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Brian Michael

10/12/2009

Brian and Phillies Nation In the News
12:22 am by Brian Michael

The Delaware County Daily Times – out of my old stomping grounds of southeastern Pennsylvania – did piece on my web site last week in conjunction with the Phillies quest to win a second consecutive World Series.

They can be found in Denver pubs, the cafes of Rome and in the sports bar at the Gen. Patton Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany.

And Brian Michael will tell you their numbers are growing.

“You can go to pretty much anywhere and you will find Phillies fans,” said Michael, the 28-year-old founder of PhilliesNation.com

Thanks to Michael and his 10,000-plus subscribers, those fans have had a place to share insights, frustrations and love of all things Phillies since the site went live a few months after Citizens Bank Park opened in 2004.

“I grew up in Philly and had moved away to Washington, D.C.,” Michael said. “I was finding it hard to get all my Phillies information, so I decided to put it all in one place.”

Read the entire “Phillies Nation growing through Web site” article…

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Jen Cieslak

09/09/2009

Where’s Augie?
02:34 pm by Jen Cieslak

wheresaugieHow do you handle social media when your team is one of the worst in Major League Baseball, attendance is down by the thousands and your promotional giveaway doesn’t get delivered?

Create a diversion.

That’s just what the Arizona Diamondbacks have done with their “Where’s Augie?” campaign, launched after their Augie Ojeda bobble-head figurines didn’t show up.

“Where’s Augie?” is a goofy gimick where a photo of the bobble-head doll is superimposed on a photo of some landmark or travel destination.

And it worked — the first day.

Fans loved it and posted positive remarks and hit the all-important “like” button in Facebook. But that good feedback isn’t lasting, and it appears the D-Backs are beating a dead horse with this one.

In just a week, the “Augie” feature has become a bulls-eye for negative feedback about the team and the front office, with little oversight from the social media administrator of the page.

The lesson? Social media moves quickly, and you need to match that speed. A good idea may only last a day — or an hour — so keep up. Make sure your site is monitored — and don’t ignore negative comments. The only way to get the page (and your message) back on track is to address the problem, fix it (if you can), and move on.

Read more about Augie’s adventures on the Diamondbacks’ Fan Page.

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Jen Cieslak

07/31/2009

2 Legit 2 Quit
12:14 pm by Jen Cieslak

Hip hop legend. Reality TV star. Oversized-pant pioneer. Social Media and marketing expert?

Yes, it’s true — MC Hammer has emerged from the depths of music television has-beens as an Ivy League social media strategist and national business lecturer.

Hammer (@mchammer) is this summer’s keynote speaker at the Gravity Summit Social Media Marketing for Business conference at the Harvard Faculty Club.

“Speakers invited to participate at Gravity Summit events are selected based on industry expertise and thought-leadership,” says Beverly Macy, CEO of Gravity Summit. “We are delighted Hammer has agreed to provide his unique insights into social media marketing strategies and know our business audience will benefit greatly from his marketing savvy and social media expertise.”

Earlier this year, Hammer participated in social media panel discussions at the Harvard Business School and Stanford University. At Stanford He said that yes, he will tweet trivial information like what he’s having for breakfast. But he also bets that his followers will be buying him lunch because of their relationship.

For a music star who’d all but disappeared a few years ago, that sounds like great ROI.

Watch a portion of the MC Hammer Stanford panel discussion here.

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Brian Michael

07/13/2009

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Online Campaign
12:02 pm by Brian Michael

This past week baseball fans from around the world voted for players to make the final spot on their respective league’s roster. All told, 68 million votes were cast. Shane Victorino, the winner of the National League roster spot, received over 15 millions votes. He narrowly edged out Pablo Sandoval who had the support of both his San Francisco and Venezuela fan bases. Our friend John McCain backed another losing effort in his endorsement of the third-place finisher, Arizona’s Mark Reynolds.

In the American League, Brandon Inge of Detroit benefited from the “Bran Torino” alliance formed with Victorino supporters. Both Inge and Victorino were in second place in the early stages of voting when their campaigns teamed up to support each other.

Fans were allowed to vote an unlimited amount of times for both a National League and American League representative; they only needed to submit their name, age, email address, and a challenge-response question consisting of 5 squwiggly numbers. MLB teased fans throughout the 4 days of voting by releasing percentage results and claiming different players overtook the lead each night.

This is a win-win situation in online engagement. MLB is collecting millions of email addresses from people who more than happy to give them. It played on civic and national pride to give people incentive to participate and provided tangible results. MLB also offered a rudimentary widget to help the campaigns go viral and it did. Blogs, local organizations and even governments got involved to support the GOTV effort.

For all the hype surrounding last week’s campaign, the entire idea (voting for an All-Star spot) and functionality (an online poll) contrived by MLB remained very simple. Yet it was one of the most effective methods to engage people online and build an email list.

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