As a marketing consultant, I move between industries and get exposed to different voices. Looking at new marketing techniques through a ’sports marketing’ lens gives a different view of the world from an SEO point of view. This week, a couple of reports based on statistical rigour from companies like Forrester and ComScore have shown that the effect of social media might be less than first thought and that location based services are well and truly the bleeding edge of marketing.

My hunch is that had these reports been positive, then the self appointed Social Media gurus / experts / specialists / consultants would have been retweeting and digging and backslapping all round, but instead – relative silence.

The ComScore Report about online shopping behaviour shows that very few people consult social media or blogs in the first instance when buying a computer or consumer electronics. Instead - manufacturer sites and search engines are the driving force.

The Forrester report looks at location based services and the results shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone who lives outside of a metropolis like London or New York or Melbourne. Forrester finds that 96% of U.S. online adults have never used location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt and of those who do, 99%  don’t update these services more than once per week. In fact, only 16% of respondents have never heard of such apps, leaving the vast majority of Americans online still in the dark about location-based apps, which have had the marketing world obsessing over them in recent months.

Apart from the lack of utility that these services provide people, letting your location be known in real time to a large number of people quite a big behaviour change in societies where privacy is highly valued. Nevertheless, in some markets there may be a brand fit between the audience for location based services and a company’s target market. If you are looking to target men between the ages of 19 and 35 who have college degrees, then location based services might be an interesting test for a fraction of your marketing budget.

With all the hype, real numbers based on research and not hearsay get lost, especially when they don’t help the nascent social media ‘industry’ sell consulting.  The lesson, apart from sticking to the fundamentals and viewing new technology as one of many promotional tools, is to widen the voices you listen to.

It seems to be a formula that people consume easily though, so here are my 5 reasons why your business should not be using social media.

1. Because it’s new and cool.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there making social media pitches based purely on fashion. There’s a buzz out there. It’s new and improved. If you don’t have it, you are missing out. Every couple of years, something comes along that changes the way people behave. Just because something is covered by the media, does not mean that real people are using it as part of their everyday lives.

2. Because it’s massive. .

I guarantee you that if you have sat through a social media pitch, that you have been bombarded with figures like ‘If Facebook was a country, it would the 4^th largest in the world’. The country with the 4^th biggest population is Indonesia, yet my bet is that your business has no presence there. What’s more, you probably don’t have any plans to be in Indonesia any time soon. That’s because pure market size is not the only thing that matters to real businesses.

Last week there was a story about how Pepsico were going to use location service FourSquare for marketing purposes. The article reported that FourSquare has a million users. Let’s put that another way – there are about 308 Million people who don’t use FourSquare in the US alone.

3. Because your customers are interacting with each other on social media.

In 2008 there were an estimated 6.5 billion texts sent every month in the UK, but the vast majority were between individuals. There are very few companies (other than mobile networks) that have successfully used SMS text messaging for business.

Just because your customers and potential customers are talking to each other on social media is no guarantee that they want to interact with your business.

4. Because it’s cheap.

Anyone can set up a YouTube account. It doesn’t cost anything to create a Twitter feed or a Facebook page. Creating a LinkedIn Group takes minutes and you can blog away for free on all many of platforms.

Once it’s been set up, you can get an intern or an expert social media consultant to represent your brand assets the best way they see fit, despite in many cases not having any marketing or business credentials.

You’ve probably spent a lot of time and money to create your brand, why risk devaluing one of your most important business assets by cutting corners.

5. Because your competitors are doing it.

I’ve always had a dislike for consultants who think that their technology based model can be applied across industries and businesses without any need for modification. Look out for a social media pitch that tells you that you need to be on social media because there are others in your industry that are doing it. There are probably competitors of yours that do trade-shows or sponsorship or other outdoor advertising that you might not do. Me-too is never a reason to do anything.

1 Reason Your Business Should be Using Social Media.

There are many reasons why your business may benefit from using social media including; better customer service, increased brand awareness, targeted product positioning and understanding your customer’s requirements, but the number one, and only reason that your business should be using social media is…

Because it will deliver you revenue.

Social Media is just another weapon in your sales and marketing arsenal. It has a cost and it has a return. The only reason you should consider using social media for your business is if it is going to have a positive impact on the bottom line.

Value social media the same way you would value any other sales and marketing spend. What are your objectives? How do you know if you have succeeded?

If you are being told that engaging in the conversation is enough and hopefully over time it may lead to sales, then ask yourself how much of your marketing budget you are willing to invest in that hope.

If on the other hand, you are being told how social media can have an impact on key metrics within your business like; transaction frequency, basket value, margin, customer satisfaction and loyalty, market share, recall rate, cost per lead and return on investment, then evaluate those numbers against your current marketing options and make a business decision.

You might think that there would be more written about Twitter and Groupthink, but then, when you consider the characteristics of Groupthink it is perhaps not so surprising.

On the surface, Twitter provides a wide variety of viewpoints created by a diverse pool of individuals, but think about how many people you follow who have a contrary view to your own.

Consider the following tests for Groupthink that Irving Janis developed in 1977. Does your experience of Twitter have any of the following ‘symptoms’?

1. Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.
2. Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.
3. Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.
4. Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.
5. Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.
6. Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
7. Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
8. Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leaders from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

It’s not just Twitter that can become susceptible to this kind of behaviour. Think about your product development process or the governing body of your favourite sport. Is there diversity of thinking? Are you innovating in a vacuum?

There are remedies if you believe you are at risk of making poor decisions based on either your social media usage or an imbalance in the teams you work with.

Here are some actions you might want to consider.

1. Assign yourself the role of critical evaluator.
2. Routinely discuss ideas with a trusted associate and report back to ‘the group’ on the associate’s reactions.
3. Invite ‘outside’ experts to challenge views of ‘the group’.
4. Find an articulate and knowledgeable devil’s advocate to question assumptions.
5. Set aside time to consider alternative scenarios.

Also consider following a couple of people who might have a contrary view. You don’t have to agree with them, but opening your eyes to a different point of view might help you make more well informed decisions.

This is important. I regularly see thoughts from the Twitterati asking “why doesn’t sport use social media more?” The answer for many sporting organisations is still – ‘that’s not where my audience is.’

While I can understand the frustration of social media evangelists, having been through a number of new technology cycles, I am not surprised at the adoption rate for new technologies. It was the same with the Internet and mobile phones.

It’s funny the business practises that stay with you. I remember a policy that employed by Procter & Gamble in Australia where I worked for a time. Senior Management were required to spend a number of days a month outside of the office and out in the supermarkets and pharmacies where the consumer made the ultimate buying decision. Many sales reps had a special route that showcased the stores where the companies products had maximum distribution or ceiling high displays. The problem with this was that management went away thinking that all was well.

At Unilever, a similar process was in place. Once off the road, as National Account Manager I used to demand that reps show me their worst stores. The ones where the competition always looked better, where the store owner refused to stock our products. Visiting these stores explained the numbers.

A similar thing happens with technology platforms. The early adopters who ‘get it’ start to convince everyone else that they should ‘get it’ too. They talk to other early adopters who nod and say ‘yes we are right’. Then you go and find examples to prove your point – clubs with millions of Facebook followers, and present it as proof. It’s very unfashionable to talk about the mass market, the majority who don’t use social media. And that’s just in the English speaking world.

Now try this exercise. Next time you feel like blogging about how a particular brand or organisation is missing out by not being on social media, don’t ask your followers and facebook friends if they agree with you – instead, leave your office, wander down to where the ‘real’ customers are and do a quick vox-pop. Ask them if they have ever heard of Twitter. Ask them if their favourite team had a facebook page whether they would use it to interact with that team.

Here are some quotes from real people from recent days. You might disagree, but they are what people think…

“I hate Facebook – too many old skeletons and people I don’t have any reason to talk to finding me. I don’t need Facebook to book tickets, I can use the club website or just call them.”

“Apparently there is this new one called LinkedIn which is meant to be for business, but I think it’s for small business – like lots of graphic designers and life coaches selling to each other. If you work for yourself I can see the point, but not in a corporate.”

“I just don’t get Twitter. It’s like code. Why would anyone care what I have to say? I like fans thinking what I might be having for breakfast without letting them down by telling them what I actually eat. Then you have all this techie programmer stuff to learn like RT and hashtag… it’s too hard. My blog works pretty well.”

“It’s all rubbish. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned newspaper. Good writing, all the scores, portable, never runs out of batteries, I can read it wherever I want. Why do I have to interact? Most of the people who follow my team are morons. I wouldn’t want anything to do with them.”

Now instead of pushing social media, because that is your favourite thing at the moment, ask instead – Where is my audience?

If 90% of your fans have iPhones, then great – build an app. If 85% of them are active on Twitter, great fire up your Twitter accounts and engage. If however, your fanbase is talking on PHP-BB forums scattered around the country, then that’s where you should be talking to them.

What’s next? Or are Twitter and Facebook etc. the platforms for a generation?

Only a fool would try to predict the future of Social Media. Youtube is only 5 years old and 5 years ago not many would have predicted the impact that it has had on media as we know it. But those of us who have been in Social media for 10 years or more know that it moves more slowly than you might think. (For those of you who disbelieve Social Media is more than 10 years old – see this history of Bolt.com )

The More things Change – The More they Stay the Same.

There is nothing new. We have 5 or so senses that we use to consume the world around us. Sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Media is designed to activate those senses so we have audio, video, still pictures, the written word and live events.

Many of the biggest sporting communities are not on Facebook or Twitter, they are on the same forum software that used to exist when people dialled up to the earliest bulletin boards. Millions of others have a tried and tested social media platform called ‘the Pub’. So the more things change the more they stay the same.

An example of this is radio. Radio is different to any other media in that it doesn’t require the use of hands or sight. You cannot operate an iPad while driving a vehicle, but you can consume radio. Podcasts have taken radio and given it massive global audiences and Social Media will enhance radio and make it more interactive.

Apps are also a case of going back to the future. The vast majority of apps for smartphones are unimaginative rehashing of processes that existed for touch-tone phones and SMS text messaging. Remember when you used to dial the talking clock? Some of the apps haven’t moved on much. There are some great apps coming in the form of augmented reality, but apps aren’t the future. Why should I have to download an app for every brand I want to interact with? This would be like having a to download a different browser for every web-page I want to visit.

Often the simplest innovations are the best. We have faster connections than ever, we have more processing power than ever, we have HD and 3D video capability and yet Twitter offers us a mere 140 characters of text to communicate with.

Of course Twitter’s brevity is also the source of its biggest threat – that we lose collective memory because we only think back to the last 50 headlines in our feed and we lose real insight. Ideas are reduced to pithy phrases that people ‘like’ or retweet because they are too lazy to ask “is that right?” or “how do you know that?”

Hopefully there will always be a place for trusted brands in the delivery of news and insight. Sometimes the debate benefits from a period of contemplation rather than knee-jerk opinion. This in-depth reporting is expensive, so it will be interesting to see how the business models shake out.

The Future – Important Trends that Could Change Sports Media.

Those who don’t remember Bolt.com or Friendster or Friends ReUnited may struggle to imagine a world where Facebook or LinkedIn don’t exist. Those who remember MySpace might understand how easy it is to get things very right very quickly but not have a plan to stay relevant.

Relevance and context are the future of not just Social Media, but media in general. We have increasing access to more real-time data that will make our experience of sport better.

The information that specialist commentators used to be fed via an earpiece from an army of researchers can now be displayed alongside live action.

The data will not just be about the game though. Those wanting to communicate with you will have more information about you. Where you are, what kind of device you are using to consume the game, which side you support, who your friends are, what influence you have in the community. The opportunities lie in using that information in a way that enhances the experience instead of making it worse.

Mobile gets a lot of attention and for good reason. There are more people with a mobile phone than have internet, but there are other connected communities like those who own gaming consoles like Playstaton, Xbox or Wii.

The technology exists for people to play a game in real-time against other players around the world, but it could also drive real-time competition against the professionals. Racing alongside Jenson Button in Monaco or playing a round of Augusta with the leading group is possible today.

In summary – while technology changes, people don’t. You’ll support your team however you can – whether that is listening to it on shortwave radio or sitting in the front row seats with a handheld view of the parts of the action you can’t see. On Monday morning you will talk about the match with your mates. You’ll feel good if your girl won or down if she lost. Social Media can enable those conversations and the platforms that are most relevant will win.

Topic Three – Losing free speech? When does a personal social media channel become the property of an organisation?

There are some big issues here that relate to the promotion of the individual versus the promotion of the team or the sponsors. Those issues exist whether you are putting your face on a packet of breakfast cereal or creating an athlete personal homepage.

I have a very simple view of social media when it comes to this kind of topic. It’s just a technology. Even though iphones and other devices have accelerometers, they don’t have a moral compass.

Social media does not fundamentally change the rules when it comes to people making public comment. The policy should be dictated by the culture of the organisation.

I’ve signed several employment contracts in the past that include clauses to the effect that if I want to talk to the media I need board approval. Some of these contracts were for large global brands and some were for small start-ups. I’ve also worked in organisations where I could say what I liked to whomever I liked, with the understanding that if I brought myself or the company into disrepute there would be consequences. Social media doesn’t have to over complicate things. If a player or coach or any other employee is on social media, they are making a public comment.

As soon as a sportsman or woman takes money from a club, team or sponsor then they become an employee, spokesperson and ambassador for that brand. Microsoft’s social media policy when it comes to employees making comment is reportedly very simple – Don’t be stupid.

Here’s the simple answer – If you are a professional team and you are paying your players a lot of money, then get them media trained. Get that media training to include social media. It’s pretty easy to make people understand that sending a tweet is the same as sending a text message to the whole world.

If you don’t want to wake up tomorrow and read it in the newspaper – don’t send it. Don’t blame the technology for lapses in personal responsibility.

So that’s social media as the delivery mechanism for the message, but what are the effects of social media on the managing of a story that has already broken.

Again, how a player or team or governing body deals with a piece of bad publicity has almost nothing to do with social media. If a story is going to break, it will break thanks to good old fashioned investigative journalism or a leak of some other method. If the story is big enough, it will end up on the front page of the ‘News of the World’ or some other non-social media outlet.

All social media does in this case is speed the news to a more geographically diverse audience.

That being said, social media is a conversation and participating in that conversation early can have a positive impact on the brand. Remember that the conversation is going to happen on social media with or without you and by ignoring it, you runt he risk of your case being totally misrepresented. By the time you read about it or see it on the news, it will be too late.

There are fantastic opportunities for professional professional sporting brands to interact with a wide audience. Whether you are an athlete or a governing body, social media is your mouthpiece to the world. Be thankful that people even want to listen to you, and be mindful that what you say will become part of the global public record.

David Fuller is a consultant on the use of emerging technology for marketing, digital strategy and online marketing.

Read Part 4 – The Future?

Topic Two – Show me the money? We all do Twitter, Facebook etc. but for a typical organisation how can this be monetised?

This topic was probably the one where the panel, including me, strayed from the question posed into other areas. The reason in my case is that I think that it is probably too early to think about Social media as a revenue generating activity.

There is a difference between how marketing is seen in the UK and other places in the world like the USA. In Britain, the focus is on resource and cost and where the money is going to come from. In the USA, marketing is seen as an investment. More people interacting with you equals more transactions.

Social Media is a communication tool. For most sporting organisations there will be no direct revenue from social media, however if it is done properly then social media tools can help sell more tickets or team kit or merchandise, perhaps even paid content.

If social media can increase the ARPF (Average Revenue Per Fan) by increasing the frequency that they buy or increasing the basket value of the purchase, then it is doing its job. In some cases, it may stem the decline of revenue or allow venues to become more adaptable, like selling last minute seats or targeting specific geo-locations.

There are some areas where Social Media can generate revenue, but consumers need to see real value. Unlike the web, consumers are conditioned to paying for mobile content. Downloadable applications are one way that sporting organisations could make money from emerging technology, but whether or not this is social media is another question.

For sports that are marginalised in the UK, and there are many, monetisation of content may be possible. For sports that are ignored by traditional press and tv but have a demanding fanbase, there is an opportunity to sell pay-per-view coverage or live updates.  Why buy 3 channels of sport that I don’t want to watch when I could use the money to watch the sports I do want to watch online?

This is not monetising Social Media as such, but social media can be used very effectively to signpost the availability of this content.

If Social Media is going to be used to generate revenue, then it will probably have to use micro-payments. Most social media based revenue models are based on advertising which is yet to be proven as viable or up-selling the user to a better experience.

One area where micropayments and social media are generating revenue is gaming. Applications like Farmville and Mafia-Wars are well known, but there are also examples in sport. Massive multiplayer online games are extremely popular in sailing for example, with events like the Vendee Globe and Volvo Ocean Race attracting hundreds of thousands of online players. The mechanism is simple. Anyone can play for free, but for a small fee upgrades are available.

So can Social Media be monetised? Should it? Rather than seeing Social Media as a way to get more money from fans, sport should be using Social Media as a way of keeping people occupied for longer. Making it easier to find out the results, making it easier to find exclusive content, making it easier to offer feedback and feel like they are part of the conversation.

Every click, comment, photo upload, follow, retweet, video view or poke that relates to your brand is a sliver of time in someone’s busy day that they have spent with you. While it might not be pounds and pence in your books, that time spent might be the most valuable thing that social media can give you.

Read Part 3 – Corporate versus Personal Free Speech.

Topic One – The positives and negatives of an organisation (brand, governing body or rights-holder) getting deeply involved in social media

The use of the phrase ‘Social Media’ means a lot of different things to different people. For many, it is a catch-all for a few well known sites like Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and Twitter. For others, the definition is broader and includes web 2.0 enabled blogs and some gaming applications.

While there is no doubt that these platforms have a huge number of users, they are hyped a little by the media and those who work in the digital industry. Many sports organisations have reason to ask questions about the relative merit of different platforms, but I think that the time has come where the opportunities do outweigh the benefits.

To put this question into some historical perspective, rephrase the question to “what are the positives and negatives of getting a fax machine or a post box or publishing your switchboard number on your website.

According to figures presented by Comscore at the conference, Facebook is the largest site on mobile – bigger even than Google. This is no real surprise – mobile is a person to person communication media and Facebook is a person to person platform.

So to answer the question (something I was accused on Twitter of not doing on the panel)

Positives.

Social Media is another channel. Another touchpoint. Another mechanism to listen to and communicate with partners, customers and fans. At the very least, these mechanisms make it more convenient for your fans to receive your news and content.

The listening part is important. While some may focus on the negatives of being open to criticism (See Negatives) others see that the feedback channel is a great way to improve the product, to understand what works and what doesn’t and to adapt to that feedback. This is another way of saying that the voices are a diverse set of opinions that are perhaps more useful than the groupthink of old white males that usually make the decisions.

Social media provides an immediacy that other media cannot. This is not just what fans are saying, it is what they are saying now, and in many cases their location can also be determined. The insights from social profiles and monitoring of sentiment in conversations provide a level of demographic information that traditional registration forms can’t match.

Finally, there are demonstrable benefits of using Social Media for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Obviously the more times your team, club, organisation or sponsor is mentioned on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc with a link back to your site, the more highly it will score with Google, Bing and the like. This will become even more important as Google moves to include real-time results in it’s search mechanism.

Negatives.

Many of the negatives associated with Social Media are actually not problems with the technology. A lot of the negative perceptions of social media come from a misunderstanding about the true nature of who is using it and how it is used.

It is true that anything negative will be amplified and accelerated by Social Media. A larger group of people will be exposed to comments and if the correct procedures are not in place then this can get out of control quickly.

Many of the negatives associated with Social Media can be fixed with good business practises and policies, so here are some of the issues to consider.

The use of social media when done properly will require resources that may not exist in the organisation. There is no point in doing it for the sake of doing it, if you are going to engage in a conversation with your most important stakeholders via this mechanism, then you need to show them that you are committed and you take it seriously.

I disagree with the sentiment that you can “throw a rock out the window, hit a teenager and get them to run your social media programme.” Better to invest in training the people who understand your business, its products and culture to represent you and your brands online.

Social Media is two way. This scares a lot of businesses who are worried about criticism. Many sports organisations, particularly governing bodies have a tendency to be faceless bureaucrats, sitting behind gatekeepers and policy. But here’s the thing – people will use social media to criticise you and your policies whether you are there or not. You can’t stop it. You can’t control it. You can’t spin it. The best that you can hope for is that you can influence key people via participating to see your point of view.

Read Part 2 – Monetisation of Social Media for Sport

Here’s an example to illustrate my point. Once upon a time there was a wonderfully innovative mobile phone brand called Orange. Famously, millions of dollars were spent to come up with the catchy strap-line “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange” and the brand became a case-study for marketing students of the 90’s.

But what happens to Orange when you take away the strapline and type just the brand into Twitter search? The  results include chocolate sprinkles, a county in California, termites, Orange juice, orange rolls etc…

Try the same test with Vodafone. Type the single word with no qualification into Twitter and every single result refers to the mobile phone / internet brand.

Why is this important? Well increasingly, smart branding people are using sites like Twitter to monitor brand sentiment. The power of having an uncensored feedback loop from your customers around the world allows marketing people to tweak the mix to satisfy the needs of their audience. Monitoring brand sentiment on Social media platforms is in it’s early days, but it is a lot easier when you have a distinctive brand.

Try it for youself. What do you get when you type your brand into search.twitter.com ? Is it a lock-out? Is the whole page filled with people talking about you, or is it muddied with other things?