It’s no secret that professional sports teams are finding tremendous value in engaging in social media these days. It provides them with an additional touch point to connect with their fans and drive traffic to their website. However, many sports teams are finding it challenging to monetize social media because of the fine balance between using social media as an engagement tool versus using it as a means to generate revenue.
Carson McKee is a sports social media consultant that works with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. I had a chance to talk with Carson at the Strategic Sponsorship Summit hosted in Toronto, Canada and asked him to share some insight on how he works with teams as well as some of the ways the Wild are attempting to monetizing social media.
Interested in learning more about how Carson works with sports teams to monetize their social media? Visit http://directcontact.ca and connect with Carson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/carsonmckee
Join the Sports Executives Association to watch Carson’s video presentation on “Monetizing The Digital Experience”
Know of any sports teams that have been able to monetize social media? Leave your comments below and make sure to share this article with your friends on Facebook & Twitter!
Monetize Social Media In Sports – Carson McKee Interview – Transcript
Trevor
Hey guys it’s Trevor Turnbull here from sportsnetworker.com and I’m in Toronto, Ontario Canada right now at the Canadian Sponsorship Summit and I’m actually here to present on how to leverage the athlete brand from a social media perspective. I’m also here with my good buddy Carson McKee who just presented today on monetizing the digitial brand. So I wanted to ask Carson a couple of questions on that to give you guys some insight on what he does and how he works with some of his clients to essentially monetize what they’re doing from an online perspective. So I’ll take the camera from Carson here.
Carson
Hi, I’m Carson.
Trevor
And there he is.
Carson
My company is Direct Contact. I work with sports teams on their digital spaces, their social media sites for monetization; an engagement perspective. One of my clients is the Minnesota Wild and we’re doing some work right now in activating current sponsors in the digital space and in the social space. So the focus is really taking those sponsorships and driving them through other activations as well. From a renewal perspective and from an up-sale perspective I provide those clients with other values in digital and social. Things that fit into their current digital campaigns or social media strategies; those are really important to the deals that we do.
Trevor
Awesome. So Carson, you obviously have a ton of experience and a wealth of expertise to offer in this area. A very social guy; I actually met Carson on Twitter. How can people connect with you so they can continue these types of conversations online?
Carson
The first, best and easiest way to reach out to me is on Twitter @CarsonMcKee.
Trevor
Perfect. Let’s go inside and grab a drink with all the attendees
Carson
Sounds good.
@therealdansfera thanks for the RT!
@sportsnetworker hey im tryna buy the clippers so i need to stay informed
As I have been taking classes regarding marketing and internet marketing you see how the trend is changing with Direct marketing is more geared through social media where Sports teams can have direct contact with their fans. By using twitter and Facebook among the few social media teams are able to offer promotions either the day before the game or even the day of the game with last minute ditch to increase the attendance.
I see it beneifical for teams that have smaller markets and with teams that have a small team following where a focus is to use social media, hiring a team or individual to focus on the growth of following of fans to increase awareness and attendance of games.
@chrisconway74 thanks for the shoutout!
Hello! I know this is kinda off topic however , I’d figured I’d ask.
Would you be interested in exchanging links or maybe guest writing
a blog article or vice-versa? My website discusses
a lot of the same topics as yours and I feel we could greatly benefit from each other.
If you happen to be interested feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I look forward to hearing from you! Terrific blog by the way!