustrated fan, and all Nets fans, to let them know their comments were being seen and taken into consideration by high-level executives within the organization. The Nets may not be winning many games, but they care a great deal about their fans.

Sports fans complain a lot when things aren’t going well, and we are entitled to do so. Believe me, I’m a die-hard Philadelphia Phillies, Sixers, and Eagles fan, and Philadelphians complain more than anybody. Fans are also entitled to have their comments, questions, and concerns be seen by the decision-makers of the teams they support. The fans are the reasons professional teams and leagues exist, we pay a lot of the bills. Our opinions should count.

We now live in a world where brands (not just in sports) have a responsibility to listen to and interact with their fans. In sports, we have reached a point where the barriers between fans and teams/professional athletes have been broken down. It no longer takes a letter or a phone call to maybe receive a letter back or reach an answering machine. Twitter and Facebook allow for real-time commentary.

My message to fans: Speak up. You’re entitled and able to do so, now more than ever.

My message to executives and team personnel: If your fans matter to you, pay attention to social media.

However, I was surprised to learn when I visited their Olympics site that NBC actually has a great deal of social media integration. In fact, they are doing a lot of things right. What’s good and what’s bad? In the screen cap below, check out the neat “Olympic Pulse” box, featuring revolving recent tweets from various Olympic athletes and commentators.

Clicking through on Olympic Pulse takes you to a dedicated Twitter page with pulldown lists of athletes and journalists that tweet, sorted by name or by sport. You can see those individuals’ twitter streams embedded on the page. Clicking on an athlete’s name takes you to their profile page, with not only their tweets, but a brief bio and tabs linking to even more content. It was not immediately obvious to me how to follow that person on Twitter, but they do have a small follow button to the right of the profile. Ideally, that button should be much more prominent beneath the athlete’s name to expand the user’s experience beyond their singular visit to this page.

In addition, on the right side of these pages (though you have to dig pretty deep to find them on the actual home page), there are buttons for the general @NBCOlympics Twitter account, a Facebook application, mobile alerts, RSS, and widgets. They do not link to a Facebook fan page, which is a surprising choice, and the application has no activity (so far). I suspect they’ll use it to publish updates during the Games, but a fan page would afford them more versatility and greater reach.

The general Twitter account features a diverse stream of useful information about athletes, Vancouver, US qualifying rounds, etc. They also smartly use the Twitter Lists feature to make it easy to find other Olympic-relevant Twitter accounts. What’s missing is the interaction. Some of the tweets invite participation via comments on the NBC Olympics blog, but NBC could take better advantage of the social nature of Twitter (and Facebook) by keeping these discussions there, thereby capturing the attention of other users. Then, the ultimate move to engage with viewers would be to ask which athletes people would like to learn more about, or which events merit more coverage, and adjust not only their online content but potentially the actual television broadcasts in response to public opinion.

Overall, NBC is providing a lot of content and making it easy to learn about these athletes if you happen to find your way to their site. They could be using social media more effectively to drive more traffic and spread the word, but it’s a decent start. I’ll be monitoring how all this continues to play out as the Games begin in a few weeks. It will be interesting to see how viewers respond and interact with the network once this unique sporting event gets underway.

Let’s take a look at the four teams that are remaining, and why the NFL has reason to root for each of them.

Who’s left in the NFC?

The New Orleans Saints is a team with a high-powered offense, a much-improved defense. After starting 13-0 this season, they lost three in a row, but dominated the high-flying Arizona Cardinals this past weekend.

Why the NFL wants them to win: The Saints are a feel-good story. Their success over the past few years has helped to bring the city of New Orleans together after Hurricane Katrina tore it apart in 2005. Combine that with a team that scored 45+ points five times this season, and you are set.

The Minnesota Vikings are another high-powered offense, led by 40-year old Brett Favre. They faltered late in the season, but then beat down a very hot Dallas Cowboys team this past weekend, proving they are for real.

Why the NFL wants them to win: Love him or hate him, Favre has been impressive this year, and he is a huge reason the team has had so much success. He may have lost a few fans with his antics over the last few years, but having the chance for Favre to go out on top with a Super Bowl win would mean big ratings.

Who’s left in the AFC?

The Indianapolis Colts just found a way to win, all season long. They started the season 14-0, then lost to the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills as they rested their starters the last two weeks of the regular season. Last weekend, they mastered a great Baltimore Ravens defense. Now, the Colts’ offense will have to find a way to beat the number one defense in the league in the AFC Championship game.

Why the NFL wants them to win: This season, Peyton Manning won the NFL’s MVP award for a record-setting fourth time. Manning is the NFL’s darling. Not only is he arguably the best quarterback to ever play the game, but he is a great role model with a clean record and a very marketable and brand.

The New York Jets have had the quintessential roller coaster season. Their own coach, Rex Ryan, publicly accepted that his team was out of the playoffs after a late season loss to the Atlanta Falcons. Then, the team caught some breaks, won its last two games, and caught the fifth seed. Led by a dominant running game and shutdown defense, the Jets have won four straight, and rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez is turning it on in the postseason.

Why the NFL wants them to win: First of all, New York is a big, big market. While the Jets may be the clear underdog of the final four teams (many football fans believe the Jets don’t even deserve to be in their current position), if the Jets were to win it all, it would really reflect the parity in the NFL, the fact that any team can win on any given Sunday.

The Super-est of Scenarios

You could argue for each of them, but in my opinion, the best match-up the NFL could hope for is the Indianapolis Colts and the Minnesota Vikings, a game that would be billed as Peyton Manning vs Brett Favre. As previously mentioned, Manning is a four-time league MVP, he is one of the best quarterbacks ever, and has a clean, likable image. Brett Favre is a three-time league MVP, and is also one of the best quarterbacks ever. He had one of his best seasons ever in 2009, the same year he turned 40 (quite impressive). Peyton has a Super Bowl victory, but one more would add to his legacy considerably. Favre has one as well, and now has the chance to go out on top.

Both teams have very, very good defenses, but they won’t get talked about too much. If the Colts and Vikings play each other, it will be the offenses that get most of the glory. In a recent interview between ESPN’s Kenny Mayne and Colts’ star defensive end Dwight Freeney, Mayne asked, “Does it feel like defensive players get overshadowed by Peyton’s greatness?” Freeney responded, “Yeah, we don’t get our due. We could give up no touchdowns in a game, but the highlight on SportsCenter would be a seven-yard pass by Peyton to set up a field goal. But that’s how it goes in the NFL. Defense wins Super Bowls, but it doesn’t sell tickets.”

We shall see.

What do you think about the four teams left in contention for the Super Bowl title? Which match-up do you think is best for the NFL? Which do you most want to see?

Some athletes choose to retire, move away from the spotlight, hang out with their family for a while, and make up for lost time. Others (not many) have made enough money in their playing career to support themselves and their loved ones for the rest of their lives without doing much of anything, and are content doing so. However, for most athletes, the money will run out, and more importantly, they aren’t happy just ‘doing nothing.’ Those are the athletes I’m speaking to now.

Building an Online Presence Will Help You Stay Relevant

The eyeballs are shifting. People are spending more and more time on the Internet rather than in front of the television, and that trend won’t change. If you want to stay relevant, maintaining a personal site and building an online presence is the best option. Through social media, you can interact with the fans who supported you throughout your playing career, while earning new fans along the way. The content you create is up to you. If you no longer want to talk about or associate yourself completely with your sport, you don’t have to.

A Case Study: Jalen Rose

Let me talk for a moment about a retired athlete that I’ve had the chance to work with and get to know over the past six months. His name is Jalen Rose. In college, he played for the University of Michigan, and was a member of the Fab Five. He went on to play 13 years in the NBA and is now a studio analyst for ESPN/ABC. When Jalen retired, the decision on ‘what to do now’ was easy. He knew his second career was as a member of the media.

As a former pro athlete, he has always been known for his time on the court. When you hear Jalen Rose, you think basketball. His goal was to change that. In 2007, he started Three Tier Entertainment, an LA based management and production company, centered around the entertainment industry. Then, earlier this year, he began to really focus on his online brand. With the help of VaynerMedia, he revamped JalenRose.com, and started producing content on a regular basis. He has a Twitter account with over 40,000 followers, as well as a strong Youtube account, a Ustream channel, and a Facebook Fan Page. And through weekly Mashable posts, he reaches millions of people in a much different demographic than he was used to in his playing days (yeah, yeah, many Mashable readers may be sports-loving geeks, but many are not). Most importantly, he is talking about sports, entertainment, politics, and current events because he is knowledgeable and passionate about more than just basketball, and wants to share his opinions.

Conclusion

Just because your playing days are over does not mean you have to leave the spotlight. In fact, your retirement is a chance to expand your brand, and to connect with the people who showed you support during your career.

Which retired athletes who’ve left the spotlight would you most like to see online? Which retired athletes have done a good job of maintaining their presence through a personal website and/or social media?

In my opinion, any current athlete not on Facebook or Twitter is out of his (or her) mind. Social media can provide incredible value and opportunities for pro athletes. These are the top five things that every pro athlete should know about social media.

1. Produce content and interact… Consistently!

Effective use of social media depends on two things, the consistent creation of content and consistent interaction. Content can be anything. Ask a question, write a blog post, take a picture, film a video, or record some audio. Give your fans something to interact with. Then, once you do that, engage! Respond to as many people as possible (shoot for everybody who talks to you) across all of your social media accounts. That one dude who said your Youtube video was funny? He deserves a response, too.

2. Authenticity is incredibly important. (To the same effect, watch what you say)

If you are going to use social media, really use it. Don’t let your PR team or your assistant take control of your accounts because people expect you to be behind them. If a tweet comes from your account, or a status is updated on your Facebook fan page, we assume it is you. You don’t want to catch fire for a message you didn’t send out, right? Social media is finally giving you direct access to your fans. Take advantage of it.

3. It doesn’t take much to please your fans

All they/we want is a response. Take a look at the Twitter feed for Kerry Rhodes. It is full of @replies to fans who have taken the time to say hello or ask him a question. Sure, most of the responses are only a couple of words long, but it doesn’t matter. A simple “yes,” “no,” or “thanks” is all it takes to make your fans happy.

4. Social media can (and will) make you money (if used correctly)

Think about it. Two athletes of the same ability and demanding the same amount of money are on the market. One of those athletes has 250,000 Twitter followers and 45,000 Facebook fans. At some point soon, those social media numbers will give that candidate the edge. He will win because of his following, because he has all of those people to reach out to when the team is running a campaign or trying to sell tickets. Similarly, that candidate will look more attractive to sponsors.

5. Patience

Your numbers won’t come in a day. Or a week. Or even a month. You weren’t a professional athlete when you were six, twelve, or fifteen (unless you are Freddy Adu). It took time, effort, and endless practice to hone your skills, attract attention, and make it to the big show. So, be patient and work hard or you won’t make it. End of story.

What are the biggest lessons you have learned from using social media? How do they match up to this list? What other advice would you give a pro athlete, or anybody, trying to use social media for personal branding?

Die-hard hockey fans had been flooding Twitter with messages like “Is it hockey o’clock yet?” for months, so they were less of a challenge to pump up for those first pucks to drop. But what about the people just getting into hockey who might only know about their local team or were not aware the NHL had merged their Twitter accounts into one super-account, @NHL?

And thus, the #NHLPick15 contest was born.

October 3, the Saturday of opening weekend, was a hockey-filled day with all thirty teams in action and fifteen total games in four countries. While most other sports routinely have all the teams in action, especially on weekends, this is a rare occurrence in hockey. Perfect set-up to get people to think beyond one team or game and instead showcase how exciting all 30 teams can be.

We conceived the contest with Mike DiLorenzo, the NHL Director of Social Media, to accomplish all of our main goals:

1. Getting fans interested and engaged in games one through 15 on October 3, and not just “their team’s” game.

2. Attract more fans to follow @NHL on Twitter.

3. Get fans not only following but also interacting with @NHL on Twitter.

4. Attract new fans with a game that would be appealing to users outside of the avid fan base.

The #NHLPick15 contest had a few simple requirements: 1. You had to be following @NHL on Twitter. 2. You need to fill in the accepted three letter code for each team you thought would win Saturday’s match ups. 3. Fill in your guess for total number of penalty minutes as a tiebreaker and 4. include the #NHLPick15 hashtag.

A combination of frequent Tweets from @NHL, NHL team accounts and supporters helped spread the word as we reached out to bloggers to help reach fans outside of Twitter that the contest was worth a look. Many media outlets ran stories, including MediaPost and PRWeek. There was also extensive blog coverage, as blogs like SNY Rangers Blog and KingsCast wrote great posts on the contest, and Mashable posted a widely circulated piece called The NHL’s Latest Social Media Push: A Twitter Contest on the NHL’s creative use of social media.

The Twitterverse was also abuzz with the contest, resulting in many Tweets praising the NHL for embracing social media and using it to connect with fans and give them a cool experience:

While there were a few hiccups in round one of the contest, the response was overwhelmingly positive and in addition to the more than 2,000 entries received, @NHL was inundated with requests to host another similar contest.

TRUTH IN NUMBERS

The success was in the numbers. Prior to running the first round on #NHLPick15, @NHL had 6, 323 followers on Twitter. By the conclusion of the contest, that number had jumped to just over 9,000 followers. That Monday, the excitement and surge in engagement with @NHL helped earn the NHL a place on the Suggested User List on Twitter, which has fostered steady audience growth over the last month.

After running round 2 of #NHLPICK15 (discussed below) @NHL followers jumped from 65,021 followers to just over 80,000 by the conclusion of the contest. Excitement over that initiative and others over the course of the week, in addition to being on the suggested user list helped @NHL gain its 100,000th follower on the evening of October 29.

“The success of initiatives such as #NHLPick15 reinforce how important social platforms are to the NHL strategically,” said DiLorenzo.

Mike DiLorenzo, who is Director of Social Media by title and ‘NHL Social Czar,’ according to the NHL Fans page he launched in August, is tasked with growing the NHL’s social media presence and finding new ways of finding and engaging fans.

“Social media helps us capture two significant opportunities. First, it enables us to create meaningful and positive experiences for fans that are tied to the NHL shield as a whole. Second, it helps shrink the distance between the fans and the League by taking the excitement of NHL hockey to the fans and potential fans where they already flock,” added DiLorenzo.

#NHLPICK15   ROUND 2, OCTOBER 24, 2009

For round two, we created a page where entrants can simply click on the teams they think will win and write in how many total penalty minutes they think there will be, and a tweet is automatically generated:

In addition to simplifying the entry process, the generated tweets increased the viral nature of the contest as they included a link back to the entry page, so any of the entrants other Twitter followers or random lurker in the Twitterverse could happen upon their tweet and decide to enter without actively seeking out the form. Pretty nifty.

The entry page lived on the front page of NHL.com for the duration of the contest which helped spread the word about the contest beyond the confines of Twitter. The second round of #NHLPick15 also helped to inspire more blog coverage of the contest, including a great write-up by the Puck Daddy himself, Greg Wyshynski, featuring an interview with DiLorenzo on the contest and other initiatives: Inside the NHL’s Social Media Innovations, Growing Pains.

Unfortunately, due to several upsets and surprises during both #NHLPick15 Saturdays, no one won the grand prize of a trip for two to any NHL game! However, there were 10 entrants chosen at random from each round who won free GameCenter Live subscriptions. And lots of users who watched (and enjoyed) games they might have skipped over before.

We are also happy to announce that we will be officially introducing an expansion of the #NHLPick15 contest next week, stay tuned for more info from @NHL.