Building Your Brand beyond the Field

Whether it is Peyton Manning trending on Twitter or a March Madness bracket consuming your work week, one thing is for sure – sports is no longer simply a game.  The sports world as we knew it has evolved from an isolated competition into an entirely new ecosystem of sports entertainment.   

That’s the belief of Beverly Macy of the Huffington Post – and I tend to agree with her.  She described in a recent article that aggressive marketing changed sports at the professional, collegiate, and even local levels into “sports entertainment.”  Sports entertainment - a phrase once reserved for steel chair-wheeling professional wrestlers now encompasses everything from a Coach’s post-game tirade to an athlete’s high ankle sprain.

And at the center of it all is social media.  A world that first gained popularity in sports from athletes putting their foot in their mouth, transformed into a medium that allows an individual to contact thousands of fans – potentially generating millions of dollars through appearances and endorsements.  With that type of exposure, brand awareness becomes essential.

A brand is not simply a logo.  It is not a business card, letterhead, or a website design.  In my opinion, a brand is the reaction a person gets when they hear a name.  For example, when I say “Nike” – what do you think of?  As a brand manager, if there is a negative perception it is my job to change that.  If there is a positive reaction, I want to reinforce it.  That’s what makes a successful brand, I believe.
 

An athlete’s social media perception needs the same brand management.  Professional athletes are already fortunate enough to have thousands, if not millions, of fans.  With strategic use of social media platforms, an athlete can easily build a brand strong enough to turn their on-field fans into loyal followers for life.  With that sort of incentive, I would not be surprised to see more athletes focusing as hard on their social media campaigns as they do on their sport.

Pete DeLuca is Manager of Creative Services at Maroon PR.  Contact him at Pete@MaroonPR.com. 

Oh Tweet! What is Free Speech in a Social Media World?

Buried amidst the Peyton Manning soap opera, the glory of championship week, and NBA and NHL regular season madness was a short, couple graph story from the Associated Press about Twitter violations by NCAA athletes.

Yesterday, the University of Michigan football team received a verbal commitment from Ohio high school junior linebacker Mike McCray to play for the Wolverines starting in 2013. As a junior, McCray was only allowed to verbally commit to the Wolverines, not sign a National Letter of Intent, or a contract stating he will play for the school. A verbal commitment is non-binding and allows the recruit to continue the recruiting process if he so chooses.

Shortly after McCray committed, two current Michigan football players tweeted at him to congratulate him on being a Wolverine. One, redshirt senior wide receiver Roy Roundtree, attended the same high school as McCray. Redshirt senior linebacker Kenny Demens, the other tweeter, did not. Michigan was then informed that they may have broken a secondary NCAA violation which prohibits someone affiliated with a school from sending messages to recruits via social media.

The issue, or non-issue as many would argue, brings up a couple of questions: does the NCAA, or an individual institution, have the right to monitor what its members say online? Is there a difference between interaction via social media and interactions in person? Does one’s speech being public, and in many ways permanent, change the definition of it being free?

Social media is, by definition, social. It allows us to communicate with people in quick, short bursts no matter location or time of day. But social media is also a powerful news and marketing tool. There’s a difference between talking to a friend in a restaurant and communicating with someone for the whole world to see. College athletic departments are brands, as is the NCAA, and they want to protect that image. Neither tweet was incriminating, nor did they offer the promise of lavish gifts, or anything at all.  But Roundtree and Demen did break a (silly) rule and it briefly hurt the athletic department’s image and credibility.

In all likelihood the NCAA MAY slap the Wolverines on the wrist. On an ever increasing list of possible violations being committed around the country, a congratulatory tweet from a couple players is miniscule at best. However, schools are wising up to the importance of maintaining an image on social media. The University of North Carolina has stringent social media rules for theirstudent-athletes, and many others may follow suit. The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) put out their own list of Twitter tips forstudent-athletes. It focuses a lot on not only maintaining the college’s brand, but the student-athletes’ personal brand as well. And if you think professional athletes aren’t immune from Tweet-lash, outside the confines of the NCAA, think of Pittsburgh Steeler running back Rashard Mendenhall.

Free speech on social media is one of many issues facing collegiate athletics, yet it applies to students, companies, pretty much everyone. For individuals and companies out there on social media just remember: you are what you tweet!

Jen Schiller is an Associate Account Executive at Maroon PR.  Contact her at Jennifer@MaroonPR.com.

Very PINTERESTing

By Katy Fincham

If you haven’t already heard of the latest social media craze, Pinterest, then you’ve clearly been living under a rock! A co-worker showed the site to me back in December, right in the peak of the hype, and like many, I signed up for just for the heck of it. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, I had to wait for an invite…basically an approval of my inquiry to join the “cool kids club.” Ever since then, I’ve been addicted!

According to research reported by Mashable.com, Pinterest is currently dominated by female users (87%) between the ages of 25 – 54. The site has quickly grown to 11.4 million users in less than a year, with the largest jump in the last four months. As a 27-year-old female who is currently planning a wedding, I am the average user. But as someone who works in the PR industry, my company has taken quick notice to the unique opportunity to help our clients brand themselves on a new social platform.

Mashable.com recently suggested eight strategies for launching your brand presence on Pinterest. These strategies mentioned include:

• Reserve Your Space - Just like you would reserve your Facebook or Twitter handle, you should make sure your brand/business has a handle reserved
• Themes, Not Product Promotion – Pinterest is extremely visual and is currently centered on interests such as weddings, home décor, recipes and color themes. Your board should not look like a product catalog!
• Use Hashtags – Just like Twitter, Pinterest uses hashtags in interest descriptions. Use wisely to ensure creative, yet consistent messaging.
• Engage with the Community – “Like all other social networks, you need to listen and engage, not simply broadcast your message. Try allowing members of the community to post to your boards, but be sure to monitor activity for appropriate content.”

First thing to do is make sure the Pinterest is the right venue for your brand or business. If it is, Pinterest is a great way to spark interest in a more creative and visually stimulating way. Now is the time to jump in and thank outside the box.

Happy Pinning!

Katy Fincham is an Account Executive at Maroon PR.  Contact her at Katy@MaroonPR.com.

Twittamentary: Are your digital friends better than your real-life friends?

By Sarah Gubara

This is a difficult question to tackle, since we always hear that relationships with your online friends are a lot more superficial than the people you meet in person.

Last week, I was faced with this question at a basketball game. I was excited to run into a friend of mine, who I didn’t see much. As we were chattering away, we were asked how we knew each other, that’s when it hit me—we didn’t! This completely boggled my mind. Twitter has become such an integral part of my life, that it felt like we were great friends. We had been tweeting back and forth for two years, had a lot of things in common, and would run into each other around town.

Isn’t that how everyone meets their friends? Maybe, maybe not. But my story is not unique, in fact there is a documentary about Twitter, directed by Singaporean Filmmaker (and avid tweeter) Tan Siok Siok (@sioksiok).



“Twittamentary explores how lives meet and affect one another on the fast growing micro-blogging phenomena that is Twitter.” The documentary is crowd-sourced by social medians around the world. Twitter users have contributed stories on a single theme: How Twitter has affected your life and the lives of those around you. Stories include: a homeless woman who gets by from donations contributed via Twitter, a woman whose followers raised money to buy her a new laptop, and many others.

Marketing for the documentary has been socially driven as well. After releasing the first teaser, they prompted users to help them get to a thousand followers before unlocking the beta web screen.

While it’s easy to think about the novelty of social media, check out the teaser below and think about the humanity it facilitates. What’s your Twitter story?

Sarah Gubara is Manager of Social and Digital Media at Maroon PR.  Contact her at Sarah@MaroonPR.com.

#RunRichRun

By Kristen Seabolt

For the past seven years, the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen has made the NFL Scouting Combine a little more interesting with his signature annual 40-yard dash in his work suit and tie (see video below). However, Rich will not be the only one running this year in his full work getup - the Twitterverse now has the opportunity to join him.

On February 21st, Rich posted to his blog, “Run with me,” a post which explained that this year everyone has the opportunity to get involved by participating in a Twitter contest surrounding his run.

Here is how it works – Take a video camera and film yourself in your work clothes at your place of work running a 40-yard dash. Then, post the video and Tweet it to Rich Eisen (@richeisen), the NFL (@NFL) or the NFL Network (@NFLNetwork) with the hastag #RunRichRun. Rich and the NFL Network will select the best and the worst videos to air on the NFL Network before Rich takes the field at the Scouting Combine.

This is yet another example of the power of social media at its finest. Since February 18th, hundreds of tweets have already been made to #RunRichRun that feature user-submitted videos as well as fan favorites.

So, if you are still in search of your 15 minutes of fame (or 6 seconds of stardom) get out there and run! And as Rich suggests, “Please, do not hurt yourself. And also do not cost yourself your job.”

So, who at Maroon PR would you like to see submit their 40-yard dash video?



Kristen Seabolt is an Associate Account Executive at Maroon PR. Contact her at Kristen@MaroonPR.com.

Brands to Have a Timeline Too

By Eve Hemsley

Whether you’re a fan of Facebook’s new Timeline style or not, it appears to be here to stay. As Facebook phases out personal profiles in the now ‘old’ look they are moving on to offer the new format to businesses who host Facebook brand pages.

Facebook first announced the new Timeline format at its F8 conference in September 2011. The new layout was a drastic change from what users were previously familiar with, instituting a new picture heavy, scrapbook-like format creating a collage of users’ ‘lives’ on the network. Facebook has since move forward in slowly implementing the new design for its over 800 million users.

When working in PR with clients whose companies are greatly entrenched in social media, changes to a social media giant like Facebook make you wonder, how will this affect my client? I’m sure many PR pros and CEOs wondered how their brand pages were going to look, questioning whether the new format will apply to their page as well.

It seems the world will soon get its answer. It is being hinted at that Zuckerberg and the Facebook crew will discuss the expansion of the Timeline to brand pages at their first ever fMC event for marketers on February 29th. An article by Ad Age sites that executives briefed on the company’s plans have reported that, “new pages for brands will start in beta with a handful of partners, and then be released to more marketers in stages."

The article also speculates as to what the brand pages will look like: “the tabs or apps marketers currently host on their Facebook pages to sell products or take polls may turn into boxes on the brand's Timeline…The format change could put the onus on brands to develop their own apps using custom verbs other than ‘like,’ in the same vein as Pinterest, which has a Facebook app that tracks when its users have ‘pinned’ something.”

It is also thought that brand pages will have the ability to populate their Timeline with events that occurred outside of its presence on Facebook. For example, Coca-Cola could add the year it was founded (1892) as an event on its timeline.

It seems all will be revealed at next week’s fMC conference where Zuckerberg and his team plan to discuss details of the upcoming format change and how they plan to go about the switch.

Eve Hemsley is an Associate Account Executive at Maroon PR.  Contact her at Eve@MaroonPR.com.

SWOOSH!

By Mitchell Schmale

Sometimes in life things don’t work out the way you planned. That’s a fact. And everyone will learn this tough lesson at some point. Cory Weissman learned it firsthand while pursuing his lifelong dream of playing basketball at the college level.

Cory is a student-athlete at Gettysburg College who reminded us all of that life lesson when he stepped back on the basketball court this season for this first time in three years after suffering a life-threatening stroke as a college freshman. Cory was an ordinary kid pursuing his passion of playing basketball when he was sidelined with a sudden debilitating stroke. His dreams of basketball took a backseat as he fought to make a full recovery, but his love of the game still fueled his determination to work hard every day during his years of rehabilitation.

Cory’s inspiring story helps remind us that it’s never too late or too tough to keep working hard to chase your dream. He was already a winner before he ever took those amazing steps back on the court after his stroke. It’s not always important that things work out the way you planned, but it’s all about how you respond when presented with those sometimes painful life lessons. Don’t give up, keep trying to move forward every day and know deep down that you gave it everything you had. You may end up someplace great that you never even expected. Cory proves it.

Mitchell Schmale is Vice President of Maroon PR.  Contact him at Mitchell@MaroonPR.com.