Changing nature of media production and consumption in sport

As I revisit stumblings by high profile Australian athletes around the micro-blogging social media platform Twitter for the purposes of my current research, I look with fresh eyes at the Faggot Tweet: Sponsors Speak scandal of last year.

Refreshingly, my position on the relevance of context and content remains unchanged. If anything, I would further jump up and down on my strategic communicators tool box with the intention of seeing more support given to our elite athletes in navigating the new media channels.

In order for this to happen however, it's the administrators and communications professionals who need to stop. listen and learn from the tech team. It's the marketing communications leaders who need to patiently stumble through diciphering the tech team's codes and 'geek jargon', just as they have had to endure our homage to the acronym for the past 20 years.

People and business fundamentals haven't changed, technologies have. And with technology, new communications platforms have been consumed by information-hungry individuals and groups as the nature of association and information gathering has become more social. By this, I mean a global sharing process.

Not surprisingly, this change in the production and consumption of information now brings new, global and dynamic communications channels into the structured and controlled environment of corporate entities. This embedded disconnect does not have to be detrimental to the evolving relationship between corporate, team and individual brands, it just requires an entirely new approach which permits key players to not always get it right.

Stumbling isn't a problem for those businesses with strong key stakeholder engagement and support. So maybe the evolution towards transparency of communications through technology and the inherent nature of the new communications environment in the business of international sport, is more reflective of the health of key partner relationships than anything to actually do with sport performance.

While this is a sentence I never thought I'd write, it is undeniable, that when it comes to intra-organisational social media engagement in sport, the UFC is streaks ahead of the professional sporting pack.

Followers or Friends?

An interesting read for many reasons, but always back to the original: desired purpose of engagement? Networked or negated?
Please Repeat: Influence is not Popularity

Marketing and Comms fundamentals haven't changed, platform tactics have.

Be open, honest and consistent.

Plan for the worst, so you'll be at your best.

Have an answer for the question you hope no one will ask... It will no doubt be one of the first asked.

If you don't know, find someone who does. Don't bluff, you're online. You've got time.

HOW TO: Avoid a Social Media Disaster

Twitter 101

There are many secrets to Twitter but the only chance of understanding them is by 'doing'.

Someone can 'point' you in the right direction across the various sites, show you 'how to' and explain the 'lingo', but like anything in life you have to get your hands dirty in order to really understand.

Could you image booking spots on TV without ever seeing a TVC?

Social media is just another comms platform. The choice of when, where and how you engage should be based on what you are trying to achieve, not because everyone else is doing it.

Social media and online etiquette

5 not-so-easy steps to managing your brand online | VentureBeat

This is why professional Australian sporting bodies need to seriously consider refining their token engagement with social media technologies, if they don't want to double their workload down the line.

5 not-so-easy steps to managing your brand online | VentureBeat