Been a while but back

I was away from the blog while trying to finish a draft chapter for an upcoming book on PR and sport. My take was on social media - as usual more was left out than out in due to editorial space restrictions. One idewa that didn't make the cut was the approach to PR taken by the European school of PR theorists van Ruler and Vercic. I adapted their approach to look at how socila media tools fit within the strategic focus of the organisation. i think this may have to be tweaked according to the type of sports organisation - professional, particpatory or NGO for example. But the idea looked as if it had some legs although I have left out a lot of the theoretical underpinnings.

Whereas the established model of excellence in PR has always focused on the Grunig (1992)-derived two-way symmetrical continuum, the developments of a more European-centric model by van Ruler and Vircic (2005) attempts to position the role of PR within the commercial and societal relationships of the organisation. In effect they are splitting the focus of the organisation between managerial concerns of commercial profit and the legitimacy or reputation/longevity aspects of the organisation in its wider environment, and on the other hand, placing the role of communications as mediating between the organisation and its immediate target audience – from customers where there is a string commercial relationship, through to wider societal constituents or weak stakeholders who are potential publics if an issue or crisis arises that has an impact beyond the immediate market or audience of the organisation.

By simplifying the von Ruler/Vercic thesis the following broad model can be created, (while admitting that within the management of any organisation setting communication goals will be a constant dialectical struggle between different forces). In the top right quadrant, where the concern is over legitimacy of the organisation within the social sphere, crises can subvert reputation unless there is swift response – hence this is seen as dominated by crisis management, although at a lower level there will a continuing stream of communications that discursively attempt to manage any debate about the organisation inside a context set and managed by the organisation’s own rhetoric. This might be termed a negotiating stance. Other quadrants may be interpreted in terms of the commercial focus versus the public reputation, and the need to target what might be crudely terms the ‘paying’ audience, and society at large. This leads to the labels and modes as shown.

One of the advantages of the explosion in new media, is that is allows the organisation to consider a more differentiated, and more direct approach to each area of activity, without having to rely on the intermediation of mass media (while remembering that in many cases it may be the mass media that itself creates the content for the communication as this operates within a tangled web of inter-related networks of communication and stakeholders).

The following diagram attempts to place the appropriate media in the appropriate quadrant while remembering that this is merely indicative as opposed to prescriptive analysis:-

The purpose here is to show where different aspects of the web 2.0 may play a role within an overall communications strategy. It also shows a move away from one size fits all for the web site – and the need to consider the different purposes of commercially oriented sites and the need for communities and public facing vehicles of communication. Whereas it does not purposely show the traditional media, there will remain a role for integration the activities on web 2.0 that reach out to target publics with the demands of the media, and ability of that media to meet the needs of the organisation.

SPRC managers have an opportunity now get involved in the world of their organisation as it is seen and reproduced in the social web, and to begin to work though the benefits of greater involvement in using the new media to create more tangible and vibrant relationships than has been possible before the rise of Web 2.0. That is not to say that everyone should rush into a simply launching blogs, communities or creating presences on all the social network sites just for the sake of it – an un-updated blog, or a member-less community is worse than not having one at all.. Like any other business strategy, the organisation should carefully think through its aims, goals and resources available for implementation.

I may work this up further, but it seems a fruitful avenue to follow. It also makes me think aboiut why sports sites are getting into social media - and are they doing this for reputaional/longevity biased motivations or for the commercial - and how would that differ by type of organisation?

I have spent an interesting time looking at. and participating with, sports marketing 2.0 and the differences between the US and European take on social media.(http://sportsmarketing20.com/group/theeuropeanperspective)

I guess my latest position is that there is a simplified way to see how sport marketing is adapting to the WWW - and it follows more or less the Tim O'Brien paradigm of web 2.0 - reproduced below from his seminal paper 'What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software located for download at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1008839

Its a journey from the recently learned (for sports managers at least) areas of web 1.0 to the braver new world of web 2.0 where paradoxically, the technology is more accessible, but the rules of successful deployment are far harder to comprehend if they exist at all. So whereas the blogosphere is full of comments and stories on sport (and fewer comments on comments except on fan sites where it easily degenerates into name calling and ranting!), sports marketers have to work out how they can make this journey. To date certainly the hi-tech industry, and surprisngly the high visible brand FMCG industry are deploying user communities and social networking tools to engage more closely with their customers. As they must do in a competitive market. But sport has always been a bit smug about the devotion of the fans who are rather taken for granted. So much so that , as I have said, many organisations do not even want their fans to interact except in the case of putting their hands in their pockets at match day and for merchandise. I agree more is being done to use the web and internet technology to provide more and more content to fans (sometimes at a price and sensibly so). But one feels there is still the fear of engagement, and that the sponsor and the traditonal media will always be placed first because that is where the money appears to be. Plus there is a culture of secrecy, a tradition of clubs being walled off from their fans than discourages communication and interaction in case the fans make unreasonable requests. In this way many sports organisations are very Dilbertish ' we exist to meet our customers needs - our customers want better products for free- lets sell them what we have and call it a strategy' (apologies - couldn't find the orginal cartoon strip).

In other words its very outward looking, very one way. If the fans start talking amongst themselves- will they want better for free? or will they want better and want to pay for it? how will you know if you don't engender the dialogue and find out?

Thoughts on PR sport and new social type media

I guess I am still trying to work out just how effective the use of 'new' media by sports organisations really is, and whether the instances of where it exists (for example, the large number of blogs in NHL, MLB etc in the USA is meaningful or not as most seem very rarely updated, or to attract any real interaction). Also it has proved hard, if not downright impossible to find any existing examples of where practioners feel they have new and effective tools as opposed to me too tools in their marketing communications mix. If i take the old PR model of asymmetric and symmetric communications (I know its a bit old but it still gets a mention in the text books) it isn't at all clear to me how PR and Communications professionals at the major sports organisations are harnessing new media as opposed to making sure its there. For instance no research seems to exist into the effectiveness of , say, having a Facebook or My Space presence versus the traditonal web site. There rarely seems to be feedback from supporters on , say, how the sports club's web site is operating except for standard complaints when it is out of date or the e-ticketing is slow./broken. So it all seems still quite asymmertrical publicity and information as opposed to relationship oriented.

the other issue i picked up in my travels through cybermedia was that there must be a threat to sports clubs corporate reputation in ares such as face book- for example, a county cricket team in England has a static site looking like a billboard on MySpace which simply links to the web home page. However, 'friends' profiles attached to the sight include one charming individual whose visible profile is a short video of the infamous Roy Keane 'tackle' or actually grievous bodily harm attack on Haaland which ended the latter's playing career. This act of gratuitous violence is now attached permanently to the site. is this a good thing? and if it isn't, what can the club do about it? It didn't help that their web site home page was covered in 'hacked by' html for days - which makes me wonder as to the importance they give to this.

So all the new media possibilities, while undoubtedly being played with out there by sporting organisations seem very poor in comparison with the way traditional media has adopted new technology to support the way in which it supports sport. in additon, companies such as Nike (as one might expect) have adopted social media to create what lok like very viable community creating and sustaining tools for their customers. This is marketing savvy, and you either seem to have it, or you don't. It seems to me that sports organisations are still rooted in ideas of marketing communications which rely hugely on face to face and traditional press/media briefings, with the bells and whistles of video and mobile information as add-ons. In other words they aren't really using the potential of the new tools to forge new relationships with their publics, but rather using them to enhance and simplify the traditional means of creating communications. Is this necessarily a bad thing? If believe your customers have no choice, then developing relationships is really not worth the effort - and I still believe many sporting clubs do act in this way - preferring to ignore or patronise their audience because anything else is too difficult. The PR disaster that is Newcastle Utd in the UK premier League bears this out.

When sport marketing people get a good idea, they tend not to want to find another - so whereas the web and internet has simplified communications and commerce, i don't feel at this stage there is much desire to explore further.

More thoughts on why sporting clubs are a bit backward in coming forward

I must say that looking at the use of new media in sports by established sporting clubs and organisations that there is little really proactive work going on out there. I admire the US sports for adopting the blogging aspects (e.g. MLB.com) but it is noticeable that the initial blog text , while followed up by many 'fan' comments, rarely develop into any discussion or sharing of views. Whilst this may be good for PR in the lost sense of the word - being seen to at least pay service to the notion of the 'fan public', there doesn't seem to be any point in in except a type of modishness and willingness to be seen to be doing something.

I think I would argue at this stage that the vast majority of sporting sites which belong to professional clubs are still exploring web 1.0, and despite putting themselves on properties such as MySpace their presence there is little more than another billboard in another piece of the cyber landscape. In the UK, the cricket Board, the ECB have a MySpace profile linked to from their web site advertising their programme for youth participation in cricket. However the Myspace site is not very active and there is little information that isn't based on the web site itself. Therefore it is unclear to me that this is anything other than a simple placement or covering the bases as opposed to a thought through approach to using social media.

There is far more richness in terms of consumption on sporting websites - from mobile based info to video clips, but interactivity, and use of the new medias capacity to engage is still rather limited 9or my explorations are limited), and sporting organisations still seem to be , media wise, preferring to keep the various sporting publics (in a PR sense) at arms length. Press statements appear on the web sites but as one way communication. message boards are probabaly monitored for libellous comments but otherwise there is rarely interaction between the sports clubs and their fans in this media or via blogging. Where blogs exist e.g, Arsenal FC have a fan blog, the content is fairly anodyne and responses have to be sent via e-mail and don't appear to be available to the web reader.

It was noticeable two years ago when i was researching the use of the web by professional rugby and cricket sides in the UK that they had hardly caught up with web 1.0 and were still seeing the web as an unproven means of communication. I would say that today the same people have embraced the potential of the web as a repository of information and a site for the fans to consume information about the club, but still resist the ideas o using technology to open up new means of communication. It may be that sport, because of its fierce tribal loyalties, and the notion that every fan is a Monday morning quarterback means that exchanging information or comment 9as is done on may commercial m and marketing sites for other consumer goods) is a thankless task. the fans use the interactive facilities such as message board mere;y to criticise the club and offer suggestions on performance improvement. However, there are no signs of using this energy in anyway that may be constructive e.g. by channeling debate into areas where the fans opinion could be used to create new ideas or innovation around the match day experience for example. It is known that the clubs do poll supporters and have question and answer sessions on a regular basis , but this does not pick up on the more inclusive aspect of new media , nor does it allow the fan who cannot attend Q&A sessions part of the process. It may be that clubs are confident they have the hold over the fans through the uniqueness of their product, allied to the attraction of competitive professional sport per se. but in days when fans can consume virtually through the proliferation of media broadcast and streaming, that the clubs will need to adopt new ways of building the fan community both from a sense of maintaining support, but also to ensure that they can extract the optimum marketing reward from the loyalty and commitment of the fan base. I am not sure that marketing and sport, despite the many volumes of management advice and learning that have been produced, has advanced far beyond merchandising and sponsorship, with sales of corporate hospitality. Few have really developed with purpose, the brand potential of sport, rater relying on a self selecting mechanism from the customer base of supporters.

Rights Management in Sport and new media

Looking at a few issues in new media, one that comes to mind is the apparent tension between 'owned' media such as news journalism, media rights to broadcast sport etc which seems to be under threat from appropriation by 'new media' such as blogging and video clips/galleries such as YouTube. the recent Google/Viacom case for the latter, and the Associated press' attempts to limit use of their material in blogs spring to mind, as does conferences with titles such as will Web 2.0 suck all the value out of sports media rights (or some such) which caught my eye.
In some ways one might argue that the reason social media can succeed ins in the way it pools many peoples ability to spot and comment on material that traditional journalism in its publish and forget mode cannot. In this way social media can keep stories going, elicit new material as a result of popularising a story, and in effect broaden the narrative beyond the editorially controlled mode of traditional publishing. If more sports organisations utilised new media effectively, would they play a part in contributing to the creation of a wider ranging, more engaged model of news diffusion and development as opposed to staying safe with the idea of the press release or notice board web site? How many sports properties allow people to clip and share what they find? (I'll be finding out through some research over the next few weeks, as well as looking for other examples of 'traditional' sports management using new media). Will cheap video capture via new cellphones add to the fans ability to capture and communicate their experience of the game, or will it get cracked down upon by the media owners who have paid for the rights in perpetuity? and what is social use versus commercial use? Much odf the sport on YouTube is unavailable via traditional media, and caters for many niche sports in a far better way, as well as providing snippets of information, nostalgia and sheer fun involved in sports. It strikes me that the one aspect of sports fandom that traditional media has always neglected is nostalgia, which is a potent force in maintaining support for a team. Fans loving recreation of the past, arguments about best ever, inter st in sporting history may be better served by relaxation of rights ownership than otherwise.

The New Rules of marketing and PR - is this percolating down to sport management?

In looking at social media and marketing I came across a new-ish book (pub. 2006) called 'The New Rules of marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott (http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Rules-Marketing-PR-Podcasting/dp/0470113456/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216037893&sr=1-2) .In this book Scott tries to show how the new tools of web 2.0 have and are transforming the relationship both between Marketing and Public Relations, and, perhaps more importantly, the relationships between companies and their customers. The arrival of new ways of communicating with customers through blogs, podcasts, and web releases that by-pass traditional media to go straight to target customers are a few of the better known techniques he describes with lots of good examples of them working successfully. However, every example comes from traditional industries and there is not one example linked to sport. Is this because sport based marketers are behind the curve of innovation? Or is it because the nature of the sport product and its consumption makes it more resistant to new styles of consumer marketing? It might be argued that sport fans need little incentive to support their team, and are hardly likely to have attitudes changed by the appearance of sports blogs from their favourite team, or that wikis (collaborative knowledge creation tools) are likely to be attractive to sports fans. However we know that almost every professional (and many community/amateur sporting clubs) have web sites, and use these to communicate with fans. And we also know that many use chatrooms and message boards on the web where fans can exchange news and comment, or even arrange for ways to get to games.
In their book The Elusive Fan (2006), Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Ben Shields argue that sports marketers are essentially failing to spot trends that will lead to reduced personal consumption of sport among the current and future generations of sports supporters. In short, the argument is that sport will be crowded out of a marketplace where there are many other attractions vying for the potential sports ' fan's cash. One issue they highlight is that sports is opened up to media intrusion and publicity on a scale that most managers in sport have never experienced before. This often results in poor publicity for the sport as players coaches and management are exposed in the press, television and on-line. The effect on reputation can be destructive, and maybe this is sowing the seeds of future disaffection. Yet, and this is my point, we rarely see sports organisations handling publicity well, or intervening successfully in PR issues. The recent examples of from the cricket world of the rather ostentatious promises of wealth from 20/20 (a short form of the game) cricket has divided the cricket administrators and players, and led to wonderful scenarios that are more likely to be settled in a court of law than on the playing field. One can argue many cases of player misbehaviour in soccer reported in the tabloid press are also examples of potential PR disasters. Administrators of sport are notably reluctant to open up to fans who voice opinions and comment on various unofficial web sites.

It seems to this interested student of sport marketing behaviour that the model has rather settled down to sell tickets and sponsorship and let the fan or supporter go hang. In other words there is no desire to get involved or intermediate between the fans and sporting organisation, despite the plethora of tools available. In addition one might even make the argument that the web can help intermediate between the organisation and its sponsor.

In research I did personally with sports marketing managers in the UK, it was quite amazing how they helped the supporters' opinions more or less in contempt - in some cases refusing to host a chat room or message board because of the 'nutters' amongst the fans. One club refused to think about monitoring the rooms and boards for comment and rumour. others did so only to prevent possibilities of legal action. very few thought of them as a channel to communicate the clubs or organsiation's position.

I wonder if there are any counter examples? I note that Sport England have just put out a tender for consultancy on use of social media- is this the beginning of a trend?

marketing sport through social media

I know there are sports sites arriving on the web that incorporate sports fan interaction - and always have been through notice boards and chatrooms since the web started. However what intrigues me is how much do sports organisations - from the top professional teams and organisations, through to the amateur, participant oriented sports clubs, actually use the new media to promote organise and develop their presence?

I did some research for my MA two years ago into UK Premier Rugby and County Championship cricket clubs investigating how they used the web in a marketing sense and found that the marketing presence and messages was relatively limited, and most web sites were pretty much static noticeboards, and that fan 'chat rooms' were more or less tolerated rather than encouraged.

I was wondering whether this had changed, whether there were better examples of really interactive communications betwen sporting organisations and their fan base (and between organisations and those interested in practising or developing their sport)?

I am doing some new research myself into this by trawling the blogosphere and the web sites globally of sporting organisations, but I wondered just how much sports had adopted the new social media, and would love to here from people who had positive (and negative) experiences.

http://knightknetwork.com/2007/08/27/sports-on-the-web-20/ was my first port of call, but this tends to illustrate the fact that socila media lies outside maintsream sports organisations. The acquisition of FanNation by Sports Illustrated, and the fact that searching, say for sports blogs tends to unearth traditional media in its on line appearance (BBC, Guardian OnLine in the UK for example, Fox in the US) made me think that sport and the new media is not really being adapted by sporting organisations as much as by those whose job it is to report sport.

Other sites like takkle.com and isporty.com seem glorofoed chat rooms or weak imitations of Facebook type profiling (I may be doing them a disservice and need to explore these further!).

As I go on this exploration, I'll share views and insights and hope that this develops further