This evening saw the first launch of the new adidas [client] Messi signature range for kids on Facebook.

A tease post went up on his site yesterday to let people know that something was coming and today saw an e-commerce tab launched on his page to his fans.

Although this isn’t available in every country yet via the e-commerce tab just yet, many can get hold of the range via retail outlets and see useful info on the tab (the shop doesn’t show to them, they see the last image listed below).

Now that both Messi and Ronaldo have their own ranges available on their Facebook pages through their sponsors, is this going to be a lucrative new initiative more players (and athletes) will look to do as they become bigger brands online?

Welcome to the first of a new weekly feature.  There is only so much you can write about on one site and there are many out there doing a great job in breaking the latest happenings in the world of #DigSport.  Just click on the title links on each one to find out more.  Here is a mashup of the ones that have caught the eye in this last week;

Hashtag in EndZone

In what’s believed to be a first for college football programs (and anywhere else to be honest),Mississippi State has painted #HAILSTATE — the school’s traditional rallying cry and fight song — in its north endzone.  An interesting way to get your hashtag out there and encourage people to use who are both at the game and watching on TV.

FC Barca broadcast NextGen game v Celtic live on YouTube

From the clubs FCBMasiaES YouTube page, the club last night showed live coverage of the Next Generation game between themselves and Celtic.  Showing great use of content that is tied to any networks and thus is theirs to distribute as they please.  You can still watch the game in its entirety on the page.

Real Madrid latest team on Google+

A little bit behind their bitter rivals in getting onto the latest platform for brands.  Lost out on the PR around being a launch partner but may make up for it in their proven use of content and connecting with their fans (their Facebook page gets much more interaction than Barcelona’s each week despite being of around the same size).

Toulouse FC press conferences to go live on internet

Again a club utilising content that they have some control over to connect with fans and show those who cannot make it to such events to watch from wherever they are. (note: article is in French)

 Real Madrid partners with Cisco to offer highest tech stardom

This piece of news was shared by several sites in the last week as one of the biggest clubs in the world partners up with one of the biggest tech providers to help bring the digital experience to the stadium.  Such places are notorious for having bad connections for mobile with so many people trying to call, text or get online in a small space.

NBA stars chat to fans on Google+ hangout

Basketball stars LeBron James and Dwayne Wade get to grips with the Google+ hangout feature on LeBron’s own page.

What niche websites can do for your brand

Man United and Fulham are mentioned in this article about the use of niche websites and how they can benefit/hinder those who try to form their own communities away from Facebook, Twitter, Google and their own website.

PSG shirt complete with QR code

This article does what it says on the tin (note: french article) and shows the new PSG shirt complete with QR code that fans can get their hands, and phones, on.  Not sure if this one will catch on.

QPR owner asks for fans suggestions on transfer targets

In a rather novel move this morning, Tony Fernandes – the QPR owner and Chairman – used Twitter to ask for ideas about the types of players Queens Park Rangers fans wanted to see in the future. Fernandes has been a huge advocate for Social Media in the last few months he has been in charge at the Premiership side, having seen the fruits of success in previous businesses Air Asia and the Lotus F1 team. Fernandes was quick to mention that QPR manager, Neil Warnock, called the shots in terms of transfers – but he was interested to hear about the fans hopes/expectations.

It has been a while since my last post.  This has been mainly sue to a quick bit of holiday before starting my new role of which I’ve just started day 2.

This caught my eye this morning though it is something I have been aware of for several months during my work with adidas UK.  It is an interesting concept that brings some fun to a competition entry using video without making it to difficult to put together.

There is also the option to like the adidas Football Facebook page and follow UEFA Champions League on Twitter. But the bit I like is the ability to share your video by getting the code from the site and inserting into wherever you wish.

Here is my effort….think it will get me some tickets??

what would you do for tickets?!

Last week we reported that Budweiser UK were going to live stream the FA Cup game between Ascot United and Wembley FC via their Facebook page.  This was part of their FA Cup sponsorship after they took over from precious incumbents E.ON.

What was debateable was how it was going to look and how much notice people would take of it.  Well as it turns out, quite a lot.  The PR that this new venture gained had a double benefit it seems with not only people tuning in online to watch the game but more people than usual took notice of the game and turned up to the ground as well.

The hard facts are that 1,149 people turned up to the stadium in Ascot (a great result for the club) and over 20,000 people tuned in to Facebook to watch the game online.  This could have been seen as a gamble by the FA and Budweiser UK as this had not been tried before and the game itself was not one that would usually get a huge amount of interest.

Budweiser marketing director Ian Newell said: “Budweiser is committed to bringing the world’s most prestigious knockout competition closer to the fans. What better way to demonstrate this than by broadcasting the very first kick to a global audience via Facebook.”

Could this be the start of something bigger for clubs?  Many rely on commercial TV income but if you are in one of the lower divisions and the dream of your Sky or ESPN millions is a long way off then live streaming through an owned site may be a realistic option.  Yes there is investment in cameras and equipment to make it possible but once that has been achieved then you just need a site to run it through.

This could be via Facebook or the club website but what a great way to ensure fans can tune in no matter where they are and open clubs up to a new audience.  There would also be sponsorship doors opened as with this new exposure then there are more opportunities to get company names (and adverts) to the audience.

It is not a new idea, squash has been doing it for years via their subscription online TV channel where fans can tune in from anywhere in the world.  Other sports such as Table Tennis have been playing with a similar idea around specific leading events.

We look forward to seeing who will take the next step on this.  Will Budweiser and The FA continue with this through the competition or will another team or sport make this work for them?

Just found this video via Twitter and wanted to share it with you.  It is not only exceptionally funny but shows how a sports brand has managed to tap into one of its athletes personality to bring about a really funny, well executed piece. 

We know all about Novak Djokovic (@DjokerNole) and his famous impersonations and exuberant personality.  What better way then to take this on board and create new material based around the player and his alter-ego’s?!

Anyway, watch this and enjoy.

Novak Djokovic on WhoSay

They are not the first brand to attempt this and wont be the last. But by producing a genuinely funny, sharable video and associating with it is a great way for a brand to use the digital space and change the way people (consumers) perceive it.

I was involved, indirectly, with this video that again delivered something unexpected that had nothing to do with product. It helped link the player and the brand whilst delivering something genuinely funny and interesting.

Budweiser have announced that they are going to kick off their sponsorship of the FA Cup by broadcasting the opening game on their Facebook page!

In what will be a first-of-its-kind agreement the beer company will helping to air a game that would otherwise not make it onto mainstream TV.  The game is non-league sides Ascot United and Wembley FC and itr takes place this coming Friday night (19th August).

It is a great move and shows that the game is starting to adapt to the platforms that many of us use on a daily basis.   It is not unique globally and the idea may come from experiments that have already taken place on the other side of the pond.

UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), whose meteoric rise as a global sport has been fuelled by the use of social media, started to show Prelim fights a number of months ago.  This has helped bring the sport to even more people than it could have done if it had concentrated on traditional media.

The match will be shown on the Budweiser UK page and, with it being a beer company, you will have to ‘Like’ the page and be over 18 to watch it.  This will certainly give the Facebook page a bosst and offers some unique, interesting content.  If they start to use it in later rounds of the cup for games that don’t make it onto TV then we could see some great take-up by fans.

It doesnt say however if the content is going to be geo-targeted.  If it isn’t then fans from all over the world will be able to enjoy the FA Cup, an opportunity they have not had before.  More likely though is that you will have to be in the UK to watch it….. we shall wait and see on Friday! 

Ian Newell, Budweiser Marketing Director, said: “As a long-standing supporter of football globally, Budweiser is committed to bringing [sic] the world`s most prestigious knockout competition closer to the fans.

“What better way to demonstrate this than by broadcasting the very first kick to a global audience via Facebook.

“This is the first time a FA Cup tournament fixture has been broadcast live on the social network, which is great news for football fans and clubs alike.”

(Quote taken from www.fcbusiness.co.uk)

Overall it’s a great idea and am looking forward to seeing how it is received by fans.

This weekend saw a customer complaint go from being an issue for the company and that individual to a full blown PR issue thanks to Facebook.

The incident started on Saturday after one of our armed forces personnel had to change his plans due to his dates for service being altered.  This meant he had to cancel his holiday, which he managed to do with the airline but not the holiday company.

Lastminute.com decided to take another stance as officially he was not entitled to a refund (was stated in the T&C’s).  This issue made it onto the company Facebook Page with people siding with the soldier and ‘liking’ the page so that they could make their point.  It did turn into a bit of witch hunt or as one person put it ‘like reading the Daily Mail’.

The issue and relevance to all of us who work in Social Media and especially Community Managers, is that this kicked off on weekend and no-one was available sort out until this morning (Monday).  By which time much of the damage had been done.

The issue has now happily been sorted out and some confidence has been restored but if there had been someone on hand to check Facebook over the weekend then would this have got so out of control?  I doubt it.

For any clubs or businesses this has to be a wakeup call when it comes to who and when these pages are monitored.  We can’t rely on one person working 9-5 from Monday to Friday as what happens when something like this falls outside of that? And it is unfair to ask that person to be there 24/7 365 days a year.

This is where proper planning and investment is required, it is all very well building up your community but it has to be looked after.  Maybe you have 2 or 3 people working in shifts or one main community manager but others who help check the page to flag up any issues.

Not only is this needed for weekends but what happens when your community manager goes on holiday, what then?  Social Media cannot be a one-man effort and is something I became acutely aware of during my time working with adidas.  This is both a community management and PR issue (how do you escalate and deal with issues) which need planning for and taking into consideration as you need to be pro-active rather than re-active.

What does your club or business do outside of normal working hours….. do you have a plan?

Something that has come to mind more and more in recent weeks, especially after reading a really good post (sorry I don’t have the link) is about our obsession with numbers.

Brand marketers are always looking for metrics to benchmark their efforts against.  Sometimes they can be very straightforward such as ‘numbers of items sold’ or ‘enquiries about a product’ and sometimes harder to quantify such as ‘eyeballs’ when it comes to PR pieces and TV adverts as part of brand campaigns.

With the advent of Social Media it has become harder to put efforts and money spent in this space into something that people within companies understand.  Facebook and Twitter have very kindly given us an easy get out on this with ‘fan’ and ‘follower’ counters on each page.

This allows efforts to be measured in terms of how many fans you have, or gain in a certain period of time, the number of comments made on a post and number of ‘likes’ made on posts.

This is great but does it actually mean anything?  If we step back around 15 years when online was first booming and everyone was setting up websites, many were built in with ‘hit counters’ so that we could all easily see how many people had visited that site.

Is this helpful to a brand?  Internally yes and you want to see if people are taking any notice of you and that your investment is actually proving worthwhile.  But as far as a customer facing option it just means that the brand will put more effort into building up that number as they know they will be benchmarked by it.

Since the ‘hit counter’ has disappeared from our view do we rank pages by the number of visits they receive?  Are brands obsessed with the numbers on their site or do they try to make sure it does a great job for the brand, help sell more product and is as consumer friendly as possible?

Now imagine a Facebook without a ‘fan counter’ and Twitter without ‘followers’ being displayed on each page.  Would you concentrate on the same things as we do now?  Would we be ensuring that pages are ‘liked’ by as many people as possible?

Or would we concentrate on what role it plays within the business, what content is going on there and the more useful stats that show how many people are visiting the site and using it in the way that you would like it to be used.

If you want to use it as an open forum and area for collaboration then would you concentrate on making best use of it (ideal) or would you post articles about your product and everything else you can think of that may help get some more likes (what happens now)?

Until we get to the stage when we become less obsessed with the numbers, concentrate on its role for the business (does it even have one?) and how it benefits the consumer then we will continue to struggle to make it into something worthwhile.

Remember that with Facebook’s algorithm for posts being displayed on fans walls, they will only ever see about 5-7% of the posts that you put out there.

How much is a ‘like’ worth??….outside of getting likes on posts to boost your sitting with Facebooks algorithm, nothing really if you aren’t providing anything of use to your business and consumer.

Article taken from www.mashable.com (but its still interesting!)…..

Mercedes is the latest automaker — and likely the only one in the U.S. — to experiment with computer- and smartphone-less Facebook checkins via RFID.

The carmaker has set up 10 kiosks at the PGA Championship in Atlanta. Some 25,000 people have also been given VIP passes with RFID chips embedded in them. Those attendees can go on an iPad at the event and register — a process that takes under a minute — to use the passes to check in at the kiosks and Like any of the Mercedes cars at the event. They can also take pictures at the kiosks (which have built-in cameras) and check in via Facebook Places.

The idea of using RFID to enable Facebook checkins is fairly new, especially in the U.S. A forerunner of the technique was Coca-Cola, which ran a program at its amusement park in Israel last summer, letting park attendees check in and Like attractions using an RFID-enabled wristband. Automaker Renault also unveiled Facebook kiosks at the Amsterdam Motor Show in April. More recently, a hotel in Ibiza, the Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel, offered guests the ability to check in, Like things and upload photos at various kiosks on the hotel grounds.

A video below shows how the technology Mercedes is using, from ODIN Technologies, works in practice.

npower aren’t the only ones ramping up their football sponsorship efforts this week.  The recent sponsor of all the home countries, Vauxhall, has started to make a push using its Facebook page.

The Facebook page has only been active for about a month now (first post on 12^th July) and they have been pretty quiet with pushing it up to now.  The 4,000+ fans can look forward to news from all the national teams of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland….thats a lot of content!

Vauxhalls new campaign has been in two parts.  Firstly there is app called ‘Retro Restyle’ in which it allows you to add your face into various 70’s and 80’s iconic looks, if you can call the perm and tash an iconic style!  

I did have one problem when having a play with this as it requires the newest version of Flash Player and if you are on a work PC where you cannot make downloads like this it is a bit of an issue. 

The second part of the campaign was ‘The Big Pitch’ competition.  They asked fans to tell the guys at Vauxhall why they deserve to win the big prize.  The big prize is a two day ultimate ‘Wembley Experience’ – to train and play a game on the hallowed turf and also get tickets for an England match.

There are a number of ‘pitches’ by fans for why they should go on the page from over the last 3 weeks, you have a read of them here.

Richard Hennis, relationship marketing manager at Vauxhall’s parent company, General Motors, told new media age: “We want to engage with fans to show that Vauxhall knows what it means to be a national sports fan and that we understand football.”

(Just to add, another glitch I found was that when you try to go ‘back’ to the Vauxhall Football page (rather than click on the link and open another window) it automatically puts you back into the app.)

With this competition now closed and the winner being announced tomorrow one can only assume the tickets will be for next week’s England v Holland game.  Has this been a successful launch of the new page?  Well with 4,00 new fans in just under a month it has not done too badly and now has an audience before the start of the football season.  We shall wait to see what they do next with the final qualifiers coming up soon and the the Euro’s.

Social Media is going to play a big part in the upcoming football season and with the European Championship and Olympics around the corner we’re going to see many more companies coming out with digital campaigns to activate their sponsorships.