social media strategic planning for the sports front office

Prepared for Northwoods League by Michael Ames, Pursuant Group

Social Media Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning for the Front OfficeAn Introduction

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hectoralejandro/3499429624http://www.flickr.com/photos/jancyclops/4302613514 http://www.flickr.com/photos/localandbitter/sets/72157601501234353/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/zacheverson/2259577982/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/24704473@N07

Audience Description - Typical ticket buyer is…

Primary Objective - Off-season fan engagement

Secondary Objective - Off-season fan relations

Known Constraints- Staff - 2 Daily Time Allotment - 30 min Budget- $0 Existing SM Policies- No policy manual

Summary of Strategy -

1/12th - News Outlet 11/12 th - Fan cultivation and engagementContent discovery and republication, focusing on constituent-centric engagement strategy that attempts to maintain an 12 to 1 ratio of updates that focus on friends/followers

Northwoods League, Social Media Basic Strategic Engagement Plan

Audience, Objectives, Constraints and Strategy


General Tactical Notes-Google Reader

Google Reader-keywords *org name *programs and events *Owner, GM, Coach *other teams in space *URLs of site and blog *industry terms related to local fan interest*Subscribe to key bloggers in your space AVOID GENERAL TERMS.

Find New Blogs:Technorati.com

Alltop.comIcerocket.com


General Tactical Notes-Twitter

Reveal More in Bio• One sentence dedicated to overall mission

• One sentence to explain purpose of twitter presence• One sentence to show authenticity of who is behind it

For instance… “Great family baseball experience. Using twitter to

connect with fans. You may hear several of our voices through this profile. Nice to tweet you!”

Best Practices• Background photo should be as fan centric as possible

• Actively seek to reply and retweet others• Include home page link in the bio

*Follow back all real people *Block spammers and marketers

Find and follow• Individuals who tweet about mission • Like minded organizations /peers

Corporate relations/partners

Don’t follow more than 200 than who is following you until you reach about 1000

followers

Place personal Twitter handle in “Name Field”


General Tactical Notes-Twitter

Great Practice• Shows largest following because of

fan expectations• Be more engaging with fans

• Give then an experience, a twitter autograph just for them


General Tactical Notes-Update Scheduler - Hootsuite

Top Efficiency TacticUsed to schedule updates to

multiple locations

Feedback and StatsMeasure effectiveness through

easy reports

http://hootsuite.com/


General Tactical Notes-Facebook Profile and Pages In facebook, your personal profile is

the way for you to make initial connections and it gives you the

chance to invite friends to fan pages. Privacy is customizable, but

be willing to be open with most.(Being aware you are on public display is a good

governor when absent a social media policy)

Tutorial to create a custom welcome page for your facebook fan page

http://smashingwebs.com/2010/01/create-a-welcome-page-for-your-facebook-fan-page/

http://smashingwebs.com/2010/01/create-a-welcome-page-for-your-facebook-fan-page/


General Tactical Notes-Blogs and Comments

Use comment management service like Disqus.com

Commenting on other blog posts *What did they say well? *Answer Questions *Relay what others say *Ask “what if ?” *Review history and project future

Top Priority TacticComment early and often on other blog posts that mention your team.


General Tactical Notes-Gmail

Gmail account to administrate should be friendly moniker like

"bigteamfan@gmail“

Load email contacts for future friend finding opportunities

(gmail has 10k contact limit so be prepared to setup more than one account)

Annually, refresh these contact lists with a new export from your data.

Monthly, rotate these through your profiles to find new friends to follow


General Tactical Notes-YouTube Incorporate Branding

Bio Should Include…• Fan-friendly welcome

• Links to your sites• Full profile of information

Open CommentsFear of negative comments shouldn’t limit you from positive connections

“Subscribe to” and “Add as Friend” all peer organizations and individual who produce content around your mission.


Schematic Workflow


Tactical MatrixTACTICAL MATRIX - Infrastructure Tactics Listening

TacticsContent

TacticsFriend/Follow

Tactics Engagement Tactics

Overall

SET UP – YouTube channel SET UP - Hootsuite.com SET UP - Gmail account for admin/signups SET UP – Disqus - Comment moderation efficiency

SET UP - GoogleReader - Read/Scan Alert feeds - 10 Minutes M,R

Others Found Content scheduled for daily publish thru Hootsuite - 8 Minutes M,R Cross Promote in specific channels with other channels on rotating basis 3 Minutes W

Find and follow (in FB/Tw) constiuents, using gmail contact list - 10 Minutes every other F

Blog Specific

SET UP - WordPress to HootsuiteSET UP – Add “comments with #” link to front page entries, Add “Blog” nav to homepagesSET UP - WordPress to Disqus

Technorati.com keyword search, blogs fed to Google Reader - 5 Minutes T

Existing Internal Strategy Google alert and Technorati.com discovered blogs fed to Google Reader - 3 Minutes T

Comment on others discovered blog posts- 15 Minutes T

Facebook (Profile)

Specific

Scan recent newsfeed for mission oriented content being shared 3 Minutes F

Reshare any discovered content (attributing it to the friend who you discovered it from) with facebook @reply 2 Minutes F

Scan friend requests and approve all real people, block spammers, ignore others- 1 Minute daily

Engage informally with full awareness of your blended online persona- Unscheduled Daily

Facebook (Pages)

Specific

SET UP - Hootsuite to Northwoods League fan page

Scanning read of wall and discussion board comments- 2 Minutes Daily

Invite recent Profile friends to fan pages, with status update rotate biweekly invite to various fanpages - 5 Minutes every other F

Reply to any comments, questions or discussions- 2 Minutes Daily

Twitter Specific

SET UP - Hootsuite to Northwoods League twitter SET UP - Keyword searches in Hootsuite

SET UP - Keyword searches to Google Reader - Scanning read @replies or Direct messages- 2 Minutes Daily

Scan followers and follow back all real people, block spammers, ignore others- 1 Minute daily

Reply to any @Reply or DM- 2 Minutes Daily RT content, @reply user (and follow user) from keyword hootsuite searches 5 Minutes M,R

YouTube SpecificSET UP - Establish standing request for native video from all internal sources SET UP - YouTube to Hootsuite

Monitor comments on uploaded videos- 5 Minutes W

Upload native videos with full description and tags - 10 Minutes W

Youtube.com keyword search and subscribe to mission oriented content providers- 5 Minutes W


Daily Tasks and TimeMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Google Reader

Read/Scan -10 add feeds - 3 comment on blogs - 15

Read/Scan -10

HootsuiteSchedule Updates -8 RT and Follow - 5

Schedule Updates -8 RT and Follow - 5

Facebook Profile

accept friends - 1 accept friends - 1 accept friends - 1 accept friends - 1 friend using gmail – 10 every other weekscan newsfeed/ reshare - 2 accept friends - 1

Facebook Fan Page

read/reply to comments - 4




read/reply comments - 4 invite friends to fan - 5 every other fri

Twitter

Reply to @ & DM - 4 Follow back - 1




friend using gmail – 10 every other weekReply to @ & DM - 4 Follow back -1

YouTube Monitor comments - 5

Upload vids - 10 search/subscribe - 5

Technorati search for feeds - 5

Overview cross promote - 3

33 33 33 33 28

Northwoods League, Social Media Basic Strategic Engagement PlanTask Order - Tool Tutorials

gmail.com - may need more than one

- sign up with name equivalent of “[email protected]”- also get NorthwoodsLeaguefan2, NorthwoodsLeaguefan3- load contact list from csv file (limit to 10,000 contacts per email account)

hootsuite.com - signup with primary gmail account

- connect personal twitter, team twitter, facebook fan pages, facebook personal profile

- feed YouTube RSS to Hootsuite on RSS/Atom tab http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/username/uploads

-set keyword search columns- video tutorial – Setting up a hootsuite account

-video tutorial – Hootsuite has a $1.99 iphone app

Google.com/reader - signup with primary gmail account

- import known blog RSS feeds and keyword alert feeds- video tutorial – Using Google Reader

http://www.gmail.com/

http://hootsuite.com/

http://www.vimeo.com/8677739



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YwC3PXB_Ns



http://www.google.com/reader

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8367692858212178603&ei=rO90S5CzO5G0qAK7l9XPBw&q=google+reader&hl=en&client=firefox-a

Northwoods League, Social Media Basic Strategic Engagement PlanTask Order - Tool Tutorials

youtube.com - signup with primary gmail account

-setup teamYouTube channel with matching username

disqus.com - signup with primary gmail account

-setup disqus profile and replace blog comment system

Discover New Bloggersalltop.com - become familiar

technorati.com - become familiar

icerocket.com - become familiar

User Names - bring usernames into alignment - http://namechk.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.disqus.com/




http://alltop.com/

http://technorati.com/

http://icerocket.com/

http://namechk.com/


Tactical MatrixTACTICAL MATRIX - Infrastructure Tactics Listening

TacticsContent

TacticsFriend/Follow

Tactics Engagement Tactics

Overall

Blog Specific

Facebook (Profile)

Specific

Facebook (Pages)

Specific

Twitter Specific

YouTube Specific


Daily Tasks and TimeMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Google Reader

Hootsuite

Facebook Profile

Facebook Fan Page

Twitter

YouTube

TechnoratiOverview

social media strategic planning for the sports front office

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