Syme, a former athletic media relations professional, is a noted social media/crisis communications strategist and educator. Follow Syme on Twitter and see her website for more information.
Syme spoke on branding and crisis communications at the 2014 CoSIDA Convention in Orlando during Division I "divisional day" programming.
Whether fans are at the game or watching via TV or live stream, they are dialed in to social media to get involved in the event. You can give your fans a more intimate experience with a fan-based social media team to cover the game live from the fans’ perspective. Fan-to-fan, so to speak.
Eastern Washington University hosts a high profile football game on August 23— the official kickoff to the nation’s college football season. The game will be broadcast on ESPN and it’s an opportunity for the FCS school to engage a wider reach than normal. They are doing a number of things to enrich the fan experience for the game including putting together a grass roots social media ambassador group. Here’s a quick look at the process and some tips of how to create a team for your events.
Start With Invested Fans
EWU spent the last three months leading up to the game looking at their social media channels to identify fans within driving distance that were already invested in the brand and had a good social reach. While likes and favorites carried some weight in the decision of who to invite, they were looking for more proactive actions such as retweets, shares, and comments. They looked for a good mix of people and decided to use student-athletes, EWU staff members, alumni, and highly invested fans.
Line Up An Engaging Experience
Before you contact potential team members, you might want to line up some special perks for team members that will help make the experience valuable to them. You can do this with no budget, or spend some money if you have it. Here are some suggestions from EWU’s game day experience:
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Tour of the locker room. You can do this after the team takes the field
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Tour of the TV truck, if you have a TV game
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Tour of the press box
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All-access pass to sidelines during game or warm-ups
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Access to watch post-game press conference, if you have one
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Meet and greet with coach or AD
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Meet and greet with on-air radio or TV talent
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Food and drink for the duration of their stay
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T-shirt or other gear for the game.
Give Them A Game Day Cheat Sheet
Give your social media ambassadors a cheat sheet of information ahead of time so they have some background on the team and the game. Also, I would suggest giving them a list of content ideas with one goal: show the fan experience from your view–make it fun. Give them a short list of guidelines, dates, times, and locations. Send out a reminder a couple days before the game with important information. Talk them through the script/timing sheets for game day. Make sure they know what time the players run out, time and location for the national anthem, and highlight any pregame or in-game events they won’t want to miss such as flyovers or sky divers.
Give Them A Practice Run
EWU used their last scrimmage of preseason camp to bring their ambassadors in for an orientation and run-through. This helps familiarize them with off-limits areas, such as the team box, and where to access elevators, parking, and other important info.
Make Sure You Have Their Needs Covered
You will need a charging station and a work area they can access. Food and drink are necessary and make sure they know where the bathrooms are, and who to go to with questions on game day. Let important game day personnel know who they are and where they will be. Let cheerleaders, band members, and guest services know they will be wandering around. This is where a t-shirt or armband identifying them would be valuable.
Promote Them
Social media ambassadors are basically sharing their fan base with you for the day. Make sure you promote them and their Twitter or Instagram channels throughout the week leading up to the game. Ask your fans to follow them. If you screen and train your ambassadors well enough, you shouldn’t have any fear of promoting them as part of your team for game day. Retweet and repost selected social media ambassador posts on game day. If you have Tagboard or Postano, make sure their posts get up on the video board. After the event is over, be sure and thank them (via social media). A team selfie or candid photo of the group is a good accompaniment to the day. Also, put together a Storify of their experience after the game is over.
A social media ambassador team can increase the reach of game day and help plant the seeds for more fans to experience the game in person.