My belief was this week backed up by Facebook’s Director of Local, Emily White, who said, “the general rule is, you’re in pretty good shape if you’re posting three times a week. That gets you to a pretty sweet spot. Any more would be just too much”.

So often I see organisations using the wrong social media tool for the wrong update. One of the biggest mistakes I see is sporting organisations and teams using Facebook to provide match-day updates. I follow a number of different sports on Facebook’s and the Facebook strategy is different for each – some update too much, some don’t update enough.

Why is it a bad idea to provide score updates as Facebook Page updates?

Finding the “sweet spot” that White talks about is really nothing but common-sense, but many still get it wrong.
Update too few times and your fans forget about you, lessening the chances you’ll appear in Facebook news feeds and acquire new fans. Update too often and you risk being ‘unLiked’ for clogging up fans’ news feeds.

Why update Facebook three times per week?

When you update every couple of days with quality content you are letting your fans know that you want to be a part of their online life and want to provide them with content that they’d appreciate, whether that be information, updates, player profiles, images, videos etc. It’s important to remember that the updates are for the fans, not you!

Not everyone checks their Facebook news feed every day, nor do they all have 424+ friends and follow 87 brand pages, so your content may be one of the very few things they see.

Updating every couple of days will help ensure your Page updates are part of a ‘balanced diet’ in their news feed. Too much ‘fat’ or ‘too big portions’ and you’ll risk being cut out with a diet by fans – you could be unLiked or your updates hidden by the fan.

The right social media tool for the right update – Facebook vs. Twitter

If you want to update more than three times per week, especially if you are covering a live event or match, a better option is to use Twitter.

People who are on Twitter are more conditioned to receive massive amounts of updates due to the nature of the platform. This makes Twitter the perfect vehicle for your match updates where you can tweet:

• Score updates
• Penalties, fouls, substitutions, match times, crowd figures
• Crowd reactions, commentary on play
• Short videos and photos of the match and crowd

If you don’t use Twitter, or are determined to use Facebook for your live event or match updates, a better strategy is to create one post for use during the event/match and provide any subsequent score or other updates as a comment, the same way your fans interact with the post. This means that your community/fans can be updated, but not inundated.

This is also a good strategy due to the fact that the more people who interact with a post, the more likely you are to appear in the Top News feed of your fans.

The asterix

There is, however, an asterix after ‘three times per week’ for Facebook updates. If you don’t have anything interesting to say or share, don’t update at all.

Figuring out the content that your community or fans like takes time and requires a little bit of trial and error, but there are a few key things that make for interesting updates that get Liked:

1. Give fans what they can’t get anywhere else – inside tips, photos not on your website, videos that show personality of your brand/players/team/organisation.
2. Don’t talk at your fans, treat them with respect - put them on a pedestal in the same way they put your players/team on a pedestal as without them, your organisation/team doesn’t exist.
3. Avoid the hard sell – one of the quickest ways to be unLiked is to be self-centred and ‘sell’ to the user. Phrase your ‘sell’ in a way that is beneficial for the fan, not you as a brand.
4. Allow fans to socialise and give their opinion – you may not always like what your fans have to say, but giving them the chance to have their two cents creates better bonds between fans and brands.

I hope to see more sporting teams and organisations using Facebook and Twitter more appropriately, so that fans are better engaged and informed and brands are better supported.

Alana Fisher is a senior marketing and communications strategist, currently consulting at Football Federation Victoria to revamp their online and social presence.  She recently managed the digital and social media for Australia’s 2022 FIFA World Cup Bid and the Socceroos at FFA.

We have set up a special education discount price at a very affordable $240.

If you are a student, and would love to come along, click on the below link for a discounted rate:

Special Education Discount rate ($240.00)

Please note: Student identification will need to be produced on the day to gain entry.

For any questions or more information, please contact james@digitalsport.com.au.

With the AFL having recently signed a deal for $1.25 Billion in the latest round of media rights, and a reported deal in excess of $100 million for internet rights. We will delve into successful case studies of online usage overseas, how the AFL will be broadcasting all games live to mobile devices, and how traditional media will be impacted.

We are pleased to have Kyle Spencer (Golden State Warriors), Brad Schultz (Telstra AFL), Valerio Veo, Head of News & Sport at Channel 10, and will be chaired by Nick Truelson, Chief Commercial Officer at the Western Bulldogs.

The panel will kick off at 2.45pm.

In football lexicons, ‘front and centre’ is where coaches want their players to be. At the foot of the contest, where the ball is, right in the thick of it. In the communications mix, social media puts fans ‘front and centre,’ up close and personal with their favourite codes, teams and players.

Now for most of you reading, this is probably stating the obvious, but it can’t be taken for granted the value of maintaining open and regular communications with your members and fans. If there’s anything I’ve learnt in my years at Athletics Victoria, it’s this.

Members are the people that pay their annual affiliation fees, attend and participate in your events, buy your merchandise and products. Members are the people you need to make feel included, informed and valued. To this end I’d argue that engaging in the social media sphere is an essential member service for sporting organisations of any size or stature.

Athletics, like many Olympic sports in Australia, doesn’t garner the same level of mainstream media attention that the major football codes and other professional sports, like cricket and netball, receive. If you’re a fan of these high profile sports, then you could arguably survive on the diet of news supplied by mainstream media. When your passion and interest lie in what the Australian sporting landscape might consider a ‘niche’ sport, then news and information via these channels is often hard to come by.

Whether it’s creating photo galleries on Facebook, posting race videos on YouTube, linking to website news items on Twitter, or any combination of the above, well-maintained social media channels puts information in the laps of those who crave it. It puts fans and members ‘front and centre.’

Athletics Victoria’s most successful digital venture to date has been on YouTube, and the creation of athsvicTV (www.youtube.com/athsvicTV). Aiming to compensate for the lack of free-to-air broadcast coverage of athletics, Athletics Victoria created athsvicTV three years ago. The regularly updated channel now include a variety of self-generated content, including event highlights from state, national and international meets, athlete interviews, and even a talk-show. Not to be outdone by the major free-to-air networks, we’ve also added athsvicTV2  (www.youtube.com/athsvicTV2).

Between the two channels we’ve received over 500,000 video views, developed a loyal following of athletics fans, and regularly feature in YouTube’s daily and monthly ‘most viewed’ listing in our category. We’ve also had broadcast networks use our vision and content for news bulletins and other sports programming. YouTube as a platform has played an important part in helping us circulate regular content, and create an important ‘value-add’ service for our organisation.

Combining athsvicTV with Athletics Victoria’s Facebook (www.facebook.com/athsvic) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/athsvic) presence, our digital strategy is based around creating content and building an information resource for Athletics Victoria members and athletics fans alike. It’s about providing easy access to the news and details that are important to them, and ultimately – you guessed it – putting them ‘front and centre.’

Tom Nickson is the Communications Manager at Athletics Victoria. A former national champion rower, Tom is a passionate fan of all sports with a keen interest in digital media. He is also a freelance announcer and commentator, having recently worked with Athletics Australia, Melbourne Vixens and the Stawell Gift. Tom had the privilege of calling the 50^th Anniversary Zatopek:10 athletics meet with Bruce McAvaney at Olympic Park last year.

Last year, Digital Sport Summit founder Anthony Alsop, was lucky enough to interview Nick, and gained some fantastic insight into  the team, his other role at the Bucks and how the Bucks came to be in new media in the first place.

Nick, how did you come to work at the Bucks?

Nick: I graduated from college with a degree majoring in Internet-Based Marketing, so I’ve always had an interest in the internet. I arrived at the Bucks the same summer Andrew Bogut was drafted. I started in the sales department where I sold season tickets.

What is your current role at the Bucks?

Nick: My main job right now is the senior lead of season ticket sales and retention; I help manage the team that renews our season ticket holders. I am also the head of New Media Development which social media is a major component of.

How did the Bucks get started in new media?

Nick: We kind of fell into it in 2008, when I started the @Bucks Twitter account. I was using Facebook and Twitter at the time, but the Bucks had no presence on either of these platforms, so I thought why don’t I start the official Bucks accounts? These days, if you see me around the Bradley Center (Milwaukee’s home court) I’ll more often than not have two phones out, updating either the Facebook or Twitter accounts. It’s great to keep our fans up to date with what’s going on. Twitter is a great platform to reach our international fans, or those around the US who can’t get access to the game via the internet, TV or radio.

Tell us about a typical day for you?

Nick: I’ll arrive at the Bradley Center around 830-9am, and prioritize my day. In terms of new media, I use an application for our Twitter account that allows me to set up automatic tweets, so I can do 10-15 tweets in as many minutes in the morning. This allows the account to be active throughout the day while I do other things. For each home game, our PR department puts out news and notes, and I like tweeting some cool facts or figures from them. I’ll also aim to get two or three Facebook status updates as well.

For my non-new media work, I look after my clients in the season ticket department, so I’m handling additional ticket requests and returning lots of phone calls.

What benefits have the Bucks seen from their involvement in new media?

Nick: I love hearing feedback from the fans on Twitter, so I’ll try and reply to as many tweets that I can. Social media has definitely driven more traffic to our website. Whether it’s for a game preview or for ticket sales, we’ve definitely seen increases in both as our presence on social media grows. Being able to send our fans to specific parts of our website through links on Twitter, is quite powerful. If there is a sale on tickets or merchandise, we can tell them exactly where to go on Bucks.com.

We’ve also been lucky that Jim Paschke (our long-time TV commentator) has been willing to do some videos for Bucks.com. We see the market demanding more video as both the internet and social media evolve, so it’s fantastic for us that Jim is willing to do some video content for the site.

Do the Bucks have a social media policy for their players?

Nick: We brief all our players on social media and web strategies, but our players are smart enough to know what to say and what not to say. The NBA has their own Social Media program in their induction week for rookies, so we don’t need to do too much on our end. I think we have one of the most active teams on Twitter. You can find Andrew, Brandon Jennings, Charlie Bell, Danny G, Luc Mbah a Moute and Royal Ivey all on Twitter.

What impact does social media have on your international fan base?

Nick: With one of our best players coming from Australia, you can imagine we have a pretty good following from down there. But it’s not only Australia, we also have players from Cameroon, Argentina, Slovenia and Turkey. In terms of international fans, our biggest market place is Australia, and then South-East Asia – we have over 10,000 fans from the Philippines alone and we’re also quite popular in Malaysia.

We’ve never really had an official channel to greet these fans before; I doubt these fans could point out Milwaukee on a map, but they can tell you who the Bucks are and who their favourite player is. That’s really cool.

Want to hear more from Nick? You’ll have to get down to Digital Sport Summit on June 8th…

After moving through the first year of my studies and morphing into life as a city slicker, I attended my classes and worked through my assignments without much further thought about the direction my career was taking. Early in 2010 though, a requirement to complete 70 hours of work placement at a sports organisation soon hit me with the realisation that I was not very well placed to hassle connections for a couple of weeks’ work.

Up to that point, social media to me was exactly that – Facebook took up large portions of the day sharing nothing more than friendly banter and photos from the weekend. Twitter was more of a news source and not something I checked too religiously. But after hearing classmates proudly discuss that their neighbour or dad’s mate was high up in his company and going to take them on, I learned I would quickly need to make some phone calls to people I had no connection to, on the off chance they would take me on. After scouring websites, I began to realise that Twitter (and other digital channels) was a common tool a lot of these professionals used.

In the ensuing weeks I tidied up my own Twitter account to give it a more professional look, and then sent one tweet and direct message after another to see what my chances of a placement were. Though many understandably said their placement positions were already filled, I found most were more than happy to steer me in the right direction, and generally happy to chat and introduce themselves.

My only close relative in Melbourne was somehow able to hook me up with a fantastic two-week experience with sports marketing consultancy, Gemba, in Southbank, plus some more follow-up work with the team in later uni holiday periods.

But despite this good luck, I had discovered in the meantime just how useful Twitter and digital media could be in the endless pursuit for networking, and in many cases, employment opportunities. Twitter became something I checked several times throughout the day, and the more people within the industry I began to follow and interact with, more and more would follow me. I began to write some blog posts in conjunction with a uni assignment, and watched in disbelief as the page hits went from 5 to 15 to 50 as I promoted it more through Twitter. The digital world was giving me some exposure to those in the industry I wanted to be seen by most.

This led me to discover last year’s Digital Sport Summit, and after seeing the line-up of guest speakers and the many companies who had already registered, I was desperate to become involved so I asked if I could help out at DSS in any way as a volunteer. They took me on and I am extremely thankful that they did.

Originally, this was simply to beef up my rather bare resume, but as the day came and went, suddenly I had met scores of new people, and picked up several business cards. I had set up a LinkedIn profile a few weeks earlier, and in the space of just a few weeks it grew from a couple of friends to a network of over 30 connections, and today it’s approaching 60 – almost all of whom I have worked with in some capacity over the past twelve months.

It was hard to believe how rapidly I had gone from having not one person in the industry to call, to such a large number of “official” connections – plus hundreds more I was building relationships with on Twitter.

Stemming from early last year and the Digital Sport Summit in July, building my career opportunities became more important, and in turn my uni course seemed to take on greater significance, with motivation levels far higher. Since then, I have been able to land some great work experience at the Melbourne Storm, the AFL Players’ Association, Cricket Australia and Digital Sport Australia – all of which came to fruition from relationships I built at the Digital Sport Summit.

Using the heavily interconnected world of digital media and sport, I had gone from envying my heavily networked classmates, to having them ask me how I’d landed work at these highly regarded sports organisations. I just tell them to get on Twitter!

Tyson Densley is in his final year studying Sport Management at Victoria University, Melbourne. He currently works part-time with both Cricket Australia and the AFL Players’ Association. Upon graduation, Tyson hopes to work within sports marketing and combine his passion for sponsorship, digital media and marketing.

Needless to say, when you are away with friends for any length of time, stories are shared and embellished until the truth can barely be remembered. But on an interstate road trip, somewhere between hours 3 and 5, the dashboard becomes a confessional and out come the ripping yarns only reserved for those lucky enough to be housed within the same steel carcass.

Great stories + Shareability = Social Media.

All this discussion around the steering wheel campfire got me thinking about how much we humans love story telling. And how lucky I count myself to be in the business of telling great stories. Because at it’s heart, social media is exactly that, a democratised platform, designed by humans to rapidly share the best stories.

Throughout history, people have spent their lives discussing everything from the finer points of French history to Buddy Franklin’s freaky deaky kicking style. But to me, it’s the stories between the major events that really matter. Whether it’s the story of a self made billionaire starting his computer empire from a garage in California or personal anecdotes detailing a recent (and rather traumatic) addition to your collection of tribal tattoos, the stories we tell define us by highlighting the parts of life we are most passionate about.

Growing up in an outer suburban household, my life revolved around three things; skateboarding, music and girls. Moving from NSW to Victoria made it easy for me to blame my crappy kicking on a state that didn’t know better as I slipped into my angry teens. Besides three gloriously bone-crushing State Of Origin matches, music was my language, helping me tell stories bigger and more fantastic than anything I believed came from a session of after-school basketball.

The dogs are barking

The big change came when I moved from the suburbs to the city. In Year 11, my best friend and I made a pact in which I promised to expand his live music experience from hip hop to Nirvana and he swore to help me see the point of AFL. And see it I did, through the eyes of his die-hard Western Bulldog fanatic family, complete with home made sandwiches and diet coke in hand. My brain went into overdrive, as the crowd roared “Deliberate!” and I mistakenly joined in with a defiant “On Purpose!”.

The passion. The strangled yelps of disgust as the umpires made yet another decision that seemed to confuse lifelong fans as much as a newcomer like myself. The exquisite skill and the mind-numbing mistakes. I was immediately swallowed up by the collective atmosphere and I was hooked for life.

Now all I needed was a career that allowed this kind of excitement all the time.

®evolution.

The question I am most often asked as a digital marketer is “What just happened?”

The answer is, people happened. Except most companies were so caught up enjoying the fruits of old school broadcast media interrupting our favourite shows that they failed to remember what it’s like to BE A HUMAN. Because humans like telling, sharing and amplifying stories. Because real humans don’t care if your stock price plummets, they only care if you are making them happy and giving them something worth talking about. That’s all we have ever wanted, but now we’ve got a way of spreading these stories with lighting speed so if you’re still boring you better get out of the way.

These days, I make my living by helping people connect with brands. This is invariably done by spending time with an organization, asking some them tough questions about who, what and why they exist. More importantly, by asking them why the hell anyone would care about what they have to say, especially in the highly democratised environments of Facebook, Twitter and whatever comes next.

So if you are in the business of gaining more eyeballs or ear drums (this means absolutely everyone, even if you don’t know what you’re selling quite yet), do us all a favour and go to a Grand Final. Hopefully, when you wake up the next day, the following equation will be abundantly clear.

Humans + Sport x Stories =

If you want to say something worth listening to, get passionate about ANYTHING.

If you want to understand passion… Buy a scarf and a ticket.

Murray Galbraith is a creative problem solver, specialising in emerging media opportunities. When he’s not begging Brett Kirk to come back to the Swans, he divides his time between companies and sports organizations as a digital strategy consultant at MurrayGalbraith.com

The problem with delayed telecasts (and the complaints seem to be gaining traction) is that anywhere you turn online, you see updated scores – Twitter and Facebook notifications on your phone, live scores on news websites and any number of web forums discussing the game. Is there really any incentive to watch the game – and more importantly for the TV channels, the ads – if you already know the results. I don’t know about you, but I recorded the game on the weekend so I could watch all of the important highlights without worrying about ads.

Sporting teams find themselves in a tough situation right now – they need to cater to fans on many different levels and, even on the internet, not all fans are the same. Half the Australian population is on Facebook and our Twitter use is the third-highest per capita in the world; and so many Australian sporting fans now combine sports viewing with interaction online.

Essendon Football Club have done quite well catering to the needs of fans who are active online but are faced with the prospect of delayed broadcasts – offering different options to those who want to know the score, and those who want to wait and watch on delay. In addition to their main Twitter stream (@Essendon_FC), Essendon has created a Twitter account specifically for those who do want to know the live scores – @EssendonLive. This dichotomy is harder to manage on Facebook, with the Club adopting a ‘if you don’t want to know the scores, look away now’ approach. Essendon’s attempt to placate fans, however, is only a symptom of a larger problem.

There is something wrong with broadcasting in Australia if champion NBA player Andrew Bogut can tweet about watching the game live in the USA and I cannot watch a game live in Melbourne. Live broadcasting associated with a live presence on social media can allow for new levels of fan engagement, but it also increases revenue opportunities for the AFL and teams. As social media becomes more integrated, clubs could look at new membership categories. Social media could also help the AFL and it clubs offer new conversation platforms for their sponsors – building brand awareness and goodwill there.

How should teams deal with delayed broadcasts? Should the different football clubs be lobbying the AFL to make live broadcasting a part of any new deal? Social media sites offer a new era for fan engagement as the online and offline nexus becomes more significant with new technology. Should the AFL insist on live broadcasting as part of any new package? Personally, I think so. It is in their best interest. Fans can no longer wait for the results and the AFL and teams are missing out on potential revenue streams.

Hamish Jones is a regular attendee of Digital Sport Events, and a freelance consultant with a passion for sport and how teams engage with fans. Check out his blog Fan Engagement.

Nick has also overseen the social media activity of the team’s taking it upon himself, whilst still in his ticketing role, to start the team’s social media channels.

Nick will be bringing his expertise on the topics of monetisation of the web via ticket sales through digital channels.

1. “The whole concept of social media is based on … how fundamentally different sport is to a regular business.” In sport marketing should be carried out vertically, the fans are the top and that is where marketing should aim. To convert a prospect into a fan – an advocate, a customer, hopefully a repeat customer – this is where social media can play a tremendous role.

2. “Another unique part about sport is that it is exclusive.” A fan is only a fan of one team, not another team. “Hopefully, again it does play a part in terms of social media compared to a non-sporting business.” It is important to attract children from a young age, as “people adopt a sporting brand early in life. It is what we call a defining moment in our marketing terminology.” A great way of achieving that is visiting primary schools in the form of school clinics, to get the interest of the children in your team.

3. Another factor for achieving success in sport is the engagement towards the brand, the tribal spirit. Numerous sports fans have Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. Social media can create that genuine sense of belonging: a paramount reason to support a brand. “We tend to have this very authentic, real, strong relationship with someone we meet on or Twitter that we wouldn’t have off-line.”

4. Fans feel exclusive, special, when sporting administrators communicate with them in social networks and send them information personally. This is a strong contributing factor to pushing them up the value chain as a customer.

5. Social media is a really useful vehicle in off-season to further attract fans to the brand. “There are 20 percent of people in social media that do not follow any brands at all.” Devoting a lot of resources and time on digital media, email campaigns etc. definitely pays off in the long term.

6. Providing club members contact details for fans is also a great way to enhance engagement with the brand and connect. “This year we will have a matrix of our website … with Twitter and Facebook accounts, to give the fans a multidimensional view of the club.” Especially in a crisis the correct management approach is communication, and it creates an immensely useful connection between the club management and its following.

7. To work towards converting the fan base into paying customers, the administration of the club can easily communicate with the fans whose email accounts they have. Various manners of promotion, such as discount tickets or exclusive offers can be offered, and communicating via email is much faster and cheaper whencompared to traditional mail outs.

8. In sports, the brand is what the public believes it is. “A brand is no longer what we say our brand is. But it is more what the fan, or the customer, or the public say your brand is.” Social media provide the opportunities for feedback on the brand status, as: “For some reason when you go online, the community is far more trustful and trustworthy than offline.”

9. Compared to conventional media, social media offers an advantage as “in sport there is no need for real time reporting. Social media allow you to do that, direct to the fans.” Online reporting is more authentic, more frequent and typically more engaging.

10. Launching keyword searches helps to obtain the public opinion in real time, using sites such as Backtype.com or Socialmention.com, or Google alerts to obtain statistics. “We have real time knowledge of what people are saying about us. We can monitor that.”

For some more highlights from Nick’s presentation last year, check out the material below:

Video from DSS10