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Fantasy Sports: Social Networking or Time-Wasting?

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Most of you likely looked at the title of this post and wondered, “Tommy, what the heck are you talking about? Fantasy Sports is not social networking.”

On the surface, it’s easy to see why the game could be viewed that way. But I’m here to tell you that fantasy sports are as much a vehicle for social networking as Facebook, Flickr, and even foursquare / gowalla.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, let me elaborate. In its most simple format, 10-12 participants join a league before the season starts. Pretty much every major sport has a fantasy game associated with it. Prior to the first day of the season, the team owners get together in person or online to draft teams of real players from real teams, assembling a lineup in accordance with the league rules. Then, when the season starts, they start or sit players depending on a variety of factors (healthy vs. injured, good vs. bad matchups, etc.). Teams then receive credit for the actual statistics each player tallies. The overall goal is to end the season as the best team in the standings or to win the playoffs, depending on how the league is set up.

To many of you, this may sound rather pointless. In fact, there’s even a rebellion by “Fantasy Widows” as some have called them (you can learn more about on the Women Against Fantasy Sports website, complete with a line of related apparel). But these games play a role much more important than killing time and maybe blowing a little cash.

Believe it or not, fantasy sports are every bit a vehicle for social networking that many of the leading services are. Let’s take a quick moment to look at some attributes of the game that lead me to this conclusion.

  1. Tribe-based – All activities happen in pre-determined leagues where all the participants agree to play within the same scoring system, by the same rules, using the same tools and features. This sounds a whole lot like my friends on official social media sites.
  2. Online - Although the first fantasy game, Fantasy Baseball, was originally administered by avid fans using box scores from their local newspaper, the game has migrated completely online. So what if it started as a truly social activity and not a cool new web toy. It was social before it was online, so it most certainly qualifies.
  3. Interactive - Fantasy sports are all about the ongoing activities you must undertake to win a league. All of the team managers must take part in a live draft, with full chat functionality in the online draft room. Then, the season is  a mix of lineup decisions, trade negotiations, and adding and dropping players from the free agent list (a.k.a. the list of players who are not already on a team).
  4. Real-time – If anything is real-time, fantasy sports fit the bill. Games happen every day or every week, and real-time scoring is a must for the hardcore fantasy sports players. Team rosters can be adjusted in many ways on a daily basis. Team owners can work out trades at will, post messages in a threaded format (like blog comments), talk smack right on their team pages, and email back and forth between participants. Sure, the bulk of the action happens during live games, but whom among you spends 24 hours a day on social media sites anyway?
  5. Content-heavy – An entire industry has been built around fantasy sports blogging, analysis, advice, products, and games. Breaking news is a huge piece of this puzzle, and tools like Twitter and Facebook now play major roles in the dissemination of real-time player-related information. If you don’t believe me, you should have been paying attention to the chatter on Twitter leading up to the NBA trade deadline on February 18.

I know there are as many perspectives on this topic as there are fantasy games to choose from. What is your opinion? Do you play fantasy sports? Do you see it as a social networking activity? Is it just gambling, or old fashion bonding and honest fun? Let’s get a good conversation going in the comments, because I think it’s due time that fantasy sports gets the positive press it deserves.

For more information about the fantasy sports industry itself, read more from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association website. Industry writers also have their own Fantasy Sports Writers Association, of which I am a proud member.

Social Media: It CAN be measured too!

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If you keep up with the local Austin startup scene or even with new social media services as they pop up, then surely you saw the announcement from Spredfast about their Social Media Campaign Management Dashboard product. It would easy to dismiss this as just another hype-laden announcement about a new social media tool, but that would be rather short-sighted in this case.

Ken Cho headshotI recently had the opportunity to spend upward of two hours on the phone with co-founder Kenneth Cho (virtual high-five to another UT-Austin MBA Alum!), first to learn the philosophy and history behind the product, and then to take a guided tour through it firsthand. What I learned is that these guys “get it”, and the best is yet to come.

You see, this product is an evolution of Ken and his partner, Scott McCaskill’s, previous venture, Social Agency. The previous organization was focused on actually managing the social media campaigns themselves on behalf of their large business clients. Given the slow adoption of social media to date in the enterprise space, Social Agency was able to do very well in that capacity. Almost too well; they found themselves overwhelmed with managing a variety of disparate tools and services on behalf of their clientele.

So the SpredFast concept was borne. SpredFast is intended to be a tool for social media campaign execution and engagement. What does that mean? They built it to help with getting messages out, scheduling them, tying in the multiple channels, and publishing to those channels (channels in this product are the multiple SocMed “tools” out there such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.). But they didn’t stop there, because there are free tools for many of these activities  (e.g. HootSuite, my personal favorite), and their intent was to monetize the product to create a real business (novel, huh?).

I must say, for a first release of the product, what I saw holds a great deal of promise.

SpredFast GUIThe first impressive thing you notice is the intuitive GUI and seamless integration across the various tools that are included on the first release (more to be added in the future) – most notably Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.  You can manage all tweets, status updates, video postings, and photographs from right within the SpredFast product, including RTs and the like.

Even more importantly, they listened to what we’ve all been screaming about and built a measurement system right into the product. The model, while not yet a full ROI calculation, should prove helpful for measuring the impact of your efforts on the conversation and the marketplace. And all statistics should be fully accurate, since the product uses APIs to collect the data directly from each channel.

The model as it stands today includes three key areas as follows:

  1. Engagement - A measurement of what actions result from your ongoing social media activities. This metric includes number of replies, comments, Re-Tweets, bit.ly clicks, Facebook “likes”, and many other affinity-related behaviors.
  2. Reach – A straightforward count of how many people your social media campaign is, well, reaching. Metrics include number of followers, Youtube subscribers, Facebook fans, and other standard counting numbers associated with “direct reach” (i.e. being connected to you or your brand directly). In the next revision of the product, they are even considering adding extended reach indicators such as friends-of-friends or followers-of-followers.
  3. Activity – Quite literally, this is a measure of how many things you are doing on the various channels, including things like number of messages, tweets, and links that are published through a particular campaign.

SpredFast Three Metrics

For now, these indicators are most useful in telling you how influential your activities are (Reach), and then helping you benchmark whether your level of Activity is generating the appropriate level of Engagement. If your Activity/Engagement ratio is too high or too low, you either need to change the level of activity or change the actual approach, because something is not working as intended. Return-on-investment? That would be a stretch in this iteration, but what it can do it show a return-on-activity in the form of engagement.

In our extensive conversation, we dug pretty deeply into philosophies about social media, where it fits, how important it was, and some key areas where this product can be built out to truly reach the vision that Ken and Scott have in mind. Of course, I won’t steal their thunder by going into too much of that detail here, but I do recommend that you give this product a look. Particularly for those of you in larger or mid-sized companies where social media is still a work-in-progress, it can offer a starting point for measuring and justifying your efforts.

What other tools have you seen out there that may rival this approach? Some of the established players do have similar models (as indicated in Aaron Strout’s guest post from last week), but who do you think is best poised to get this right? And most importantly, what do you want to see measured to better gauge whether your SocMed efforts are working or not? Let’s discuss, because the power of social comes from free sharing and discussion among us.

Value of Planning Ahead (Avoiding the Dreadline)

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Last night at the February Austin Tweetup (Big Ass Twitter Happy Hour, actually), I had a very interesting conversation with @andreaschulle about the different ways that marketing professionals are motivated. You see, 2010 looks to be a heavy trade show and regional event year for Anue Systems, and it has been keeping me on my toes of late, to say the least.

Andrea is one of us who is very comfortable being driven by deadlines. In fact, it motivates her; she even thrives on it in a way. I, on the other hand, am very much the opposite. Deadline? More like dreadline.

Yeah, we laughed a bit when that word organically emerged into the conversation. But this illustrates a very important fact that we all need to keep in mind. Everyone works differently. What motivates one of us can really drag down others. The only thing we have in our arsenal of tools to offset the “dread” feeling comes in the form of planning.

Planning in advance can really help benefit both sorts of folks. For those of us who really thrive by having deadlines toward which to work, planning ahead is a great way to prioritize and schedule those events and activities in a strategic manner. For those of us who prefer to operate more progressively, spreading out the various tasks and requirements over several days or weeks, advanced planning can really turn a dreadline into a more comfortable execution process.

I guess the gist of this post is simple: No matter how you work, plan ahead. Don’t wait until the last minute. We are not all alike. While you may thrive at the adrenaline rush of the last minute charge for the finish, others are more methodical and calculated. Or maybe you see other procrastinating until the last minute and it makes you worry that things will never get done in time. Regardless which of these profiles suits you, planning helps everyone work together while still getting everything done.

How do you operate? Are you a deadline person, or do you see impending due dates as dreadlines? Have you seen the benefits of planning, or does it just seem like additional busy work?

Social Media for B2B: It CAN be done

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Aaron Strout

This week, Return On Now has the privilege of sharing with you a guest post by Aaron Strout, CMO of Powered Inc. right here in Austin, TX. In addition to running marketing, he also serves as a key “social voice” for the company.  In that capacity, Aaron continues with his speaking, blogging, podcasting, and social networking activities with an eye toward creating awareness and lead generation for the company. Aaron co-hosts the Quick-n-Dirty weekly podcast with Jennifer Leggio, he maintains a social media blog titled Citizen Marketer 2.1, and he is well-known as a thought leader in online and social media marketing.

For today’s post, Aaron has agreed to give his overview on B2B and how social media can actually be used to benefit the business. With all of the discussion surrounding concerns about measuring impact to the bottom line, I felt that this would be an important topic for all to hear.

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Why is it that, when it comes to conversation about social media, business-to-business (B2B) seems to get the short end of the stick every single time? As someone who does a lot of webcasts, blog posts, and speaking gigs, the question/comment that always comes up is, “what about B2B examples.” Fortunately for me, I’m able to mention companies like BreakingPoint Systems and Hubspot that do a great job tapping into the power of social media, but I often wish there were more examples (with public results) that I could discuss.

BuildingsIn thinking about this topic, one of the main reasons that B2B has taken a little longer to adopt social media into its marketing mix is that it’s harder to do effectively. It’s also feels risky because there is less control then  in other channels. With that said, I personally believe that B2B companies stand to benefit the most from social media because they live and die based on the strength of their customer relationships. On top of that, many B2B companies actually know exactly who their prospective customers are, so seeking those folks out in a meaningful way and creating relationships with them can have a huge impact on the bottom line.

Given that I’m a prescriptive kind of guy, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t offer up some tips about how companies can start thinking about putting social media into practice. There are obviously tons of ways, but here are a few (including a diagram that provides more color commentary on item number three):

  1. Start listening. This is easier to do than you think. Set up a Google alert for your company’s name, your competitors’ names, and keywords for your industry. If you’re already doing this, consider hiring a “listening” service like Techrigy, Radian6, or Meltwater Buzz. This will help you find where all the relevant conversations in your space are happening.
  2. Create a Twitter account for your business. However, resist the urge to put up links to press releases, product specs, and links to press that are singing your business’s praises (at least out of the gate). Instead, talk about things that people in your industry care about. For instance, if you create bill payment software, talk about the needs of small-to-medium sized businesses across the financial spectrum (payroll, credit, vendor management, etc.) Link to reports and industry analysis. Point out other peoples’ blog posts and magazine articles.
  3. Set up a blog. Before you do this, though, make sure you have someone (ideally internal) who is willing to commit to posting at least 5-6 times/month. This can be someone on your marketing, product, or PR teams, or even better, one of your executives. Think about creating an editorial calendar to help guide your topics. Most importantly, spend time looking at other industry related blogs — in fact, you should spend at least a month doing this before you set up your own blog. Be sure to comment on those blogs (talk about the topic, not your company). This will help with getting to know the relevant “social” people in the space.
  4. Create an online community. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with items 1-3, start thinking about an online community. Ideally, this is for both current and prospective customers. Some businesses feel more comfortable about creating private communities where customers can talk to one another. The key in either case is to hire a great community manager and let them help you create relevant content via webinars, blog posts, and conference calls (see diagram below). A community manager will also help you draw out your customers and ensure that conversations stay relevant and productive.
  5. Measure, measure, measure. This is less difficult than you might imagine. This really should start with looking at your current goals — i.e. new customers, greater retention, larger share of wallet, referrals, etc. Then make sure you benchmark (i.e. look at your webstats and current KPI’s) before you launch your social efforts. Then, look at how you’re moving the bar over time. A key place to look is your web analytics, to see what kind of traffic and engagement your Twitter feed and/or blog efforts are driving. Also, it doesn’t hurt to survey customers and ask them if your efforts are impacting their loyalty to your company.
B2B Community Model
B2B Community Model

I won’t lie to you; everything I mentioned above takes effort. But it’s worth trying, especially when it’s done right, because it will yield results. One thing that I failed to mention is the importance of integrating the recommendations above with your existing marketing/channel activity. Social media doesn’t live in a vacuum, and if nobody can find the fruit of your efforts, you may as well not have exerted the time and resources.

Am I missing anything? You bet I am. But that’s where you come in. What types of social media have you tried? What’s worked? Please feel free to share in the comments section below.

Twitter Weekly Diary: 2010-01-29

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Small Business Social Funding: Preneuraholics.com

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I recently learned of a cool new website via my ongoing social networking, and I was impressed enough with the idea  to share with you here on Return On Now.

[NOTE: I am in no way, financially or otherwise, affiliated with the service I am about to preview for you.]

For those of you who interact with me on Twitter, surely you’ve seen the materials I’ve been sharing regarding the difficulty of getting your hands on financing or investment capital for your small business ventures. Credit markets have been squeezed to a pulp, it has been challenging to figure out how decisions are being made at the SBA, and angel investors and venture firms are being more cautious than we’ve seen in years when doling out funds. What’s an entrepreneur to do?

The answer: Turn to your peers!

Preneuraholics was created to connect business owners who need some startup capital with other business owners who might be gracious enough to donate a few dollars to the cause. For a nominal $49 fee, you can list your business with a description of it and why you need the money. Then, others can donate whatever they feel comfortable sharing, even as little as $10.

Preneuraholics: Small Business Social Funding
Preneuraholics: Small Business Social Funding

This is a great idea! With all the talk about goodwill and giving back, there is finally an easy way to share not only advice and insight, but also cold hard cash. The power of this model will come from the number of participants. After all, most of us can afford to donate $10 or $20 to a struggling entrepreneur who just needs a break. In the grand scheme of things, that is not a lot of money to give up, but it can add up rather fast with solid participation. In fact, the site does a great job of highlighting how fast funds can add up…again, with the right level of participation by not only the businesses themselves, but other small business owner peers.

Need more incentive why you should participate here? In their own words…

It is time to take back the American Dream.
Americans are uniting together to develop a whole new system of small business funding.
By joining forces we can help each other.
It’s all in the power of unity!

And who can argue with those points? Not me, for one.

The site is still very new, so they are just now building up projects seeking funding and participants to help make it happen. I chose to write it up because I think it’s an idea that needs your support. Please check out the site, create a login, and see if there’s anyone you can help. Heck, reach out to them afterward and introduce yourself. I, for one, would be more than willing to engage with a new contact who believes in my idea enough to donate to it.

Please come back after you review the site and let me know what you think of it. And if you want to engage with the site proprietors directly, you can find them on Twitter @preneuraholic.

Twitter Weekly Diary: 2010-01-22

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Texas Social Media Awards: Gratitude

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Don’t ask me how I missed this, but I was just made aware that I have been nominated for a Texas Social Media Award! The Texas Social Media Awards kicked off last year under the guidance of the Austin American-Statesman, the largest newspaper in central Texas. Take a look at the whole list of nominees and you will find some impressive social media minds, so it is an honor to be included with such a reputable list of professionals.

Texas Social Media Awards

First, many thanks to the folks who submitted me as a potential award candidate, particularly my good friends @FranciscoG3 and @KurtMW. They both not only nominated me, but shared their kind words with their followers on Twitter.

Second, please take a moment to add a comment on my nomination page. Whether I win or not, it sure would be nice to make the upcoming top 25 list. Feel free to share specific blog posts, tweets, or anything you think would be helpful to the judges. Or just say what you think of my work. Whatever you do, be genuine and honest and all will be best in the end.

I’m not one to spend much time patting myself on the back, so I’ll leave it at that. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on topics or commentary you’d like to see included here on Return On Now. Please add a comment below with your thoughts and I’ll consider it for inclusion in the coming weeks and months.

Thanks for your gracious time and attention.

Twitter Weekly Diary: 2010-01-14

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Entrepreneurs: Top 5 Sites to Market Yourself

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With marketing having fundamentally changed over the past several years, it is becoming increasingly important to have an online presence. And this is a great thing for those of us who aspire to operate as solo entrepreneurs or very small companies. Now, your voice can be heard loudly and clearly by more people than ever before. It has become so much easier and cheaper to get in front of new customers and prospects that a physical store is now an option, rather than a must.

As a result, if you are not taking part in the following communities, it’s officially time to start thinking about it. Your upside depends on it.

NOTE: to get a better view of  the below screenshots, you can click them to see a full-screen version of each image.

Twitter

Twitter

1. Twitter - I must admit it; I’ve become a verified Twitter addict (as if you couldn’t tell by my weekly Twitter digest on here). After having been part of various social media services over the past 10+ years, I really didn’t get the power of Twitter on first glance. But boy do I now. If you can’t afford or won’t pay for PR, then you absolutely need to get on Twitter and start engaging with folks. All it takes is your time and effort.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

2. LinkedIn – This is the premier business-to-business networking site, and it’s not just an online resume like some have accused it of being. Don’t just set up a profile on there and forget it. Connect with other professionals in your field and your locale. Join some groups and contribute to the overall discussion of the groups. [This is also a great place to promote your own blog or news.] Spend a little time answering questions when you can. You can even connect your LinkedIn account to several applications and social media sites/profiles now.  I have personally made important business and personal contacts on LinkedIn, so consider me a believer in their model.

Yelp

Yelp

3. Yelp – Holding true to the idea of word-of-mouth, this site lists local businesses and allows patrons to submit ratings and reviews of the businesses. This is particularly useful for retail, restaurant, or other similar standalone operations. Yelp is a great way to reach tourists who are visiting your city, but just be sure you are good enough to garner positive ratings on the site. The risk is that poor ratings are available to everyone as well. Go test it out as a user first to see how your competitors show up [ and to see if you've made it in there in spite of yourself]. Look for your favorite restaurant as another example. If you see it will offer value for what you do, get on it stat.

PitchEngine

PitchEngine

4. PitchEngine – A trusted colleague of mine turned me on to PitchEngine over a year ago, and I’m a bonafide fan of their model. The offer a “social media press release” service for free, which is syndicated to Google via an RSS feed after the releases go live. You can also embed images and multimedia files in the releases. I’ve used the service multiple times for various employers and clients, and have gotten better coverage than with paid releases!! But of course there is one catch: PitchEngine will only archive releases for 30 days on the free plan. You can pay a monthly fee to have them store indefinitely. Just do what you can afford and what is right for your business, and you can save hundreds of dollars vs. using a PR service. [Update as of December 2011 - Pitchengine has removed the expiration on free releases per their founder, Jason Kintzlervia Twitter: "Was just sharing your post that included PitchEngine (from January) Wanted to let you know, we've updated and pitches no longer expire! ;) "]

YouTube

YouTube

5. YouTube – Video isn’t just for media and television companies any more; everyone is doing it now. There are so many benefits to using multimedia like video to market yourself, from SEO to backlinks from YouTube to engaging a more visually-cognitive audience. Be sure you tag all videos with keywords you want to rank high in when posting to YouTube. I also recommend you post another copy of the same video on your web server, embedded into the home page or another location on your website. That way, you get the SEO benefit from backlinking from YouTube and you also get a shot at ranking highly on your own right. Video is most certainly on my to-do list for new features to add on Return On Now, and it really should be for your business as well.

What other social media services do you see as must-haves for small businesses and entrepreneurs? Catch me up on any great ones that I’m missing here!