Most businesses are familiar with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems and will be using them in one form or another to give them insights on their customers, their purchasing and contact preferences and helping them maintain the relationship. As social media and social networking activity steams ahead with no sign of slowing, Social CRM has been getting an increasing amount of airtime.

Jermiah Owyang has compiled a good list of Social CRM (sCrm) vendors and I would expect to see this list grow over the next 12 months. As social media monitoring has matured and the ability to pull insights from the myriad of online conversations and UGC is now established, the next step is to overlay that data onto existing CRM systems. People are disclosing more and more information in their public social profiles and business can use this to provide more personal customer service and build deeper relationships with them.

CRM & Social Media Monitoring Convergence

It should be a natural step for the incumbent CRM vendors to look at integrating a robust listening tool to their current offerings. We are already seeing it in action, Radian6 integrates with Salesforce for example and I wonder how much longer before an Oracle or SAP buy up one of the monitoring vendors. We have seen community platforms like Lithium acquire Scoutlabs to form a social CRM offering, email marketing firm ExactTarget scooped up Filtrbox and Attensity bought Biz360. Jacob Morgan has a good take on it here and has a great diagram showing the SCRM process, check it out.

I think we will see social media monitoring augment existing CRM platforms and in that respect, all CRM systems will or can become social CRM. So, if I was in the CRM business I would definitely be looking to integrate and/or acquire a monitoring vendor to add a layer of ‘social’ to my software. I would then look to build, borrow or steal an engagement platform on top of that to produce an all encompassing social media management system. Again, we are already seeing this develop with the likes of Spredfast, Attensity, Involver and Radian6’s engagement console (which I haven’t yet seen in action).

Culture over Technology

But…is the software really the point? For a business to get the benefit out of a sCRM or even a current CRM system, they need to care about the customer and not just about mining their data for push marketing initiatives. If a business understands that the customer has become increasingly empowered and now demands to be in control over how they interact with an organization and vice versa then they are already using socialCRM! If they don’t understand this and don’t move to ‘operationalise’ their business accordingly to act upon the insights gained through social media…then no amount of cool technology will change that. It’s a cultural thing that most businesses aren’t yet ready for.

As a business, make sure you understand the ‘why’ behind all of this. There is some sweet software on the way and if you are set up internally to exploit it to the full then there are huge advantages to be gained. But it needs to start from within a business’ culture…they need to begin by being in the ‘give a shit about my customers’ business!

www.spearfishlabs.com

This week has seen the release of a new FREE ebook that is designed to help grassroots sport when it comes to unravelling the dark art of Social Media. 

It has been put together by Ash Read from www.fundsport.com who has been writing for UKSN since the start in January and also is a regular guest blogger on www.sportsnetworker.com. 

Whether your a large sports club, a Sunday league football team, or an individual athlete there’s no escaping the fact that the Internet is going to play a big part in your development, and your future.

“Social media is about adding to the enjoyment of being a part of your club – giving your members more memories, more talking points and more laughs. For athletes and clubs alike a strong online presence can separate you from others and make you stand out, this could potentially be the difference between getting sponsorship and not getting sponsorship.”

In this ebook you’ll learn:

- Why should you take advantage of social media and the Internet?
- Why should you care about social media?
- The ins and outs of social media
- How can you use social media?

It is a great read and if you are involved in sport at any level and have an interest in social media then its well worth downloading.  If you have any questions for Ash you can get hold of him on twitter on @AshRead14

Click on the picture below for your copy….

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Geolocation has been the smash hit in the social media scene of 2010. Coming from relative obscurity in early 2010, Foursquare alone now boasts over 3 million users. With the NYC start up recently breaking it’s own record for most new users in one day, the social media darling has recently took funding to the tune of $20m while reportedly also turning down a buyout offer from Yahoo.

With Foursquare beginning to assert its authority in geolocation, one of it’s biggest possible rivals decided to step in. Earlier this month Facebook announced ‘Facebook Places’, the social networking heavyweight with over 500 million users took geolocation from niche into the mainstream overnight.

Where as location based services Foursquare, Gowalla, Hot Potato, Yelp and others relied on social networking to spread their message, Facebook turned the tables and are now trying to stamp its authority in the geolocation game by creating its own platform 

With all these recent developments, let’s look at the big players in the game right now, what they currently offer, what they may offer in the future and how sports marketers should be trying to take advantage of geolocation.

Thought geolocation was just for geeks? This billboard in Times Square begs to differ.

Facebook Places

So far Facebook Places is yet to really show its hand, while currently only available to users in the United States, the social media giant hasn’t actually released full details on how businesses can take advantage of the platform, but let’s start with a few titbits from what we know so far.

You can claim your location: Whether it’s your ball park, your front office or your training facility, you can now claim it and anything else you own. If it’s not already there, feel free to create it yourself.

You can link your Fan Page to your ‘Place’: You are able to link your Facebook ‘Place’ to your Fan Page, so do that ASAP.

Yep, that’s about all we really know so far.

For more info on Facebook Places, check out the slide below for a full introduction.

 
Facebook Places for Advertisers
 

Why Use Facebook Places?
This is one for the future. With very few features available so far, it is very hard to tell you to focus on Facebook Places – as being in such an early phase of its development it’s impossible to tell where it will go – but once the platform finds it’s feet, it will be crucial to your digital marketing plan.

Possible additions?

• Facebook Places ads: Ads that target you due to your location
• More game aspects: Features similar to mayorships, rewards, etc
• Hot Potato features (which are covered further down) this includes in-venue messaging

Foursquare

Currently the number one place for all your geolocation needs. It has the most exposure, has the biggest userbase (specifically for geolocation) and also allows you to take control of your venue. Not only these factors, but we have case studies. Manchester City, from the English Premier League, was the first team in all of professional sports to have an official presence on Foursquare. They had their own sub-page on the foursquare.com website, as well as the ability to let their fans “follow” them on Foursquare and become fans.

Kevin Pietersen has become the latest cricketer to be caught out on Twitter and could find himself in hot water with the ECB because of it.

We have highlighted the cases of several athletes around the world who have come a cropper recently and Peterson has shown that when the red mist descends then Twitter can be too easy to use.

With so many journalists using Twitter to gain latest scoops must have thought Christmas had come early when they saw this come up in Peterson’s stream.  At the moment there are no rules as to when and where players can use social media, plus I imagine no training by the ECB, clubs or agents for their prized assets on the do’s and don’ts.

You will probably have seen/read that Pietersen found out he was to be dropped from the England team for the first time since his debut back in 2004.  To say he wasn’t happy about it is an understatement as his tweet reveals although he has come out to say it should have been a direct message (DM) and not gone out into the public domain.  It still doesnt excuse the language used.

It is generally understood that players are not allowed to comment about team squads until after the official announcement is made.  This tweet came out several hours before and was soon picked up by blogs, new sites and TV across the globe.

Even though it was hastily removed it had already been seen, copied and pasted.  These things are impossible to undo no matter if you hit the delete button or not.

After Azeem Rafiq’s ban and fine for abusing the England U19 team development manager  on Twitter (plus being caught out late whilst on duty).  There is no doubt that the ECB will have to take a tough stance with at least a fine.

Talk is about a new rule being brought in banning centrally contracted players from using social media on the Ashes tour this winter.  The ECB claim to have reminded players before now about using social media responsibly, but how much training/education did they actually give?

This would be a massive over reaction but one you can see happening when you have technophobes such as Geoff Miller as an England National Selector.  His reaction was unfortunately obvious;

“I don’t like that kind of language and I don’t use that language at all.  I don’t follow Twitter and I’m not a great believer in that kind of thing. I don’t think it is necessary. I’m still the national selector and what I do is select sides with my co-selectors that we think is right for England. My priority is the England side and it is not about individuals.”

It doesn’t hold out much hope for the advocates of social media within the England team or ECB does it!

This shows a very archaic view compared to our cricketing compatriots in Australia who show a much deeper understanding of the benefits of its use. 

Michael Brown, Cricket Australia’s operations manager, said there would be no social networking bans placed on the players. “At this stage it’s really important that we are about growing the game and embracing the future, and young people are a critical part of it,” he said. “We want young people to be associated with the game.” The coach Tim Nielsen has signed up to Twitter and even the team manager Steve Bernard is using it.

And captain Ricky Ponting is equally enthusiastic about the benefits, “You won’t see us banning our players from doing that sort of stuff,” he said at the team’s camp in Queensland. “It is your job as international players to promote the game and be the best you can for the game. If we can use social networks, if that brings people closer to the game, brings people through the gates to play, then that’s what it is all about.”

Ponting has 11,000 likes on his Facebook page and vice-captain Michael Clarke has 42,000 following his every tweet.  Showing that they practice what they preach and see that for every slip and PR shocker there they are far outweighed by the use of social media for a better future.

“The biggest thing we face as international players is … everyone knows us with the helmet on but very few in Australia, or around the world, actually understand what we are like with the helmet off,” Ponting said. “If there are ways to express yourself then feel free to do that. I am totally all for that, as long as it is done the right way and within reason.”

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For many months now we have been evangelising on the benefits to sports stars of utilising social media.  It has helped bring us, the fans, closer to our favourite sports personalities such as Shaq O’Neill, Lance Armstrong, Rafael Nadal, Christiano Ronaldo and many more.

In this time of openness and transparency we are also seeing a clampdown by certain sports as they try to find a balance between giving their athletes freedom to speak to their fans but keeping what and when the say it in check for the good of the team/sport.

Twitter has brought this to a new level as it is so easy to send out a message on your phone at any time or place, sometimes not to the liking of their employers.  To give you a few examples of this on both sides of the pond I have highlighted a couple of these unfortunate souls;

Concinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was fined $25,000 for using an electronic device to post messages on Twitter during a pre-season game.  Why is this such a bad thing?  Well, the NFL has banned players from possessing electronic devices during games and from using social media 90 mins before kickoff until the end of post-game media obligations.

This rule is replicated in the NBA as we see sport in the US attempt to control how social media is used by athletes whilst encouraging them to do so in helping to increase the reach of their sport.

Back here in the UK the most recent example we have is England U-19 cricketer Azeem Rafiq reacting angrily to being dropped by writing that coach John Abraham’s was a “useless w****r”.  This has lead to a ban from cricket for 1 month and a £500 fine.

England cricketers are now potentially facing a ban on using social media on the upcoming tour of Australia if media reports are to be believed.  Apparently the England management see them as a potentially divisive influence which could lead to dressing room secrets being leaked.

I hope it doesn’t come down to that as most of the senior players have a valuable presence online, especially Graeme Swann, James Anderson and Steven Finn.  With the fact that the ECB have recently hired a Social Media Executive themselves they obviously see social media as a valuable asset for now and the future.

We have yet to see a majority of footballers in the UK using Twitter but it is becoming more common with Rio Ferdinand, Robbie Savage and many others doing a good job so far.  Once it becomes more popular and we see the first incident of a player being punished for tweeting during a game then I am sure we will see similar rules being applied as in the US.

Whilst looking for some inspiration yesterday I saw a tweet about Jason Peck’s new post on ‘Sports and Social Media – why should fans care?’ which includes the views of UKSN’s very own Ash Read.

Its an interesting topic and one which is one that everyone involved from a club/league’s point of view wants to understand.  I don’t think this is a black-and-white subject with a straight forward answer; there are, as with many things, various shades of grey.

For one, each fan is not going to care the same amount about the sport/person/team and will have different reasons as to why they are a follower/fan/like.  From my own point of view when I ‘like’ something on Facebook they are not all for the same reason.

I am a Manchester United fan (though live in the South of England) and have not been to a match for a while, what you may call an armchair fan.  I am happy to advertise my allegiance but am not actively involved on the page. 

I’m also a fan of Richmond FC (because a friend of mine works there), Animal Kingdom (2 friends play in the band), 1000 Heads (I like their work), The UK Sports Network (I run it), Lotus Racing (they spoke at an event of mine) and in total about 20 given ‘likes’.  They are a mix of companies, athletes, football team, causes, friends pages and other sports.  Some are true passions whilst others are pages I have an interest in through my work.

What can you read from that?  You can make a guess about what I like and why but only I’m going to know the reasons behind it and to what level I really feel about the company/athlete/team/cause.

People pick and choose where they are active and where they are passive.  I am not very active on Facebook but more so on LinkedIn and Twitter.  We all have our favourites for what we feel most comfortable using and is of most benefit to us.

So when we talk about social media and sport, and more specifically why fans should care, what do we know? 

Sport is a very emotional subject that has at its heart a very tribal approach.  But what remains a fact is that only a small percentage are active on any one platform.  For example, on the Manchester United Facebook Page there are over 1.8m fans who have joined but for an update there are only up to a max of 14,000 comments (most less than) and many will involve more than one comment from each person.

This begs the question with social media, is it actually only a small audience you are speaking to and calling to action?

Many people on Facebook I feel use the Manchester United ‘like’ as a badge for their profile rather than something they are active on and want to become involved with.

On Twitter most people will use the updates as another source of information to go alongside the club website, main news channels and newspapers.  Basically most are what we would call a ‘passive’ audience.

Getting back to the question ‘why should fans care’ when it comes to using social media in sport, many of them don’t.  It is another source of information for some, a badge for more and a few will become very involved with you on that platform. 

This is why it is important for the club/brand to be clear about why they are using social media and have done their research before choosing which platform to use. 

If clubs can give them a reason to come to your site with behind-the-scenes info, breaking news, interviews with players and competitions then great. 

I am huge advocate of sport using social media to better connect with fans and bring all sides closer together.  But if it just about getting lots of followers then clubs are missing the point.

The massive advantage sport has above other sectors is that passion, tribal following and masses of content they own.  What clubs need to do is work out how best they can add to the experience for fans outside of the event.  Keep fans interested in what is going on and use that continued buzz to help sell match tickets, create awareness and keep people coming back for more.

This is a massive topic that Jason has tapped into and gained a few insights into but there are so many grey areas to it.  So I will ask the same question to you….

 Why should fans care??

I took up boxing about six years ago. I used to play rugby until dragging my arse down to training on a Tuesday and Thursday night in the torrential rain became too much for me, so I thought what will provide a comparable amount of physical pain on a regular basis? Boxing it was. I decided I wanted to have a crack at the amateur circuit rather than just do it for the fitness so spent a significant amount of my spare time in boxing gyms. If you’ve never been in a ‘proper’ boxing gym then I can highly recommend it. The people are cool, the coaches always willing to help, they’re cheap compared to the mainstream gyms that have infiltrated most high streets and you will be left in no doubt that you have done some exercise. More people should box!

The one thing I have always loved is the inspirational quotes which are invariably scrawled on the walls and l think some of them can be applied to a social business.  See what you think of these three I’ve picked out:

Learn to Listen

This one is from my first club in Lambeth (South London). They have some of the best amateur coaches in the country and if you listen to them…you will stand a far better chance of staying upright! In social media, listening ( aka monitoring, research) should be the corner stone of any preparation before beginning your activity, and then form part of your tool kit for ongoing brand management and program evaluation.

Protect Yourself At All Times

As one of my favourite boxers, Ricky Hatton, likes to remind us – Boxing isn’t a tickling contest. The first lesson all new boxers get taught is to keep your hands up and your chin down (which is easier said than done after a few rounds, I assure you!). If you do that and nothing else for the whole fight, you may lose but its unlikely you will get badly hurt. In social media, we have seen plenty of examples of brands getting burnt because they have had no strategy in place for a social media crisis. They don’t have their staff trained to deal with negative posts, they are too slow to respond to a crisis or they go missing completely. One of the first things a business should do before launching themselves in social media is protect themselves against getting badly hurt. Too many of them wander in with their hands down and their chins’ in the air!

It Aint The Size Of The Dog In The Fight…

From my second gym in Eltham (South East London). We all know the second half of the quote …’It’s the size of the fight in the dog’. While boxing bouts are organized by weight, as you move up the weight classes it is possible to get some major disparities. When David Haye fought, and beat, Nicolai Valuev for the heavyweight title last year , he was giving away about a foot in height and seven or eight stones (about 100 pounds) in weight! For businesses, social media can be a great leveler and provide SME’s with the same opportunities as the big guys to become major players in their sector and spread their content to the widest possible audience. You don’t have to spend millions on traditional advertising or marketing to be successful (although it helps!). By putting the hours in and being passionate, dedicated and having a great product, service or team, you can compete with the big guys and punch above your weight!

Those are just three that I picked out but I am sure there are more from other sports that could apply. If you have any favourites, then drop them in the comments.

www.spearfishlabs.com

I have been interested over the last few months about sports stars using social media.  There are so many benefits to do it (if done right) though with everything there are dangers involved.

We have seen what can happen with the adventures of Darren Bent and Jozy Altidore for example.  This is more down to a lack of training than anything else.  How can you assume that a player knows what to do and how it works by just letting them go out there and do it?

If you look at the strides that the Ultimate Fighting Championship have made using social media but this has been carefully guided by digital agency Digital Royalty.  They not only set out the strategy but trained all the athletes involved over a good course of time and are there to support anyone having problems or has questions.

This morning I thought I’d talk more specifically about Facebook and how athletes have been utilising it, or not in some cases.

As it becomes more widespread and understood by clubs and players then we should see a shift in behaviour and more interaction taking place.  The strangest arrangement that currently exists is that of English Premier League players who have basically allowed the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) to use their pages.

It is a actually counted as a verified account on Facebook so is seen as official even though the player has no involvement in it at all.  All they do is set them up to aggregate news about the player in question (video, written and photo’s) so that there is activity going on.

The PFA do make it obvious it is run by them so it’s not pretending to be an official page by a player but it still plays on the fans love for their favourite players to make money.

How do they do this?

Well, the main objective is to get fans on the page to vote for the player as their ‘player of the month’ which is an official prize.  To do this you are redirected to the PFA site where you have to enter your details to register and vote. 

This is run by a company called SportsNewMedia.  They then sell on this data to the likes of Virgin Media and Sky, thus monetising fan loyalty to their favourite player without them really knowing about how and why it has been set up.

As Facebook has become more popular, currently over 500m accounts, then so have the fan pages.  In terms of football in the UK, Fernando Torres is by far the most popular and has grown from about 900,000 to 2,366,650 in the last few months.

He is still a long way behind the biggest in the world, that of world football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo who has his own official page with 10,096,989 fans when I checked this morning. 

The point behind looking at the numbers, something I try to encourage people to look beyond, is that for a player it is a valuable commodity when you think about their usually closely guarded personal brand.  How much extra income/sponsorship could be negotiated on the back of their brand popularity and access they can give to sponsors and achieve more merchandise sales?

Yes, this still involves making money from fans who love that particular player but if they are personally involved they can give so much better content and personal interaction.  Would like to hear from the player himself or just news about what they are doing/press photos?

To give you an idea of how powerful football brands are here is a list of the top 10 athletes on Facebook as of 10am on Friday 13^th August…..

You can see that basketball, football, tennis, swimming and motorsport are the big winners here though it is interesting to see the Lionel Messi’s and Valentino Rossi’s accounts are both unofficial and set up by fans.

Is it any surprise that the most carefully managed brands in football are the only two in there; Christiona Ronaldo and David Beckham…. I don’t think so.

So where are our beloved players who play in biggest league in the world?

• Fernando Torres              2,366,650
• Steven Gerrard                 1,201,663
• Wayne Rooney                 889,298
• Cesc Fabregas                   752,888
• Didier Drogba                    480,919
• Frank Lampard                  452,587

Is it any surprise that they score so lowly when the players are not involved in them.  It can only surely be a matter of time when they see the value in a social media presence and take back control.  Then it will be worthwhile ‘liking’ them and getting a real inside look to the people off the pitch.

The players do so much charity work that goes unseen, especially Didier Drogba.  He should take a leaf out of Lance Armstrong’s book and use his online presence to promote this work, show what it is that he does and help raise even more money for the causes he campaigns for.

What do you think about athletes being on Facebook and social media in general, in the UK and from other parts of the world?

Bit of bad news…Social Media doesn’t scale. If you are successful company then you will have more customers than staff. Social media in its purest form should facilitate people to people communications and that means talking to your customers on a regular basis, so you don’t need a degree in mathematics to work out the disparity!

Jeremiah Owyang writes an excellent post on the process to create a customer advocacy program which can extend the available resources for companies active in social media. Coca Cola’s Facebook Fan Page is still run by two fans, BMW have just taken control of a Fan page set up by a fan (now with over 1m fans) and will now use it for customer engagement, so there is evidence of customers taking on the role of brand ambassador and organizing like minded individuals around consumer brands.

This applies to all organizations but I think is particularly apt for sports and entertainment brands, as for them the volume of interest and interaction is magnified. For example, Man Utd have about 600m fans worldwide…even smaller sports brands will have hundreds of thousands fans who are all potential customers and active participants on the official social channels.

What is their biggest asset can also be their undoing in social media. They have armies of people gagging to talk to them and wanting their content. This is great news but creates a massive issue if you are going to engage with them on a regular basis. The answer is…use them. Empower them. Consumer brands would pay a King’s ransom to have such loyal customers and sports brands can create advocacy programs much easier than their counterparts. Here are some simple steps to go about it

Find the influential voices in the community

They will already be active on the forums, unofficial networks and supporters’ club groups. Spend some time in these communities and see who looks like a good ‘signing’!

Bring them into the organization

Empower them. You won’t need to remunerate them…they love your brand and the value they will get is not a financial one. The ‘badge value’ they will attribute will, in most cases, be all the reward they need.

Let go of control

To make social communications scale, brands have to comfortable with customers doing their job for them. Make sure you have vetted them and they have signed up to the clubs’ social media policy (create one if you haven’t already) but the more freedom you give them, and others in the community to take the brand message and spread it in their own way…the better.

Run competitions

Once the brand advocacy program has got some legs, you can increase the activity and look for the next club Facebook admin, team tweeter, message board admin. By making this a competition you will be increasing engagement with the community.

Let the community self support

Apple’s support community is almost entirely self-supported. No one gets paid for moderating Wikipedia. People on the web like to contribute to projects which mean something to them. Sports fans will be up for this, so with regular content from the official sources coupled with an army of brand ambassadors…all of sudden you can have a social media ‘team’. Sure, they will need to be managed, but it is going to be a far more efficient use of your available resources.

What examples do you have of brand advocacy programs being successful. What do you think some barriers to this working might be? Would love to hear from you….

www.spearfishlabs.com

The most popular English Premier League team on Facebook, Liverpool FC, has passed a major milestone in acquiring over 2 million ‘likes’ this weekend just passed.

This is a great achievement for the team, fronted by Community Manager Matt Owen, who has the unenvious job of moderating this huge community as well as almost 100,000 Twitter followers. 

What I think sets them apart at the moment is the open and honest way they have approached social media, have been one of the pioneers in the EPL and offer some really good content.

It is a nice touch as well on the opening tab when you go to their profile is the acknowledgement of the fans and their importance to the club with the opening line “Liverpool might be England’s most successful football club but we’re nothing without our supporters”.   It makes a nice change from just landing on a sales page as you see with quite a few at the moment.

Their closest rivals; Chelsea (1.3m), Arsenal (1.2m) and Manchester United (1.4m) still have a lot of catching up to do.  But Liverpool themselves still have some way to go until they catch the top football clubs on Facebook; Galatasaray (4.1m), Barcelona (3.5m) and Real Madrid (2.8m).

It’s amazing to see that Galatasaray, as well as being the most popular football team on Facebook, is even larger than the most heralded sports organisation on social media, The NBA (3.8m)!  They are certainly worth a blog post in their own right

The English Premier League is the most popular league in the world but there is still a long way to go to tap into their worldwide appeal on social media.  I’m sure United have more than 1.4m fans globally and will ideally want to get in touch with their legions of foreign fans, as will Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal.

Can these clubs become the most popular sports team on Facebook and get close to the Barcelona, Real Madrid and Galatasaray’s of this world?  If so, what do they need to do to get their attention?