Why you should go to the Digital Sports Fan Engagement Conference

Why you should go to the Digital Sports Fan Engagement Conference
by Kirk Wakefield – January 2014

The Digital Fan Engagement Conference to be held March 3-4, 2014, in Dallas (TX) looks promising.

Q1 Productions, a leading organizer of research-based, education program content, shared some content with us from some of the leading presenters. These interviews are posted in full on the Q1 productions blog and highlight the conference content.

Why should we go?

1. Best practices. The conference will highlight best practices in connecting with sports fans through advanced digital and social media strategies. The upshot is you’ll be more likely to develop content applicable and engaging for fans.

Speakers for the program represent leading experts among teams, universities and brands.

Tyler Tumminia
Tyler Tumminia

Tyler Tumminia, Senior Vice President of the Goldklang Group notes, “I am most looking forward to hearing and sharing the best social media practices, industry-wide. From Adidas to Nascar and everywhere in between, the Digital Sports Fan Engagement Conference will feature an array of experienced organization that leverage social media to create valuable content.” Tyler continues, “The conference is a tremendous resource for both fans and industry professionals to learn valuable practices on engaging fans via social media. Conferences where everyone is a creative sponge often lead to the best new ideas and adaptations.”

2. Interaction. All presentations will incorporate time for dialogue between the presenters and audience. So, the conference is, well, engaging. Brainstorming and knowledge sharing will allow for the opportunity to discuss and learn from shared experiences.

Chris Yandle
Chris Yandle

As Chris Yandle, Assistant Athletics Director, Communication at the University of Miami Athletics notes, “Social media is a telephone, not a megaphone. To be a successful brand, you can’t stand on your soapbox and just scream what you want to convey. You have to actively listen and communicate online. In order for your brand to be successful you have to provide customer service and give the digital sports fan content they can’t get anywhere else.”

We can learn from each other on what we’ve found works best in communicating with our fans.

3. Unique focus. With so much to discuss on trending topics, the conference will offer value and interest to teams and organizations throughout the sports industry. Focusing directly on fan engagement will allow for a unique and targeted discussion unlike any other conference program in the industry that we’re aware of. Here’s a look at just the first morning of the conference:

Digital Fan Engagement Conference
Digital Fan Engagement Conference

See you there

Who else plans to be there? Let me know (@kirkwakefield) and we’ll get together. For more information regarding the Q1 Digital Sports Fan Engagement conference, visit the Q1 website at www.q1productions.com/sportsfanengagement.

 


About Q1 Productions:

Q1 Productions designs and develops webinars, training courses, conference programs and forums aimed at specifically targeted audiences, including the life science and sports industries. Through a highly structured production process focused on research calls with end-users and key stakeholders in the industry, our team is able to understand the immediate business concerns of today’s leading executives. Whether focusing on new or pending legislative and health policy issues for the life science industry or upcoming marketing trends in the digital and mobile space for sports organizations, our programs provide solutions to the urgent educational and information needs of our attendees.

How NOT to run a team Twitter account

How NOT to run a team Twitter account
by Matt Briggs – March 2013

Newcastle United fans have their say on club’s Twitter use

Newcastle United supporters – a passionate bunch.

Digital communications is now the front line of fan engagement for football clubs. The Premier League is a world wide brand and online means messages instantly disseminate around the globe.

Just look at the number of followers a typical Premier League side commands – many exceed average league attendance, with more supporters lurking elsewhere in the deep, dark bowels of the internet. Not surprisingly how clubs use social media to connect with stakeholders generates strong opinions from supporters.

Newcastle United began using Twitter a few years ago with currently around 200,000 followers, one of the largest numbers in the league. I asked supporters about the club’s use of the platform to find out whether they thought NUFC’s use of Twitter put them top of the table or that the club is in a basement battle.

What do fans (not) want?

Supporters were asked five simple questions – whether they followed the club, what they liked, what they disliked, what they wanted to see more of and what they wanted to see less of.

First off, of those fans who responded 25% didn’t officially ‘follow’ the official Twitter account. The main reason for this, mentioned by 61% of respondents, was the glut of marketing messages sent out by NUFC. It turns out that spammy and invasive tweeting will put off even the most ardent supporter.

@NUFCOfficial

This complaint was not simply restricted to those who have opted against following @NUFCOfficial84% of all respondents made reference to the use of the Twitter account as a vehicle for little more than adverts as one of their main dislikes of NUFC’s use of Twitter and it was a commented on frequently by those surveyed:

  • “Too many tweets about club shop offers”
  • “They just use it to sell stuff from the shop in the main. They never reply to genuine questions”
  • “The amount of tweets about selling items instead of news about the club”
  • Getting spammed by offers of merchandise from the club shop. The club shop should get a separate account”

Oh dear. It’s pretty apparent that the club’s policy of using Twitter to drive traffic and increase sales isn’t well liked and probably isn’t working either.85% of fans said they wanted to see much less of it. But anyway, what about plus points?

To the surprise of no one, fans said they want to hear more about new signings.

When asked what they liked about the club’s Twitter almost 55% could muster an answer that wasn’t a variation on the word “nothing”. As you’d expect many of these responses focused on information that the club could publicise before anyone else, such as team line ups, signings and other breaking news:

  • “Team news on match day”
  • “Ticket announcements”
  • “Goal updates from matches are usually the quickest on Twitter”
  • “Picture galleries”

So it turns out there are a few redeeming features of the club’s Twitter use. However that cannot escape from the fact that the feeling among many supporters is that if engagement is the name of then game then the club’s presence is not fit for purpose. When pushed on what they’d like to see from the account an increase in interaction was at the top of the pile:

  • “More interaction with supporters. Better use of social media tools in general to connect with fans”
  • “Interaction with supporters. Greater innovation in terms of how it is used too. Twitter can be used for great things but Newcastle have not embraced it.”
  • “More interaction with fans”
  • “Fan engagement. A teeny tiny bit of opinion now and then and the odd exclusive signing pictures rather than having to pay for NUFC TV”

A nice, round 40% of respondents made some mention of increased engagement with supporters in some form or another. There was also a clear interest in more exclusive, behind the scenes content similar toManchester City’s Inside City video series. Granted, that’s not strictly a comment on Twitter but more proof social media must be coordinated cross platform.

I’ll leave the final word to one respondent who was pretty damning in his assessment of Newcastle’s use of the platform…

  • “They’ve totally missed the point of Twitter”