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Posts Tagged ‘social media’

How Twitter Has Changed Fan Interaction

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Slowly dying are the days of fans writing to their favorite athletes, then checking the mailbox for an autographed photo, ball or letter in return. Instead, Twitter, Facebook and myriad other social networks are giving fans the ability to connect instantly with sports teams and athletes. And now fans are getting responses that no one expected.

Two New England Patriots players recently showed the power of connecting via Twitter when they surprised fans with tickets to playoff games.

Chad Ochocinco, one of the most vocal athletes on Twitter, provided round-trip flight, hotel and tickets to the Patriots game against the Broncos to a Florida fan who had been tweeting at him for two years. The following week, Wes Welker surprised a fan who tweeted a shirtless, painted photo of himself at the game, which was played in single-digit temperatures. Welker was so impressed, he offered him tickets to the AFC Championship game.

The goodwill the athletes and, by proxy, their team got from each giveaway is hard to measure, but the sports industry is definitely taking notice. With the popularity of MLB’s Fan Cave and the New Jersey Devils’ Mission Control last year, teams and players are interacting with fans like never before, and Twitter is playing a huge role. According to @Pro_Athletes, there are more than 4,800 athletes on Twitter from all the major sports organizations. Athletes are using Twitter not only to interact with fans, but to support their sponsorship endorsements and comment on their sports. The recent NFL and NBA lockouts were great examples of how athletes influenced public opinion through their tweets.

Sports marketers spend hours every season dreaming up promotions that will help connect fans with their teams. The power of personable players tweeting back at their fans can be priceless. Although a recent Men’s Journal article suggested that the King of Twitter, Shaquille O’Neal, could make upwards of $5 million through sponsorship deals based on his 4.3 million followers, a monetary value of players’ non-sponsored tweets is still a ways off. But according to a study published in the International Journal of Sport Communication 17% of athletes’ tweets are responding to fans, the highest of all the content they share, and proof that athletes see the value of this interaction. You can be sure that teams are pondering how to leverage the popularity of their players’ interactions on social media, and that dynamic will factor into the ongoing relationships between teams and athletes.

So what’s next? Will fans constantly tweet at their sports heroes, hoping they’ll receive tickets? Probably. Even if they don’t, the one-on-one interaction fans get from Twitter is invaluable. It brings the excitement of talking to a player to their fingertips. And as long as athletes think before they tweet, Twitter will remain a great way to build their personal brands, enhance their teams’ images and transform the fan-athlete dynamic in ways we can only imagine.

Posted by Courtney Megliola | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: PR, social media, sports marketing, Twitter

Rocky seas for those ignoring social media, technology

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

The Boston Globe recently spotlighted a practice that gave pause to fish eaters in this seafood mecca. It was about a literal “bait” and switch taking place at area restaurants and food stores. The stories exposed discrepancies between what fish is on a menu and what you’re actually eating. “The five-month investigation showed that consumers routinely and unknowingly pay too much for less prized fish or buy seafood that is something other than what is advertised on menus. Nearly half the 183 fish samples reporters purchased at restaurants, grocery stores, and seafood markets were sold with the wrong species name.” Here’s a hint: be careful when ordering the red snapper.

But, as part of the series, Beth Daley and Jenn Abelson wrote a sidebar that revealed something interesting about marketing.

The Globe showed what some in the industry are doing to prove the fish they are serving is what they promised. It used fisherman Steve Arnold to tell the story of Trace and Trust, a program developed by fishermen and chefs to provide quality assurance to their customers. Immediately after hauling in black sea bass off the coast of Rhode Island, Arnold began taking pictures of the fish with his phone and then tweeting and emailing the photos. “Orders began rolling in before (he) even got back to shore.” The next night the fish found itself on the plate of diners at Boston’s 606 Congress restaurant in the Renaissance Hotel. Under the program, wait staff provide the diners an ID number and a QR code that allows them to use their smartphone to confirm where and when that fish was caught.

Not only does Trace and Trust allow fishermen to market themselves and sell their catch quickly, it provides them and restaurants the competitive advantage of verifiable freshness. Which is pretty important for those selling fish, especially in light of the Globe reporting. The approach transcends the fishing and dining industries. It’s a model for how all kinds of business – large and small – must begin to think about technology, transparency, social media and the new rules of marketing and communications.

Posted by Brian Heffron | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: 606 Congress, Beth Daley, Boston Globe, Communications, Fish, Jenn Abelson, Marketing, PR, QR, Renaissance Hotel, social media, Steven Arnold, Trace and Trust, transparency, Twitter

Twitter: The New Newsroom

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

“Which tactic in this campaign surpassed your expectations?”

That was one of the questions winners at the PRNews Digital Awards were asked to address in their brief acceptance speech. As I sat there trying not to throw up at the prospect of having to give an acceptance speech, my mind immediately went to what I would consider to have been our most (surprisingly) effective tactic from Zenyatta’s “Quest for Perfection Campaign” for Breeders’ Cup.

The answer was easy: Twitter.

It sounded simple enough in theory when we were brainstorming ideas (and, admittedly, a little hokey) that we would set up a handle and Tweet as Zenyatta. People went wild for it. Through the combination of humor and exclusive access leading up to the biggest race of her career, Zenyatta grew a following of nearly 1,600 in less than one month. Stories online linked to her handle and her Tweets were being quoted – for the first time fans were given direct (somewhat) access to their favorite mare. We hadn’t even considered the horsepower (pun intended) that such a tactic would generate.

I love Twitter as a key communications tool, and that love grew during the Twitter panel at the PRNews Digital PR Next Practices Summit the following day. Burson-Marsteller’s Dallas Lawrence said something that resonated with me, “Twitter has become the mainstream newsroom.”

As PR practitioners, our landscape is continually evolving-the lines between news outlets and blogs, journalists and bloggers, fact and fiction is continually being blurred. You could make a solid argument that Twitter has been the most dominant force in that shift. Not only is Twitter where news tends to hit first – as opposed to the old days when the morning paper dictated “news of the day” – but it is also increasingly becoming a resource for journalists.

That same panel at the conference cited a recent study that said nearly half of all journalists turn to Twitter for information and sources. HALF. If you’re not on Twitter, you’ve just significantly reduced your odds of being sought out as a resource by a journalist. Having an opinion, a voice, in this day and age is not only necessary, it’s expected. So easy, even a horse can do it.

Posted by Jenna Browning | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: Breeders' Cup, social media, Twitter, Zenyatta

Social Buying, a Step Further

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Daily deal sites Groupon and LivingSocial may have finally met their match. Today American Express and Facebook launched the AmEx Link, Like, Love platform that is generating quite the buzz in the digital business world—and rightfully so. (You can read more on the platform in USA Today, TechCrunch and Fast Company.)

Boston-based (and CTP neighbor) Brand Networks is the developer behind the application, and having read a few articles so far on the launch I have yet to see them receive any ink for their work. Well, I wanted to make sure to give credit where credit is due (and, kudos!), but most of all I’m left wondering, “How had no one thought of this before?”

So what does this alliterative application mean for consumers? Link, Like, Love allows people to link their AmEx directly to their Facebook account, which will then provide them with special offers and discounts directly to their card. Essentially, it’s paperless coupons capitalizing upon a method of payment already employed by 90 million cardholders. Imagine the amount of information AmEx is now able to gather on its users, beyond shopping habits. (Scary, right?)

Of the 90 million AmEx cardholders, the American Express Facebook page only has 2 million fans (including myself, a non-American Express cardholder). A huge number, but that’s barely over 2% of its customer base. AmEx no longer wanted to be thought of as “your father’s credit card,” so they met the younger demographic in its space. Smart move number one by American Express.

Smart move number two? Capitalizing upon something that’s relevant to the younger audience: discounts. Now, as an active Groupon, LivingSocial, RueLaLa, “refuse to pay for something full-price since I know it will soon go on sale” shopper, this is the part I’m most intrigued by. Clearly this is a great opportunity for retail outlets and restaurants, but only time will tell how people will respond to having their shopping habits and their social activity directly linked. But as we all know, American Express packs a pretty hard punch when it comes to driving consumer behavior, so the benefits to companies getting involved could be extraordinary.

I’m curious to see how many other companies are now able to follow suit, but I have a feeling Amex may own this space for a while. By the sole fact of being a credit card company, AmEx completely boxes out the majority of other companies out there that might have the technological and business know-how capabilities to compete, but lack the credit card consumer base. More importantly, how many other credit card companies will be willing to invest the time and money into developing something as robust as this?

Well played, American Express.

Posted by Jenna Browning | Share: Twitter, Facebook, Del.icio.us, LinkedIn

Tagged: daily deals, Facebook, social media

Twitter banking on new ad approach

Monday, July 18th, 2011

The media landscape is about to change yet again. As Twitter moves to raise $400 million in funding it will test a new application programming interface (API) that will allow major advertisers to use two formats to push out ads in large quantities.

Twitter has experimented with promoted tweets, accounts and trends over the past year. But through this new platform ads will be pushed directly into a users’ stream. Promoted Tweets to followers will allow an advertiser to sponsor any tweet that users post. Promoted Accounts will allow advertisers to promote their Twitter account to other users. Speculation has Twitter introducing a self–serve ad platform by the end of 2011. Currently, advertisers must work through a sales person to place their ads.

Twitter has been behind other social media applications when it comes to advertising and this move could certainly give the company its desired boost. I have to wonder, though, at what cost?

As a media professional, I am always seeking the next unique vehicle to reach our clients’ consumers in relevant environments. The caution is to reach them in a way that doesn’t aggravate them. Since Twitter has yet to disclose full capabilities of the API, on the surface it appears to be a solid platform to showcase a client’s message, much like Facebook has become. Will users click on ads or retweet them, proving success and providing a sound ROI? That’s obviously the hope.

Twitter’s move to flood its space with advertising, however, might result in a negative effect on the user. The absence of blatant advertising has been welcome by those who embrace Twitter as a tool for news and information sharing. It does appear that Twitter is going to move slowly in rolling out this new platform in an effort to minimize any negative effects. Time will tell if the boost in revenue for Twitter will outweigh annoying their users. If it doesn’t it runs the risk of pushing them toward other platforms, such as the new Google+ network.