![Social Media x Community
My friends think that I love social media; I don’t.
I love what social media has the potential to do.
My affinity for the subject matter was jump-started last year while taking a hard look at the sports-centered utilization of social media by Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). While examining the new league and the tools that were in their relative infancy, I saw the inherent possibilities for the WPS to establish, sustain, and grow a fan base via effective and creative employment of the tool(s).
In the conversations that I’ve had since, I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are many skeptics and non-believers regarding the power of social media. I think that the skepticism is often born from the lack of correlation seen between activity on Twitter and Facebook (for example) and value-creation. I’ll be the first to admit that without this correlation established, social media has the ability to simply occupy our time.
However, the reason for my passion for it is simple: there is nearly limitless potential, if leveraged mindfully, for social media to be a powerful complement in our quest to build something meaningful. Specifically, because social media is social, we can leverage its participatory nature to build communities. I see this notion of establishing, growing, and leveraging community as perhaps the most significant outcome of effective utilization of social media.
This fall, our Utah Women’s Soccer team will be launching what we’ve dubbed a “scarf campaign.” My excitement is two fold: (1) there’s potential for the campaign to create significant outcomes relative to playing environment for our team and (2) it provides us with a unique opportunity to leverage social media “well” in order to achieve said outcomes.
Let’s take a closer look:
We’ve started with an offline concept: build our Utah Women’s Soccer community. We’ve chosen to “brand” our team with a UTAH UTES scarf (much like the scarves seen at many European soccer games). The hope is that while we’re making strides to associate our team with the scarf, our campaign will grow and the scarf will brand the Utah Women’s Soccer community at large.
Community, by definition, is a group of people who share common interests. Our goal is to establish our soccer team as the common interest of the community members and the scarf as the brand element of this community. Getting to this end is where social media comes into play.
The tools we utilize and how we utilize them are important. Central to the campaign will be Twitter and Facebook:
Twitter, inherently, is outward facing; it’s a tool by which we can stay in touch with those we know and perhaps more importantly, connect with those we don’t. With barriers lowered, it has the potential to bring together like-minded individuals in a way that is not limited by location or proximity. If I’m interested in soccer x social media and someone in, say, Europe is as well, with a bit of investigation, we can find each other via tweets. I’ve had a significant amount of on-going conversations and information exchanges with people that I have not yet met (and may never meet). But, the connections are there and given that value continues to be exchanged, the connections will continue into the foreseeable future.
Why is this relevant for us? We see Twitter as a means by which we can share the word about our scarf campaign to people within our personal Twitter networks and beyond. If the concept is powerful and the initiative is engaging, there’s the potential for this cause [or any cause] to spread. But while the dispersal of the campaign concept is important, so too is the aggregation of the conversations relative to the campaign. In this vein, we’ll use the hashtag #sys (which stands for “Show Your Scarf”); this will, in theory, group together the conversations the [growing] Utah Women’s Soccer community is having relative to the campaign and our team.
Facebook, conversely, is inward facing*. While fan pages and the Open Graph are means by which Facebook has sought to circumvent this distinction, we see Facebook much more as a way to maintain and stay connected with one’s already established network. Additionally, while the digestible (140 characters) and mobile nature of Twitter characterizes as a quick, easy, on-the-move channel for information exchange, Facebook is a destination site where people spend a considerable amount of time.
We’ve established a Utah Women’s Soccer fan page to serve as one such destination. Relative to this page, one element of the scarf campaign will be a call to action: “Show Your Scarf.” Our goal is to create an engaged community on Facebook by asking fans to take and post pictures in order to show themselves, their friends, and their family showing off their scarves and thus, boasting their membership as a part of the Utah Women’s Soccer community.
In all of this, the moment of truth, so to speak, is our ability to convert said online engagement to the offline, “real world.” For us, creating an online community that exists within the confines of Twitter or Facebook is great; but a virtual community isn’t where the true value in this campaign lies. Our goal is to utilize our brand element – the scarf – and the excitement around owning and sporting the scarf as a catalyst in establishing our home matches as the physical manifestation of this online community. To this end, we’ve made the scarf not only the mark of our community, but also a Fall 2010 season ticket.
Will this work? Only time will tell.
But, if you’d like, you can follow our progress on Twitter (@utahwsoccer) and on Facebook.
*One other element to consider in developing our online approach is the potential reach. Demographically speaking, the age group we are seeking to reach out to most significantly is fans between 13-34 (youth players/girls in the area, college students at the University of Utah, alumni, and soccer coaches – and thus, their teams – in the vicinity). 59% of Twitter users and 64% of Facebook users are defined as being a part of this 13-34 age group.
However, the percentages are deceiving; as of May 2010, quantcast.com reports Twitter traffic of 29.8 million visitors per month and Facebook traffic of 144 million. With a quick calculation, we find that 17.6 million and 92.2 million visitors to Twitter and Facebook, respectively, are within our target age-range. Thus, our campaign should be much more Facebook-centric; even when information is distributed and conversations are started via Twitter, the goal should be to drive the community members back to Facebook where most of our audience is and higher levels of engagement and conversation will theoretically occur.
Selected sources:
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/07/the-2010-world-cup-inspires-creativity-in-social-media/
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/06/7-steps-to-creating-and-cultivating-a-brand-in-social-media/
http://mashable.com/2010/04/05/facebook-us-infographic/
http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com
http://www.quantcast.com/facebook.com](http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l5316d68ZT1qb9l65o1_r1_500.jpg)
Social Media x Community
My friends think that I love social media; I don’t.
I love what social media has the potential to do.
My affinity for the subject matter was jump-started last year while taking a hard look at the sports-centered utilization of social media by Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS). While examining the new league and the tools that were in their relative infancy, I saw the inherent possibilities for the WPS to establish, sustain, and grow a fan base via effective and creative employment of the tool(s).
In the conversations that I’ve had since, I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are many skeptics and non-believers regarding the power of social media. I think that the skepticism is often born from the lack of correlation seen between activity on Twitter and Facebook (for example) and value-creation. I’ll be the first to admit that without this correlation established, social media has the ability to simply occupy our time.
However, the reason for my passion for it is simple: there is nearly limitless potential, if leveraged mindfully, for social media to be a powerful complement in our quest to build something meaningful. Specifically, because social media is social, we can leverage its participatory nature to build communities. I see this notion of establishing, growing, and leveraging community as perhaps the most significant outcome of effective utilization of social media.
This fall, our Utah Women’s Soccer team will be launching what we’ve dubbed a “scarf campaign.” My excitement is two fold: (1) there’s potential for the campaign to create significant outcomes relative to playing environment for our team and (2) it provides us with a unique opportunity to leverage social media “well” in order to achieve said outcomes.
Let’s take a closer look:
We’ve started with an offline concept: build our Utah Women’s Soccer community. We’ve chosen to “brand” our team with a UTAH UTES scarf (much like the scarves seen at many European soccer games). The hope is that while we’re making strides to associate our team with the scarf, our campaign will grow and the scarf will brand the Utah Women’s Soccer community at large.
Community, by definition, is a group of people who share common interests. Our goal is to establish our soccer team as the common interest of the community members and the scarf as the brand element of this community. Getting to this end is where social media comes into play.
The tools we utilize and how we utilize them are important. Central to the campaign will be Twitter and Facebook:
Twitter, inherently, is outward facing; it’s a tool by which we can stay in touch with those we know and perhaps more importantly, connect with those we don’t. With barriers lowered, it has the potential to bring together like-minded individuals in a way that is not limited by location or proximity. If I’m interested in soccer x social media and someone in, say, Europe is as well, with a bit of investigation, we can find each other via tweets. I’ve had a significant amount of on-going conversations and information exchanges with people that I have not yet met (and may never meet). But, the connections are there and given that value continues to be exchanged, the connections will continue into the foreseeable future.
Why is this relevant for us? We see Twitter as a means by which we can share the word about our scarf campaign to people within our personal Twitter networks and beyond. If the concept is powerful and the initiative is engaging, there’s the potential for this cause [or any cause] to spread. But while the dispersal of the campaign concept is important, so too is the aggregation of the conversations relative to the campaign. In this vein, we’ll use the hashtag #sys (which stands for “Show Your Scarf”); this will, in theory, group together the conversations the [growing] Utah Women’s Soccer community is having relative to the campaign and our team.
Facebook, conversely, is inward facing*. While fan pages and the Open Graph are means by which Facebook has sought to circumvent this distinction, we see Facebook much more as a way to maintain and stay connected with one’s already established network. Additionally, while the digestible (140 characters) and mobile nature of Twitter characterizes as a quick, easy, on-the-move channel for information exchange, Facebook is a destination site where people spend a considerable amount of time.
We’ve established a Utah Women’s Soccer fan page to serve as one such destination. Relative to this page, one element of the scarf campaign will be a call to action: “Show Your Scarf.” Our goal is to create an engaged community on Facebook by asking fans to take and post pictures in order to show themselves, their friends, and their family showing off their scarves and thus, boasting their membership as a part of the Utah Women’s Soccer community.
In all of this, the moment of truth, so to speak, is our ability to convert said online engagement to the offline, “real world.” For us, creating an online community that exists within the confines of Twitter or Facebook is great; but a virtual community isn’t where the true value in this campaign lies. Our goal is to utilize our brand element – the scarf – and the excitement around owning and sporting the scarf as a catalyst in establishing our home matches as the physical manifestation of this online community. To this end, we’ve made the scarf not only the mark of our community, but also a Fall 2010 season ticket.
Will this work? Only time will tell.
But, if you’d like, you can follow our progress on Twitter (@utahwsoccer) and on Facebook.
*One other element to consider in developing our online approach is the potential reach. Demographically speaking, the age group we are seeking to reach out to most significantly is fans between 13-34 (youth players/girls in the area, college students at the University of Utah, alumni, and soccer coaches – and thus, their teams – in the vicinity). 59% of Twitter users and 64% of Facebook users are defined as being a part of this 13-34 age group.
However, the percentages are deceiving; as of May 2010, quantcast.com reports Twitter traffic of 29.8 million visitors per month and Facebook traffic of 144 million. With a quick calculation, we find that 17.6 million and 92.2 million visitors to Twitter and Facebook, respectively, are within our target age-range. Thus, our campaign should be much more Facebook-centric; even when information is distributed and conversations are started via Twitter, the goal should be to drive the community members back to Facebook where most of our audience is and higher levels of engagement and conversation will theoretically occur.
Selected sources:
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/07/the-2010-world-cup-inspires-creativity-in-social-media/
http://www.briansolis.com/2010/06/7-steps-to-creating-and-cultivating-a-brand-in-social-media/
http://mashable.com/2010/04/05/facebook-us-infographic/
