USA Today and Washington Post reported on Monday that the LPGA Tour will test out using the caddies bibs to promote players Twitter handles.  This is going to take place at the LPGA Championship at Locust Hill Country Club next month.

We have already seen this happen in Lacrosse and football but it is the first time golf has attempted to go down this route.  It actually makes sense for players to go down this route and would be interesting to find out how much of it is the players pushing for it and how much it is a gimmick to gain the Tour some press.

Golfers have long been on Twitter.  Watching the Ryder Cup back in 2010 whilst having a twitter list made up of players from both teams made for great entertainment and gave the tournament an added depth that had been missing before.

The opportunity for the women’s players to gain more followers and have added exposure is one that will be welcomed.  Many players struggle to make their enjoyment of the game raise a good enough income.  Much of their needs are met by sponsors who require exposure to potential customers via TV, press and digital.

Platforms such as Twitter are great for players to show their personalities and increase their sponsorship earning potential.  The men’s game has been reaping the benefits for a while with the likes of Ian Poulter, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood gaining huge followings here in the UK.

The greater exposure the women’s players can gain and more fans they can gain then this will only be good news for their sponsors (and potential sponsors) in the future.  Whether this will be a one-off or something that we will see on a regular basis will be interesting.

The LPGA has 113 players on Twitter and much of the success will be whether the players actually use their accounts whilst promoting them.  Is there much point in a caddy having the name on the back if the player has not tweeted for a year or two?

For those who haven’t put finger to keyboard (or phone) for a while then restarting just before the event would certainly be advisable!

We’ll try to get a quote or two from the LPGA and update the page if and when this happens.  What do you think of the news……the future of golf in social or a PR gimmick?

Last year Castrol EDGE presented Ronaldo Tested to the Limit, an award-winning documentary that showed the Portugal and Real Madrid forward showcase his strengths in a series of captivating challenges in the most scientific examination of a player ever undertaken.  #RonaldoLIVE will showcase the star player’s legendary skills, strength and agility.

Now, to celebrate the release of the documentary for free on iTunes, Castrol EDGE and Ronaldo are counting down to one more epic challenge, and this time – in a ground-breaking twist – Ronaldo’s fans will get to test his skill for themselves live on Facebook.

Fans are being asked to take part in the challenge – #RonaldoLIVE – by signing up on facebook.com/castrolfootball to be in with a chance of going head to head with Ronaldo on Thursday 17^th May.

#RonaldoLIVE will be the world’s first interactive football challenge streamed live through Facebook from a state-of-the-art testing facility in Madrid. In the test, inspired by Ronaldo and Castrol EDGE’s Twitter followers, Ronaldo will face a barrage of footballs fired at him from chutes suspended above and he will have to receive, control and shoot each ball into one of four goals that surround him before the next ball is released.

Of the first 100,000 fans that connect to the #RonaldoLIVE Facebook app to watch live, fans will be selected at random to take part in the action, by selecting Ronaldo’s target and choosing the goals that he must shoot into.

Will Ronaldo have the lightning quick reaction speed, shooting accuracy and strength under pressure to control and successfully strike each ball? Or will his fans’ selections prove too much of a test?

All the action will be streamed live on both Castrol EDGE and Ronaldo’s Facebook pages (facebook.com/castrolfootball & facebook.com/Cristiano) on Thursday 17^th May.  For fans that miss out on the live action, a mini-film will be released on Wednesday 23^rd on youtube.com/castroledge and castroledge.com/ronaldo

Be interesting to see how many fans tune in and how exciting the action will be.  It’s an interesting follow up event by the guys at M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment.

As most people on social networking sites are aware the potential for personal rants and raves to be read by a large online audience is huge, particularly on Twitter. This potential increases even more when the advice or information is of genuine quality and expertise.

Health and fitness is a booming industry and any good advice over the internet is met with real enthusiasm nowadays. When this is coupled with high profile sources like professional sports teams or athletes, people take notice. It is this that is revolutionising the way people get useful information and motivation about fitness and exercise.

There is a huge number of Twitter accounts hosted by fitness and exercise sources such as Men’s Fitness or Women’s Fitness Magazine and as you would expect they continually post tips and articles about how to get your perfect six pack or stick to that New Year’s diet. As with anything, some of the accounts are useful and others aren’t so much.

My Fitness Hut struck me as a particularly good one for general exercise and All Good Nutrition is a decent one for diet and wellbeing. But overall there are a lot of people out there offering advice about all kinds of fitness and exercise related topics.

However what surprises me is how little professional clubs, teams and sportsmen contribute to this trend over social networks. Surely thousands of people would be interested to know, for example, what kind of fitness regime Yaya Toure conducts in a week or what an Olympic athlete eats before a key event. This really is something the average sports fan and twitter user would be interested in seeing and would be shared between thousands of people.

With regards to promoting good eating habits and encouraging regular exercise, professional sportsman could utilise Twitter and indeed many other social networking sites much more effectively. When children and many adults are struggling to make sport and exercise a key part of their life, what would be the harm in harnessing the power of Twitter to catch people’s attention and motivate them with advice from the highest level?

Nottinghamshire County Council have started a campaign called #fittertwitter to share exercise and performance tips to Twitter fans. They have elisted the help of notable British athletes such as the paralympian Richard Whitehead to share their personal advice to anyone willing to listen.

Whitehead said about the scheme: “I am delighted to get involved. It provides an excellent opportunity for athletes and coaches to engage with local people in promoting the value of sport for all.”

Professional sportsmen are regularly helping out in their local community and overseas to promote the values of sport. But as the influence of social networking continues to grow the need to use this way of sharing information grows too. Professional sportsmen and women will always have a massive influence on the behaviour and ideas of their fans, particularly for young people.

Participation in sport has been on the national agenda for quite some time, especially due to London 2012 and the legacy the UK hopes to leave behind. Social media is the key method of interaction in the 21^st century so let’s start using it to deal with a nationwide issue.

Vauxhall has this week launched a brand new Facebook competition giving England fans the opportunity to support Roy Hodgson’s men either at Home and Away this summer.

The England Team sponsor used digital agency Skive to develop the competition for fans to support their team in style this summer with a chance to travel to Ukraine or take part in a VIP Match screening in England with an England legend.

England fans can take part in a Home or Away quiz based on England team trivia and gives the winner the opportunity to choose where they would like to be watching the action this summer.

Peter Hope, Marketing Director of Vauxhall Motors, said; “As the England Team sponsor we wanted to be able to offer the ultimate fan experience for England fans either at Home or Away this summer.

“We have made a significant investment in our digital football platforms and the response to our activity has been very positive from the fans.

“Our Facebook competitions have been very well received by football fans and we are always looking to push the boundaries and give fans a unique experience through our sponsorship of the National team.”

Vauxhall’s Home or Away competition app is available via both desktop and mobile Facebook platforms.

Vauxhall launched their football social media platforms in October 2011 and currently have close to 45 thousand followers across all four Home Nations.

Become a fan of Vauxhall England on Facebook at www.facebook.com/VauxhallEngland

For more information on Vauxhall Football go to www.vauxhallfootball.co.uk

Follow @VauxhallEngland on twitter at https://twitter.com/VauxhallEngland

Last night saw Liverpool FC launch their new kit.  Actually it was more than a new kit launch as it saw the dawn of a new era in terms of their kit with new manufacturers ’Warrior’ – a US company founded by a former Lacrosse player, acquired by sports giant New Balance in 2004.

This is their first foray into football with their specialism coming from lacrosse (obviously) and ice hockey.  So it was always going to be important to shake off the shackles of previous incumbents adidas, who had been making the kits since 2006, by making the first kit launch an impressive one.

So, aside from the usual press release and pictures, what did they do in the social media space?  Here is what Paul Rogers, LFC’s Head of Content and long-term friend of the site, told UKSN (there are more quotes throughout the article too);

“When we sat down to work out our content plan around the ‘reveal’ of the new LFC kit, social media was at the forefront of our thinking. We know from past experience that kit reveals generate enormous excitement amongst fans and we wanted to reach out to and engage with as many supporters as possible when the clock struck midnight.

With our last  kit launch in the summer of 2011, we used our own official website, TV channel, Twitter and Facebook accounts to create a buzz but even in 12 months, things have moved on a lot. This time around, we were keen to maximise the reach of all of our social media channels including our new YouTube channel as well as Pinterest and Tumblr”

YouTube

The club and Warrior launched the usual video to accompany the launch showing some behind the scenes shots of the photo shoot, interviews/quotes from players and pictures of the new kit.  The players appear to be happy with it (no surprise there) as it brings back the gold into the kit so its a bit of a throwback to the 1970′s/1980′s in that sense.  It also appeals to the die-hard fans with a tribute to the 96 fans who lost their lives in the Hillsborough Distaster in 1989 with the inclusion of the number on the back of the shirt.

Interestingly in the video it shows an integration with a bigger campaign by the inclusion of the #LFCkit tag, encouraging fans to talk about it on twitter and talk to other fans. So far the video has gained 61k views since its launch at midnight last night.

The new kit sponsors also released their own video showcasing their ‘expect us’ activation today as the push to link the club and brand starts with a vengeance.  It is pretty cool and offered a teaser to the fans as they walked past the ground by projecting images of the players and the brand tag line onto a wall.  With £25m a year being paid to the club we can expect much more of this with a hefty marketing spend to back it up.

Twitter

The #LFCkit tag has been used many times and was reported to have trended in Liverpool after the midnight kit launch, showing fans were anxious to show their feelings (mostly good) about the kit.  It’s always a sensitive time for clubs when it comes to such a major change in design, as has been shown recently by Cardiff City’s plans to change from blue to red (something that was retracted after the predictable fan outrage).

As of 9am this morning there had been some 12,972 tweets using the hashtag.  Something that will taken as great success by those involved.  This was all before it had been picked up by the press or blogs so this number will increase significantly as news travels past the city walls of Liverpool.  The club also posted a new image on their Twitter background which showed the kit and, once again, the #LFCkit hashtag. (stats below taken using MAP).

“We went big on a dedicated twitter hashtag #lfckit – which we promoted across multiple sites, not just on Twitter – and it worked very well as it was trending worldwide soon after midnight” said Paul.

Pinterest

As part of the clubs push onto new platforms, of which Pinterest has been a focal point for the last few months.  The new launch was an ideal opportunity to make use of this highly visual platform with pictures from the launch event as well as the video being posted on their.  This gives fans another of many touch points where they can find information about the kit as well as links to the club store.

“As the reveal of any new kit is a very visual experience, we changed our facebook Cover photo and Twitter background to showcase the new kit and used both Pinterest and Tumblr to showcase some amazing images of the players for fans to share.”

Facebook

Finally, the club used their long established Facebook page to bring the imagery (and store links) to the fans.  With just under 10m fans on the page the reach would have been pretty wide and with the late night timing of the launch, the majority of fans would be able to get their first taste of what they are going to see on the pitch in August when they checked their Facebook this morning.

The use of cover photo’s as a way of bringing a highly visual approach to campaigns is something we have already highlighted here but it also provides a picture that fans can upload and use as their own cover photo.  Something a friend of mine did this morning.  There was no big tease as we saw with Rangers but there was no shortage of likes, shares and comments on each post.

Tumblr

Last, but not least (though originally left off from this post! – ed) was the inclusion of the clubs Tumblr page to provide more visuals to those who have subscribed to their page in their news feed.  The page is still quite new and it will certainly boost the number of people heading their page.

What else?

“On our website, we asked fans to mark the kit out of 10 – and so far we’ve had just short of 20,000 votes with a score of 10 coming out on top with 25% of the votes, with 74% of all fans voting for 7 or higher. To encourage engagement with fans, we’ve picked out 20 of the best tweets about the kit and embedded them in a news story on the official site – which lots of fans appreciate as fans all over the world can quickly follow them via the news story.”

Summary

The approach was that of hitting as many touch points as possible.  At the end of the day it about raising awareness, gaining coverage and selling kit (at the moment through pre-orders).  It has not been anything new or spectacular but shows good use of all the platforms at the same time, an integrated approach which proves that departments within the clubs – and the new sponsors – are talking to each other and working together as one.  Something very simple but often not achieved.

“It’s been an exciting launch so far, created a great deal of excitement and we’re on target to break the record for the number of pre-order sales on day one. In terms of exclusive content, we’ve got loads more kit-related videos planned for the coming days and weeks.”

AC Milan linked up with sponsors adidas to promote the fact that they have managed to break the 10m fan barrier on the official Facebook page.  For a global brand such as the most famous club in Italy it was only going to be a matter of time till they grew in such numbers – though still well behind Barcelona (30m), Real Madrid (27m) and Man United (26m).

It has been a pretty low key affair with no promotional video or massive digital campaign launched, what they have done is incorporate their players and give fans the chance to be part of it.  Interestingly they have also turned it into a revenue generator!

The players were photographed at the training ground donning the new Facebook ‘are you in?’ t-shirt that has been produced by the main kit suppliers adidas (disclosure – adidas are a client).  This links into the ‘are you in?’ campaign which has been going on for the last year.

The revenue side of it is that they are giving fans the option to buy one of the t-shirts on their e-commerce site for €12.00.  A way of turning those 10m fans into customers, which is something that is proving to be challenge for clubs on social media.  (I’m going to be speaking on Social CRM ‘converting fans into customers’ at the Sports CRM Summit later this month – more on this to come soon).

The players signed some of the tops and then wore the t-shirts whilst posing for photos.  They also changed the cover photo on their page to promote the celebration.  Timelines are becoming an easier way for clubs to provide visually great content as more clubs and brands use them in new ways.

You may well have missed it this week but the Metro ran with a small story about the QR code venture by sports betting company Betfair.

This isn’t the first time they have looked to use the technology in a fun, unique way.  More recently they added them onto the rears of the British Women’s Beach Volleyball team, an activation that was picked up by much of the press.

At the time I could see what they were trying to do.  Chances are they got few signups or extra through people taking pictures of the players during the game itself (or even at the event) but as a gimmick it went well from a PR point of view and would have cost very little to do.

Now they have taken it a step further with the sponsorship of Irish boxer Eamonn O’Kane.  This involves placing a QR code on the crotch area of his shorts, a campaign that comes complete with the tag line ‘marketing with balls’ and its own promotional video.

Many in the industry have been crying out when it comes to the use of QR codes and about how many are totally meaningless they are and generally put in places that you cannot use them, i.e. the underground.

With headlines from the likes of Mashable (Why QR codes wont last), The Guardian (WTF, QR Codes?), Business Insider (Death to the QR Code) and Gizmodo (QR Codes: Goodbye and Good Riddance), it has become somewhat of a running joke.

Rather than using the technology for its strengths it has become a PR tool where the objective is to place them in the oddest possible places and gain press coverage for this fact.  Otherwise why would they fly them through the sky, on underground posters (opposite the platform), on footballers heads (!) and now on a boxers crotch?!

There has always been an obstacle that has kept QR Codes from really taking off, and that’s the fact you have to download the reader first to then use it and take a picture (as well as the image problem they have).

It’s role is meant to be to act as a shortcut, taking out the hassle of entering a website address and accessing great content (quickly).  If it just linking to content that is easily available already or placed in odd places then its use becomes negligible and consumers will not take them seriously.

Hopefully this will the last QR code PR stunt by Betfair, and with the failure to gain much coverage (The Drum and Metro being the only ones of note) it is most likely.  At the end of the day, marketeers only have themselves to blame.

What is the most stupid use of QR codes you have you seen?  Do you think they will ever become truly useful?  Have these stunts destroyed their reputation?

The struggles that the former Scottish champions have had to endure this season have been well documented, with doubts still remaining as to what the future has in store as bidding to buy the troubled club continues.

Life, and business, though at the club has continued as normal though as the end of the season nears and thoughts move to the 2012-13 season.  One of the earliest features of the following season is always the kit launches that occur in April/May at each club.  Rangers are no different….. apart from in their approach.

The clubs Social Media Manager, Rab Boyle explains, “With the on-going success of our Club social media strategy since launch last year, we wanted to find a way to build some buzz around the launch of a very special kit that celebrates the Club’s stunning 1972 Cup Winners’ Cup Final victory and Rangers 140th anniversary using our social channels.”

The clubs social media strategy has been based around the launch of new channels on Facebook and Twitter.  The concentration on these channels (as well as keeping a close tab on others) and integration in other elements of the business has been ongoing and a great case of experimentation to test success.

The kit launch has certainly been one of these cases.

“We knew that if we had told the supporters outright that we were launching a 1972 tribute kit, they would have very easily realised what it was going to look like. It was then that we realised we could use the power of our social networks and our highly engaged fans on Facebook in particular, to build anticipation for its launch on Thursday. We decided that the best way to do this was use the visual storytelling capability of Facebook through Timeline covers to unveil the kit and to get fans talking about what the messages on the timeline meant.”

The use of the new Timeline cover photo’s is certainly a unique one and great use of a very visual element to the platform.  Not only did they release the new look kit on there but the teasing out of the launch to generate interest and word of mouth coverage was a nice touch.

They created 4 different timeline covers, each showing a different section of the kit and telling part of a story about the 1972 victory: In 1972 on a hot, tense night in Barcelona one game changed everything | The Rangers spirit conquered Europe | And 40 years later the spirit lives on.

This is how they looked…

Some great pictures that teased out the launch and look of the kit nicely.  Rab explains what happened during this process;

“The day before and the morning of launch, we changed the timeline covers at regular intervals, making no comment about what the images were of, or what they meant. This meant that fans could release for themselves what was happening and once they had done so, tell their friends. We also introduced a hashtag (#spiritliveson) on the cover pictures which helped to tie together all of our efforts on Twitter once the kit had gone live.

The evening before launch we ran a story on the Club website which said that there was going to be a kit launch the next morning at 11am and announced that it would be shown live on the Club video channel RangersTV – we also teased the kit at the end of our nightly news round up the night before.

All of this build up and preparation meant that when we went live at 11am on Thursday morning there was an audience waiting with anticipation, excited to see what the kit looked like across all of our social channels, our Club TV station and our website, rather than having to wait for pictures to be taken at a press conference, processed and later added to our website.”

Once the tease was complete a new cover picture was uploaded that showed various photos of the new kit and its links with the 1972 Cup Winners Cup Final shirt.

It’s certainly a unique use of Facebook new functionality and one I am sure that will be copied to a certain degree by other clubs and businesses.  The cover photo is a great way of showcasing iconic imagery and an area that can be used in many visually creative ways.

Brazilian star @Kaka has become the first sportsman to pass the 10m mark on Twitter.  He passed the landmark overnight with a total now of some 10,007,400 fans.

He ranks 17th on the list of the biggest stars on the platform, still some 10m behind the likes of Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga.  What makes him unique is that he reaches out to fans in different countries through his tweets which are repeated in English, Spanish and Portuguese, he also takes time out to reply to many of the questions fans pose to him on a regular basis.

In the last day he has gained almost 30,000 fans, giving him an average of 25,000 fans a day being added since he launched his account on October 17th 2009 (stats from TwitterCounter.com)

Next in the sportspeople ranks are @Cristiano (21st) on 9m and @Shaq (55th) on 5.5m – according to Mashable, they are the only other athletes in the top 60 of the networks most popular figures.

A landmark for the Real Madrid attacking midfielder but more importantly for him is helping his club get into the Champions League final with their game tonight against FC Bayern!

Last week the IOC launched its new ‘Olympic Athlete’s Hub’.  This new innovation is part of the organisations plans to make this the most social games of all time.

The concept is one that has been used by sponsors before around the Superbowl, providing a hub where you can follow the athletes latest comments on Twitter and find out other information at the same time.

This has taken it a stage further.  It integrates Facebook and Twitter, encouraging you to follow any of the 1000+ athletes that are on there.  What they have realised is that they need to offer more than just being a connection platform.

“We wanted to do something meaningful for both our athletes and fans,” said Alex Huot, Head of Social Media for the IOC.

So how does it work?

After signing in to the hub – by using either Facebook or Twitter – you are encouraged to start following athletes.  The reason for the signing in is that the hub is actually a rewards platform as well.  From the examples below you can see that there are videos from past games and tips from former Olympic champions.

To access thee videos with athletes tips you have to follow them (the ones with pictures you can see) and to view the previous games you have to follow a certain number of athletes to unlock it.

To provide extra encouragement for users to become part of this ‘Olympic community’, you are given points and badges for engaging with the content – very Foursquare-esque.  These points are then collated and you are placed onto a leaderboard with a Gold, Silver and Bronze medal for the top 3.

And there is yet more to receive from it….

“We think that regular chat sessions with athletes inside the village in London will be something that our fans want to engage in,” Huot said. “Fans will also get a rare, live, behind-the-scenes look at the Games through the eyes of the athletes.”

“Social media is a catalyst for a much more personal, engaging and fun way to experience an event like the Olympic Games.  Thanks to social media, London 2012 will ignite the largest online conversation the world has possibly ever seen and heard.”

It is a nice way in which to leverage social media at the games and bring fans closer to the athletes, especially those who may not be as well known.  It will also be useful for the media to build up their Twitter lists for sports that may be off the beaten track for them.

So is it a good idea or a social media fail…… to sit on the fence I would say it is too early to say but I dont see enough on there to maintain interest as a platform during the games.  It’s certainly worth the experiment and if it succeeds expect other governing bodies to follow.

What do you think?