Use Promotional Incentives to Drive Team Social Media Buzz...

Are you looking for new ways to generate positive publicity for your organization in the social networking space? Are you looking for new ways to "own" the dialogue about your organziation in the social media space?

Sports organizations should consider benchmarking the tactics involved with Ford's recent Fiesta Movement promotion. In an effort to build excitement and drive viral buzz for Ford's new automobile, the Fiesta, the automobile manufacturer recently sent out a recruitment call for 100 agents to receive the car a few months early and chronicle their experiences through their social networks (e.g. blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, etc.).

To support the promotion, Ford set up a website - www.fiestamovement.com - where it is asking consumers to submit a 2-5 minute video detailing why they should be chosen for the promotion. Just three (3) days after Ford announced the offer, over 1,500 people already had signed up to win.

How can sports organizations capitalize on implementing a similar concept?

In an effort to drive buzz in the social networking space, teams can create a promotional offer that awards 3-5 lucky consumers the chance to win free season tickets (a pair of two seats) if they agree to chronicle their life as a season ticket holder and document their experiences using social media tools. To drive value out of the promotional concept, teams can consider opening up the offer just to its core Twitter/Facebook/online social network followers, who already devote a significant amount of time discussing the organization and can have a large influence over their followers.

Looking at this promotional offer from a dollars and sense perspective, teams are potentially giving up $6K-$15K in season tickets (hard costs) for the chance to derive some true value in the social networking space. This is especially true if teams can use the promotional offer to align themselves with key influencers in the social networking space.