I wrote a piece back in May about an event hosted by Channel 4 and Sport England on how to use social media for grass roots sport communication. 

The Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr and so I am re-linking to the article in case you want an update.

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Thanks to Steve Moore I was invited to chair the Channel4 and Sport England seminar held at Horseferry Road [backstory here and here ].  I loved it.  A perfect opportunity for me to exercise my passion (rowing) and my profession (business development).

The brief was that Sport England wants to educate its members (sporting organisations) on how to join Sport to the communities that participate in it.  Social Media is the answer.

Panelists include Mark McGuinness ; Gi Fernando ; Ed Mitchell and Antony Mayfield .  Detail below about each of their pitches.

My job was to summarise and (self-appointed) make suggestions to the attendees about areas they might investigate further afterwards. These include:

• Collaboration – learning in groups and with co-operation rather than traditional teacher/pupil.
• Long tail – who are the long tail groups in your community and how to differentiate them
• Monologue versus dialogue – assess your current communications (paper, email, web) and see how many are one way and how many facilitate / enable two-way conversations
• Where are your audiences – which platforms, digital spaces, real spaces/places do they hang out in?  Can you 'be there' too?
• We are all guests in the new digital world – takeout from Mark McGuiness talk – act with social gestures that would be appropriate in a party setting.
• There are no strings attached to content and membership online – is registration really necessary?  Why should audiences pay to take part? Don't have member only parts of your website – these exclude rather than include browsers and lurkers
• Social media is now mainstream.  Use it to amplify the conversation you are having with your audiences.
• Conversations and campaigns have to be pushed – takeout from Gi Fernando's talk.  Push appropriately; allow others into YOUR space and let them make connections and manage that themselves without your intervention
• Create ande sustain long term local heroes.  Make them aspirational role models – and make lots of them.
• Data = database – takeout from Ed Mitchell's talk .  Collect email addresses, build profiles of your users, segment them, communicate and learn and customise the online experience to suit their needs.
• There is no online copyright worth having – takeout from Antony Mayfield's talk.  Anythingyou post online is public, its impact is measurable and it can drive revenues to your organisation.  Think about offering a matching service for coaches and athletes (this could be low level revenue generation).  If you can measure anything, you can prove its value and so fulfill funding requirements from your funders / Government.
• Consider the "user journey" for your audience.  What happens before an
  event, during and after and what about the absents – those who can't be
  there, can they also participate in the event experience?

The day kicked off with John Gisby, Director of New Media and Technology C4 talking about the context. 

C4 is 25 years old and its new focus is a creative, explosive 'train smash' incorporating on-demand, social media and its track record in broadcasting.  

Looking at the fragmentation of audiences that is happening, the viewer now has a different expectation of content from a broadcaster and they are expecting participation, personalisation and community features as standard.  Add this to the 'cognitive surplus' free time we have and emotional space that we spend with friends / on passions / on our interests (all more interesting than watching TV) and this leaves a huge opportunity to set up new partnerships for delivering content in a new context.

Technology is the new delivery platform and in John's view software is as important as journalism in terms of the development of this new meme.

Funding – advertising plus a range of new partners and audiences to (with?) whom brands want to communicate.  Plus the Government, who has always been keen to spend money to reach audiences.

C4 sees itself with a role in other peoples' websites being part of the web.  It's set up 4IP with £50m to invest in public service, innovative, big audience projects. 

Mark McGuinness – notes from his talk

Social media is mainstream and by 2012 it'll be ubiquitous.  These conversations are normal and as real as meeting someone at a party.

Behave as if you were in a physical place and don't do anything exhibitionist that you'd be ashamed of in real life. 

Gi Fernando – notes from his talk

Social network fact – active user numbers are continuing to accelerate.  

Engagement is deepening – website visitors are spending more time there and go into more depth

In the near future, most things will be socially enabled.  This movement will enable you to find your audience already logged in (i.e. registered) and ready to participate.  Now the question is "What do you put through the social media sites?"

Privacy – this is an industry (undermining and exploiting user identities) and education to overcome ignorance is a real issue.

Gi suggests Facebook as a tool for event management, user/customer acquisition and retention. 

Ed Mitchell – notes from his talk

Using social media to self-organise – let's get joined-up with online free tools that are easy to use.

Use the data you collect to achieve something bigger and create a platform to engage your community of interest.  

SUpport groups of people and trainers / coaches.

Hold data responsibly.

Be an effective facilitator of conversations oneline

Create localised business models e.g. for coaches.  Creating intra-community collaboration, research, marketing and meta-community development (for your whole sport /audience)

Antony Mayfield – notes from his talk

Measuring success is important (you can use it for funding justification)

First – understand your networks

Second – work out how you can be useful to those groups

Third, be live in the community and active in the networks

The participation ladder (Forrester Research) [thanks to Steve Rubel for the link]

As home broadband take-up in creases this will increase participation.  Consider the "user journey" for your audience.  What happens before an event, during and after and what about the absents – those who can't be there, can they also participate in the event experience?

Consider a network publishing model getting useful links into one place and acting as an aggregator of digital content for your users.  This could include user-generated content, editorial, activities (NetVibes), mass distribution methods (email, RSS, search, social media)

Design your website for netowrks – make it useful, findable, portable and sharable.  [note to self- this is SO important]

1. understand your users
2. make sense for your sponsors
3. show how you will measure engagement

 Put editorial and agile developers (web tech people) together from the start – make them work in the same physical room and see how they learn from each other!

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Thanks to the eagle eyed Mark McGuinness , I've been invited to chair a panel for Sport England and Channel 4 at their "All Together Now – sports, community and the web" event on 1 May.

Now this really gets me excited.  Many of you know that I write a rowing blog , I still compete and am involved on the committee of a big rowing race.  This is a perfect place for my passion and my business work in social media, digital and business development to intersect.

Here's what the event is about. 

Over the course of the past three years the emergence of blogging, social networking services and platforms which showcase and share user generated content have transformed the possibilities of how we connect, converse and collaborate with one another.
’In the 20th Century, we were defined by what we owned, in the 21st Century we will be defined by what we share and give away’ Charles Leadbeater, author of "We Think"

The potential for organisations and brands to harness these technologies and tools to engage with users, customers and their communities in radically new ways is becoming clear.

How can all those organisations working to promote active participation in sports and the brands that wish to sponsor their activates and campaigns work together to make the most of the unrivalled viral power and network effects of the web in the run up to 2012?

All Together Now will bring together leading social media developers and thinkers, sports governing bodies, communities’ sports organisations and some of our leading brands into a unique event to explore these opportunities.
 

Now, can you guys put your thinking caps on and tell me what questions you think I should be asking the panel members?

Here are some of my ideas….. 

What would be a 'perfect' social media outcome for London 2012?

How would you ideally like to engage online with the folk who run your sport?

Where do you go to talk about your sporting interests?  (online and offline).

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