A Major League approach to Social Media Strategy
filed in Communications, Millennial Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership on May.08, 2009
If you’re of a “certain age” and have teenagers in the house, then you might have caught yourself proclaiming that your young Millennials (Generation Y) are wasting their lives playing Halo, World of Warcraft, or tinkering with their MySpace page. Since adolescents revel in the opportunity to point out hypocrisy in their adult family members, imagine the return volley of comments about how much time we Boomers spend glaring at the television watching yet another sports event without anything more than a trip to the fridge to break the action.
The best life lessons learned from sports are by playing them, but once in a while you can learn by watching. The other night as I wandered between the NHL and NBA playoffs, the NFL draft, and some meaningless early season MLB, I had a vision. I found an answer for the big question about Social media.
Everyone knows about Social Media, few understand it, and there are proponents and opponents voicing opinion with increasing volume. To some, employing a social media strategy can accelerate achievement of business objectives, to others it is a greater waste of time than one more round of GTA3. The one unifying question is “how do all these pieces fit together?” Almost every business person I know expresses interest in executing a social media strategy that is right for them.
Well I’ve got an answer and it is heavily basted in sports analogy:
The Play by Play Announcer: Your web site is the necessary foundation for your social media strategy. Present the facts without too much hype and hyperbole
Color Commentary: People blog for different reasons. I think it serves as a platform for opinion and to demonstrate innovative ideas and thought leadership
Player Roster: Being part of LinkedIn is today’s method to assemble your business network and document a circle of influence
Groupies: They hang out by every locker room door and some you’ll talk to while others you avoid. Establishing an authentic presence on Twitter allows you the same liberty
Inner Circle: You’ve got to have real friends you can trust. Approach these for deeper conversations via email, the phone, and in person (yes, in person should be part of your social media strategy!)
Your Agent: Few of us can do it all. We need a few Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) around to fill in our gaps and to add bandwidth. Find someone who really knows how to coordinate your social media efforts from a technology standpoint
Fans: Filling the seats is a requirement for success. Building a Facebook presence can be your biggest funnel to gain fans and you can connect further with them via the other channels depending on how relationships develop.
Sponsors: Someone has to pay the bills. We often call these folks “clients” or “customers”! The objectives of a social media strategy should include serious business objectives and revenue goals. Your valued customers/clients should be treated in a special way. Newsletters and more personalized digital correspondence works well to create deeper links
I’m interested to have your feedback on fitting the pieces of the social media puzzle together. Are you ready to play ball?
H. Leigh Steves on 
Bill Hanifin on
May 8th, 2009 on 12:20 pm
Bill,
I love the concept (even though I’m not a big sports fan) How about these?
Hot Dog Vendors: These are the people or companies that develop apps and microsites based on an existing platform, to help you have more fun while you do something. Twitter has a million of them, and so does Facebook. They wouldn’t exist without the platform, but without the hot dogs, the game wouldn’t be as much fun.
ESPN, Sportsnet, TSN, etc: These are like RSS feeds, and they tell you more of the highlights, let you skim over the boring parts, and give you a chance to re-live something if you missed it in the stream… Since we as marketers can be reading everything in real time, we need things like RSS and Alerts to make sure we don’t miss anything…
Cheers!
May 8th, 2009 on 1:37 pm
Umpires: Makes sure the game is played by the rules-these would be the moderators
May 8th, 2009 on 3:35 pm
Well Bill, must be nice weather today in sunny Florida…
hmmm… sounds like a potential case study gone wrong to me, as one of the female persuasion looking to cast doubt upon a business climate of economic doom (in the World Series of life, this is the Minors) so, I’ll just go with it, say, peanuts, in the shell… no beer for me, thanks…as for extra innings? Only if the weather is warm.
Sorry, but my head is reeling from that analogy, I may have to come up with one of my own, to counter the effect… ready?
The Point: Social Media in a business environment, does it work for you, if so, which pieces how do they fit together…
A case study, by Lisa Stephens, as represented through education:
the players:
Facebook, your youthful connections by choice or by family tie; where you’ll find your networked past, be it public or private (is it top-notch?);
Twitter, role models; as a student, follow those to emulate, as an educator, be the example;
LinkedIn, textbooks; an informational resource;
website/blog, is you within the system; student, teacher, parent, administrator… the human element;
email, technology; a computer resource of some or many kinds; laptop, desktop, cell phone (with consideration for accessibility, incoming, outgoing)… is technology deemed of value within the family, within the classroom;
phone/in-person, the learning style; best use would be through understanding of all communicatory elements per individual, where communication is key to development or to learning ability;
clients/customers, are your professional goals; where do you see application of your educational achievements?
For the purposes of this study, the pieces should be evaluated per individual goal… with the key piece to this puzzle being, activity… baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, Mom.
Happy weekend!
May 8th, 2009 on 5:53 pm
OH! &, with regard to the ‘umpire’ comment, above, I believe the key player, & the distinction Brian alludes to, is the ’short stop’… you are not looking for moderation, you’re looking for tactics.
May 10th, 2009 on 8:40 pm
Bill,
I get the analogy (our family is baseball-crazed) and think it works, as far as it goes.
But for me, it sounds very one-directional and misses the conversation, which is what so many millennials value most. I don’t mean player fan clubs. Instead, think MoveOn forums where supporters of a cause or issue have a chance to get in touch with others who share their point of view and mobilize them in order to be heard.
Guess you could call them the peanut gallery, but millennials might take that as a putdown.
That said, I think the analogy is helpful. Thanks for advancing the conversaion!
-Judy
May 12th, 2009 on 7:20 am
I appreciate the thoughtful enhancements and extra “players” added to the list. This type of exchange is evidence that social media is an evolving discipline and the more we share, the more we advance use of the tools. I have to add a great post by Chris Brogan which I read today. Have a look at his take and leave a comment if you have more thoughts.