Why it's Hard to Show Marketing Effectiveness of Social Media in Sports

I have always been intrigued as to why sports firms have been so slow to use social media to promote their products. As we all know, social media has incredible breadth in terms of sports fans. So, why don't firms promote their brands on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets?

Well, it's still really hard to gauge the effectiveness and return on marketing in social media. With traditional print and digital media, companies rated effectiveness on cold metrics. Cold metrics are what you normally think of with marketing effectiveness - reach, frequency, page views, impressions. But social media has a different reach then traditional media and needs to look at warm metrics. Warm metrics deal with engagement, levels of "viral", community conversation. Tricky stuff to compute.

Traditional media is a monologue, meaning that it's one way communication. Social media is two way; the company promotes their product and fans immediate respond. Think of it this way, traditional media was a speech and social media is a conversation. Conversations naturally are harder to analysis.

Intrigued like me? Then check out this unbelievable guest article in the Sports Business Journal by Amy Martin. You'll thank me later when you can't fit your brain through the door.

Backlash to NBA's new Twitter account

Incredible reaction coming out from the NBA's new Twitter account, @NBA_Labor. Players are extremely upset with the account, believing the NBA is using the account as a bully pulpit.

Honestly, I think it's brillant by the NBA. The players have been connected to the fans through Twitter for so long and have been able to send out their message. The NBA had to make this move to directly connect to fans.

Now about directly contacting players while they are negotiating, that's a different story. Doesn't seem like it would help to build consensus to me. After reading these articles, you tell me.

Here are some great articles on the matter:

• Article with the actual tweets on NBC Sports. 
• "Player accuses NBA of Twitter harassment" from CBS.
• Even Bleacher Report gets in on the action. (By the way, if you are not reading Bleacher Report, it is the most easy and leisurely sports reading out there. Be careful, you'll get lost in their slides and before you know it, you'll have memorized the 10 dumbest football players based on their Wunderlich. And that's some useful information, people)

World Series Twitter Buzz

It's Halloween and that can mean only two things. The World Series is over and candy goes on sale. And only one of those things make me... wait for it.... snicker.

But with the end of October means the end of a Classic and the World Series truly was classic. 7 games, great storylines, and another long off season for Nolan Ryan and his Texas Rangers. Now that it's over, it's time to see how the World Series played out on Twitter.

Well, the buzz was higher than last year. According to BuzzStudy, the Twitter buzz for the 2011 World Series is TWICE that of last year's Fall Classic. And that was only including Game 6. The figures are not updated for Game 7 and the Cardinals closeout, which will only increase that figure. (I highly recommend checking out this site which follows popular Twitter trends and gives user-friendly graphs. (Did you know that Kim Kardashian's Twitter popularity has never been higher because of her recent divorce after 72 days of marriage? I didn't care, but the figures are pretty impressive)

And my girl, Maria Burns Ortiz, has a good article on the World Series and Twitter. Here is hoping that they publish the updated figures for the entire World Series soon. And you know it's gonna be good, IBM has put there name on this baby.