The Cyclone Hockey team took on our instate rivals, The University of Iowa Hawkeyes in a weekend series (December 11 and 12) before the holiday break. On December 11, we hosted Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) night. Fans had the opportunity to bid on their favorite Cyclone Hockey player’s jersey, and all proceeds- over $4,000- went to the MDA. We promoted the Cyclone-Hawkeye series and MDA night through our social media. It ended up being a great weekend, as the Cyclones came out with a series sweep and the games offered plenty of excitement!

The team traveled to Western Michigan University for a weekend series January 8-9 in which we split the series. We took on the University of Michigan Dearborn at home on January 15 and 16. We held “Greek Night” during the January 15 game where we offered members of the Greek community to wear their fraternity/sorority letters and receive a discounted ticket price. We advertised this event through Facebook and Twitter and saw a great showing of more than 60 people from the Greek community.

We have seen an increase in social media response from fans and followers of Cyclone Hockey, and will continue to advertise events through these media. We will be hosting the Central States Collegiate Hockey League (CSCHL) tournament from February 19-21, and are also raffling off a PowerSkater.

Fundraising Raffle

PowerSkater

The PowerSkater was donated by PoweringAthletics to help in supporting their program. We are also raffling off a SkinnerShooter and an autographed Iowa State Cyclone hockey jersey.  Our goal is to raise $5,000 in ticket sales and promote the raffle nationwide through hockey blogs and to the Ames community. All proceeds from the raffle will help Cyclone Hockey buy equipment and help with travel expenses. Both of these events will be promoted through social media. For more information about the PowerSkater raffle, please check out the “Promotions” page on our blog.  You do not have to be from Ames, IA to buy raffle tickets, anyone can participate.  Tickets can also be purchased online using a credit card.

We promote many different events through our social media accounts, and this practice seems to be working quite well. Social media is proving to be a great way to get information about Cyclone Hockey out to the public. We have seen a great response to our social media efforts, and hope to continue to improve upon what we are currently doing.

Facebook

We have seen a substantial increase over the last few weeks in the number of Facebook fans we have. On December 8, we had 1,090 Facebook fans, and on January 21, we have 1,287 fans, meaning that over the last six weeks, we have a fan increase of 197 people. Considering the university’s three week long holiday break and a few away series, this increase is quite impressive.

We continue to post game updates, such as the starting lineup and goals scored, on Facebook. Over the last few weeks, we have noticed an increase in the amount of response we receive on these posts. We received 19 likes and 5 comments on a single post about the Cyclones sweeping the Hawkeyes. We have noticed a great response to these posts and our fans that are unable to make it to the games seem to appreciate these updates. We have also started mentioning individual players in our posts. For instance, we have a post from the Western Michigan series that states, “Cyclones win 6-3!!! Third period goals scored by David Kurbatsky, Brian Spring, and Pete Majkozak!” This post alone got 13 “likes” and 3 comments. We will continue to use our players’ names in our Facebook posts for we get a great response from the fans when we do so.

We have also started linking articles from the Iowa State Daily, the campus newspaper, onto our Facebook page. We have noticed that a few of our hockey articles are some of the most viewed on www.iowastatedaily.com. Overall, we are happy with the response that we have gotten from our Facebook page and feel that it is working to our benefit by getting information to our fans.

Twitter

Our Twitter following has grown from 111 to 127 followers over the period of December 8 – January 21. We have our Facebook and Twitter accounts linked together, so every comment we make on our Facebook page is also posted on our Twitter page. We are also mentioning other Iowa State University sports and showing our support for them. We hope that mentioning other ISU sports will increase our fan base, but at this time, it is too early to tell if this action has had any effect.

YouTube

We have not posted any new videos in the last few weeks, but we do plan on uploading game highlights in the near future. Although we have not uploaded any new videos recently, we have seen a great increase in the number of video views. From December 8 to January 21, we recorded an increase of 511 video views. This shows us that people are interested in the videos we post, which gives us more of an incentive to upload more.

Flickr

We have two Flickr accounts, one for the staff to post more “professional” photos such as team pictures, and another account specifically for our fans to post pictures they took during the games. We have seen very little to no response in our Flickr accounts, but see this as a challenge and a great opportunity. We need to develop a way to get the word about our Fan Flickr page out to more fans so they begin to utilize it. This is an area that we can improve upon and we will continue to work on getting the word of our Flickr accounts out to our fans.

Blogs

We have been working on improving our blogs and thinking of more information to place on the site. We have decided to post our “Player of the Week” and press releases from the games on our blog, as we think that posting more information on the site will be great in getting information out to our fans. The PowerSkater will be raffled off of our blog as well. We will continue to monitor the response to our new posts to make our blog as useful and informative as possible.

Summary

Overall, we are pleased with the progress we have made with our social media accounts, and hope to continue to provide information that our fans will enjoy and find useful. We will continue to monitor our accounts and make any necessary changes to make our social media as effective as possible. We have a couple home series and the CSCHL tournament coming up, and we will continue to use the benefits of social media to inform and update our fans of these events.

Through this research, I came across the NikeTraining.ca website which features YouTube star, Steve Dangle providing an insightful, funny, behind the scenes perspective from the tournament. I had the pleasure of chatting with both Steve and Laura West (Nike – Digital Brand Manager) prior to the USA-Sweden semi-final game.

In this interview, we address the following topics:

1. Steve explains how he got started in videoblogging on YouTube and Leafspace.com?
2. Laura provides insight on how Nike found out about Steve (thru their digital agency – Organic) and why they decided to have him represent their brand at the WJHC?
3. Steve talks about the importance of engaging with fans.  ”Social Media is not about quantity, it’s about quality!”
4. Laura discusses the NikeTraining.ca website – “Go to where the audience is versus making them come to us”.
5. Laura talks about Nike’s latest marketing campaign – Force Fate
6. Trevor addresses Pepsi’s recent announcement to cancel their SuperBowl advertising and, instead, focus on online efforts.
7. Laura shares her views on why Nike believes Social Media is an important part of their future communications and marketing initiatives.

Niketraining.ca Interview – Social Media

Conclusion

I want to express my thanks to both Steve and Laura for taking the time to chat with me about their project.  After being on the road for the last 4 months following sporting events and managing multiple social accounts, I can assure everyone that this is a very time consuming process.  Steve and Laura are joined in Saskatoon by two other very talented individuals that are shooting video, managing social accounts and staying up all night to edit and upload new videos every day.

In the interview, I mentioned the fact that Pepsi recently announced that they will not be participating in Superbowl advertising, ending a 23 year run.  Announcements like this make it clear that big brands are starting to realize the value of social media. Nike’s commitment to engaging in two-way conversations and building communities around their marketing efforts makes it clear that this is not a trend, rather, it’s a social revolution that is changing the way brands, teams, athletes and fans communicate.

Follow NikeTraining

Website: http://niketraining.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/niketraining

Facebook: http://facebook.com/niketraining

YouTube: http://youtube.com/niketraining

One of these bright minds is Jason Peck. Jason is the author of http://jasonfpeck.com (a blog focused on the sports business, sponsorship, new media, social networking, and whatever else he finds interesting).

Jason graciously asked Trevor Turnbull to contribute to his new ebook (Sports and Social Media Predictions 2010) on behalf of Sport Fan Connect. The ebook includes insights from many of the brilliant Sports & Social Media enthusiasts we have met over the past 6 months and provides many great thoughts on where we may be heading in the world of Sports & Social Media in 2010.

2009 has been an amazing year and we believe we have only just begun to see the impact that social media will have in the sports world. We hope to one day meet everyone included in this ebook. In the meantime, we’ll be sure to follow them online! Included below is a list of all the contributors to the ebook. Be sure to give them a look and feel free to drop any one of them a line. If there is one thing we’ve learned this year, it’s that the online social community is all about sharing! And these folks are certainly willing to share their time!

Sports Social Media Predictions 2010

Sports and Social Media Predictions 2010 – Contributors

Brian Gainor - http://partnershipactivation.com
Dan Beeman – http://sponsorshipinsights.com
Darren Heitner – http://sportsagentblog.com
Don, Chris & Kyle – http://blogswithballs.com
Espree Devora – http://zexsports.com
Joe Favorito – http://joefavorito.com
J.W. Cannon – http://twitter.com/khuda1
Lewis Howes – http://sportsnetworker.com
Pat Coyle – http://sportmarketing20.com
Peter Robert Casey – http://peterrobertcasey.com
Rob Katz – http://twitter.com/robkatz
Russell Scibetti – http://thebusinessofsports.com
Ryan Stephens – http://ryanstephensmarketing.com
Steve Cobb – http://activ8social.com
Trevor Turnbull – http://trevorturnbull.com
Ty Ahmad-Taylor – http://fanfeedr.com

On November 13th and 14th, the Cyclone Hockey team took on Central Oklahoma. On Saturday the 14th, we held our Military Night which was advertised through our social media. We also had the Ames Minor Hockey Tykes attend our Saturday game. We advertised that the Tykes players get in free and that their parents would receive $1 off admission. The Tykes had the opportunity to play during an intermission. That same night, members of Dance Marathon and their Miracle Children performed their Morale Dance. The children had the opportunity to meet our players and a good time was had by all!

We have been keeping our fans updated through our social media, and have received some useful feedback through our monitoring of these media outlets.

Facebook

Our Facebook fan numbers have been increasing steadily throughout the season and during the two week period of November 4 – November 18, we have increased our fan count from 793 to 912 fans. We are using our Facebook page to advertise games and to make our fans aware of any game promotions.

We have run a few game promotions during the last two weeks that we have advertised on Facebook. On Saturday, November 7, the Cyclone Hockey team took on Robert Morris University, and we decided to have a “Gold Night”. Fans received $1 off of an admission ticket if they wore gold clothing. We also we ran a promotion for fans to bring in their football tickets from the game earlier in the day to receive $1 off of a hockey admission ticket. We ran a weekend series promotion that we entitled “Guaranteed Win Night”. We advertised that the Cyclone Hockey team would win their game on Friday night, and if they were to lose, all the fans in attendance at Friday’s game would get in free to Saturday’s game. (The Cyclones won that series with a sweep!)

The next weekend, the Cyclone Hockey team took on Central Oklahoma. On Friday we held our “Military Night”. We asked that members of the military wear their uniform to receive free admission or to show their military ID to receive $1 off admission. Our promotional posts are receiving great feedback from our fans, as we are noticing an increase in responses to our posts.

We are continuing to provide links to any news source that mentions Cyclone Hockey, such as the university newspaper, Iowa State Daily. We also post any YouTube videos that we upload and provide a link so that our fans can view all of our YouTube videos. Overall, we use our Facebook page as an outlet to notify our fans of games and game promotions, as well as to share videos and Cyclone Hockey news.

Twitter

Our Twitter account has received a few new followers over the last couple of weeks. Between November 3 and November 18, we have seen accumulated 14 new followers. We update our followers during the games by posting the game starters and any points scored. We find that updating our followers through our Twitter page offers a good alternative for fans that are unable to attend the match.

YouTube

We currently have 15 videos posted to our YouTube account. Our videos include game highlights, penalty kill questions, and a fun, quirky Halloween video. Between a two week period spanning from November 4 – November 18, we have seen an increase of 583 video views, which takes our total views from 1,358 to 1,957. The increased amount of videos we have seen shows us that our videos are getting to our fans and that they are being well-received. We hope to continue posting videos and making them readily available to our fans by providing links to YouTube on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Flickr

During the last two weeks, we have added a new Flickr account specifically for our fans to upload personal Cyclone Hockey photos from games and other activities. We currently have photos of a group from Dance Marathon, as well as photos from the Tykes game and Military night. Our fan Flickr seems to be off to a pretty good start as we have 14 uploaded photos. At the last two weekend series we handed our fans a small card that advertised our social media, including our new Flickr account. We hope to continue advertising our newest Flickr page and hopefully see an increase in the amount of uploads we receive.

Blogs

We have been working on creating a more user-friendly and attractive player blog over the last couple of weeks. We have made more topic categories for easy access and created a more appealing layout. We have also included links to our Cyclone Hockey website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr accounts for our fans to follow.  We still have some work to do with our player blog, and will continue to make changes that make the website more accessible to our fans.

Summary

We have implemented a lot of game promotions throughout the last two weeks and have seen success in getting the word of these promotions to our fans through our social media. Our Facebook fans are responding well to the posts we make to our page and our fan numbers are increasing every day. Facebook has proven to be a very effective tool for getting information to our fans. Our Twitter page is also working well as it gives us the opportunity to post play-by-play updates during our games. We are still making changes to our YouTube, Flickr, and Player Blog, but feel that these outlets will be a good way for us to connect with our fans.

We will continue to advertise and provide information through our social media accounts to create a strong relationship with our fans. We feel that our social media can be a very effective way to reach our fans, and we will continue to monitor our fan response and make changes accordingly.

I began working with Mike Petrie (Calgary Stampeders – Director of Community and Media Relations) while working with a Saskatoon based company (http://zu.com) that was contracted to work with the Calgary Stampeders on their online initiatives. This relationship led to me consulting with the Stampeders on social media (and the eventual development of StampsConnect – http://stampsconnect.com) and really fueled my interest in expanding my network in the sports world.  Through this relationship, I was able to get in touch with the BC Lions media relations department to line up an experience that, I’m sure, my Dad will never forget!

A BC Lions Fan from Saskatchewan?

To truly understand the unusual circumstances of this story, I have to take you back a number of years to when I was just a little kid.  Growing up in Saskatchewan, it is pretty much assumed that you will be a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan for life.  After all, they are our only professional sports team and for nearly 100 years, they have been the face of a vast province that has always been deemed an underdog competing against the “big cities” of Canada.

For as long as I can remember, my Dad has always been a BC Lions fan.  As you can imagine, he has taken years of grief from family and friends for having loyalties that differ from everyone else in the province. And for a guy that has spent his whole life in Saskatchewan, and who had never been to Vancouver prior to this weekend, it is somewhat odd that he chose the Lions as his favorite team.    But, regardless, the Lions are “his team” and when I saw that the Stampeders were going to be playing the Lions while I was in Vancouver, I made a point to see if I could make his experience one that he’d never forget.

Meeting the BC Lions

The day before the game, we ventured over to the BC Lions practice facility in Surrey, BC. I lined it up for my Dad to watch the practice and meet with some of his favorite players (Geroy Simon, Casey Printers, Paris Jackson).

Big thanks goes out to the following people for making all this happen:

Mike Petrie (Calgary Stampeders – Director of Community and Media Relations)
Jacqueline Blackwell (BC Lions – Communications Coordinator)
Jeff Armstead (InTheTunnel.com – Athlete websites & online marketing)

And, I have to give a big thanks to all of the players as well.  For as long as I can remember, CFL players have always been very approachable and accommodating with their fans, and these guys were no exception. As you can see in a recent interview I did with Geroy Simon, many athletes are now starting to use social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and uStream) to connect directly with their fans.  So, for anyone else that wants to have a conversation with or possibly meet their favorite players, they are now only a click away online!

Stay tuned for the Part 2 video – “BC Lions Experience – Game Day”

We had the pleasure of sitting down recently with Whitney McClintock and Marc-Steve Cerniglia at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL. Whitney is a World Champion waterskier from Canada. She currently attends the University of Central Florida as she trains in Orlando, FL. Marc-Steve is an Agent Advisor with Sports Management Worldwide and is currently working with Whitney to help build her personal brand through the use of social media.

I think you’ll see in this video that Whitney is not only a great athlete, she also has an infectious personality and is a great representative as the face of waterskiing worldwide.

Whitney McClintock & Social Media

In this second video, Whitney chats with Sport-Fan Connect’s Trevor Turnbull about her experience with social networking including Facebook, Twitter and her personal website. She also gives a shout out to some of her favorite bands on Twitter – Safety Suit @SafetySuitNews and Miley Syrus (who ironically recently quit Twitter….check out the article on MTV here: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1624354/20091021/cyrus__miley.jhtml.

Athletes & Social Media

As with many athletes in lesser known sports. they have to be creative in the way they promote themselves, and social media can be a powerful way to implement creative marketing.

Ryan Stephens (Author at SportsNetworker.com and Media Analyst at Sports Media Challenge) recently wrote an article titled “2 Ways to Enhance Marketing for Unpopular Sports“. In this article he makes two recommendations:

1. Educate People About the Game/Sport
2. Provide Access to the Personalities

Ryan makes some great points here that could easily be implemented by athletes like Whitney.

First, she should try to help her fans understand her sport better so they can relate to how difficult it is for her to compete at such a high level.  Growing up in Canada, I basically grew up on the lake (well….for the 3 months of summer we normally get! ha).  So, I can totally relate to how difficult her sport is and how gifted she must be to be a World Champion!

Secondly, providing access to her life is something that Whitney has control over through the use of social media.  Uploading photos and videos of her training and competing at events would give her fan base a real behind the scenes look at what it’s like in her world and would help them relate to how hard she trains……..and how much fun she has doing it!  Both of these things are easily done through the use of popular social tools like Flickr, YouTube and TwitPics.

By implementing a proper social media strategy, athletes like Whitney McClintock can control and build their personal brand online. Social media, as with anything else, doesn’t just happen.  You have to work at it and Whitney is doing a great job of diving in and will undoubtedly see success from her efforts!

Follow Whitney and Marc-Steve here:

Whitney’s website: http://whitneymcclintock.com
Whitney on Twitter: http://twitter.com/whitmcclintock
Whitney on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=whitney+mcclintock&init=quick#/whitneymcclintock?ref=search&sid=766800363.2957897093..1 (Facebook Fan Page coming soon!)

Marc-Steve’s website: http://marcsteve.com
Marc-Steve on Twitter: http://twitter.com/marcstevec