While attending the Des Moines Business Record’s Power Breakfast Series on Tuesday morning, I was quickly reminded of social media’s importance in the business of sport—whether at the professional or amateur level.
The Breakfast Series hosted several representatives from prominent athletic departments, such as the University of Iowa (UI), Iowa State University (ISU), University of Northern Iowa (UNI), and Drake University. The Business Record was fortunate to have this event scheduled right smack dab in the middle of the NCAA Division I conference realignment hysteria—indubitably, a stir that’s been followed by millions nationwide.
As the Big 12 Conference was teetering on the brink of extinction earlier this week, ISU’s prospects of belonging to a BCS conference appeared slim. So slim, that a Facebook Group was created last week (Save the Cyclones) which gained over 9,796 members in less than a week.
We conducted a quick search using the keywords of “Big Ten/Big 12 Conference Realignment” over the past 30 days and found some amazing statistics as they relate to social media mentions:
- Blogs: 1,749
- Video: 17
- Mainstream news: 898
- Twitter: 2,654
- Forum posts/replies: 1,206
- Facebook: 1,003
- Comments (to mainstream news, videos, blogs, etc.): 1,208
Think Midwestern folks aren’t passionate about sports? Think again! That’s well over 8,497 mentions on this topic in a month.
Back to the Power Breakfast. The event was well attended and, interestingly, about a third of the Q & A discussion centered on the importance social media is playing in their athletic departments. Amy Stephens, Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Drake, commented that it was “critical to be connected” in the social media space, in terms of recruitment and marketing for the program. Mark Jennings, the Associate Director of Athletics for Donor and Patron Services for the UI, stated that the athletic department was “getting more involved each day” in the social media space. Troy Dannen, UNI’s Athletic Director, spoke to the growing importance of blogs in the dissemination of information and the challenge of getting the correct information to the public. He got a good laugh from the crowd when he said, “Blogs are the devil.”
In all, the panel affirmed what Catchfire has believed for a long time—social media is an absolute necessity to colleges and universities. It should be a key component of any institution’s marketing plan—whether academic-, athletic-, admissions-, or alumni-related.
Now for the pros. There is no better case study than taking a quick look at what is happening in social media related to the World Cup. I love my football (American football for foreigners), but there is no comparison to the World Cup. Played every four years, this event pits teams from nations across the globe in a battle to hold the title of World Champion. For non-soccer fans, think the Olympics, but bigger.
On Twitter alone, there is a huge following. Here are all the hashtags that represent the teams:#worldcup #arg #aus #bra #chi #civ #cmr #den #eng #esp #fra #ger #gre #hon #ita #jpn #kor #mex #ned #nga #par #por #prk #rsa #srb #sui #usa. What’s cool about the above hashtags, is that Twitter has included images to appear each time one is mentioned, so, for example, if I mention the #USA, this will come up.
Besides the countries represented in South Africa, check out how many other hashtags are currently out there: #worldcup, #soccerworldcup, #fifaworldcup10, #wm2010, #2010worldcup, #southafrica, #football, #wc2010, #FIFAWORLDCUP, #Fifa, #swc, #soccer, #capetown, #HateItalyWeek, #USMNT, yada, yada, yada.
Twitter has also launched a World Cup page. By clicking on a country’s flag, you can view its upcoming matches and a stream of tweets about that country. By clicking on a match, you can see specific tweets related to it.
This past Saturday, the US faced England in one of the most anticipated matches for the US in World Cup history. Conducting a quick search using the keywords of “England vs. USA World Cup” over just the past seven days, these are the numbers we found in social media mentions (for a total of 69,241):
- Blogs: 23,920
- Video: 443
- Images: 1,057
- Mainstream news: 7,324
- Micromedia (Twitter): 18,302
- Forum posts/replies: 6,406
- Facebook: 5,967
- Comments (to mainstream news, videos, blogs, etc.): 4,407
So what does this all mean? Sports and their teams represent brands (whether amateur or pro) that people are desperately passionate about. Organizations hoping to engage the consumers of those brands must be engaged in this space.
The most sophisticated brands in the world get it. Do you?
