THE RAPID RISE OF UNOFFICIAL SOCIAL MEDIA FANBASES...AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR SPONSORSHIP.

The above trend is by no means restricted to Premiership football in the UK.  Take a look across the sports spectrum and you'll see that unofficial social media fanbases eclipse their official counterparts in size.

By official, we mean facebook and twitter accounts created and managed by the rights holder.  By unofficial, we're talking about forums, facebook and twitter accounts run by passionate fans.

The sheer number of unofficial 'hosts' is partly responsible for the big difference in size of total fanbase.  Just google 'Manchester United Forum' and you'll quickly find yourself on a journey across numerous fan communities, both big and small, from Manchester to Mumbai.

Do fans want official content or authentic content?

The difference in content between official and unofficial fanbases has a role to play too.  Official fanbases have the federal integrity that comes with, well being official.  However, the unofficial fanbases' have a secret weapon: authenticity.  These communities are run by fans, for fans.  Sports fans, just like people, like to be amongst likeminded others who think like them, act like them and care about the same things as them.   Being a member of an unofficial fan community is more like a trip to the pub than an hour in the boardroom.  

Two take outs for sponsorship players:

1. For rights holders, there's an increasing and pressing need to gather, nurture and grow an official fanbase that is fed with official content.  This requires rights holders to better understand what their fanbase wants and when they want it.  This is the solid base for a more active social media strategy that will stimulate fanbase growth and retention.

2. For sponsors, unofficial fanbases are rich territory.  Depending on your brand strategy, which may or may not require the 'official' stamp of the rights holder, they're an attractive proposition: big, active and authentic communities of passionate fans.  However, unofficial fanbases are sacred turf.  When dealing with these communities of arguably more 'real fans', sponsors must really add value to earn the right to join the family.  Badging and PR stunts will get you nowhere.

In each case, quality of content and commitment to the community counts.

Keep listening and keep helping if you want to grow a bigger, more engaged fanbase. 

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A SMORGASBORD OF SOCIAL MEDIA STATS FOR PROGRESSIVE SPONSORSHIP PROFESSIONALS

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SPONSORSHIP-DRIVEN SOCIAL GAMING: FANS EARN ACCESS WHILE DRIVING WORD OF MOUTH.

Social gaming is big.  It's also very rich territory for brands involved in sponsorship.  

We're currently developing a number of sponsorship-driven social gaming platforms for brands with audiences as diverse as kids, families and 50+ females.

Here's why...

Passions last a lifetime.

The sponsorship platforms that are truly valued by fans are the ones that get them closer to their passions again and again over time - not just as part of a PR spike that sits alongside a gig, game or gallery opening.

People's passions often last a lifetime.  They're a long-lasting red thread that runs through their lives.  Yes, interest peaks around big events (where sponsors usually focus their investment), but the 'gaps' between these highs are a real opportunity for brands to deliver just-as-valued-value, with less need to fight against competitive clutter and noise.

Social Gaming amplifies advocacy.

Social Gaming is a great platform through which fans can 'earn' value from brands, ongoing.  

Sponsors can reward participation, contribution and sharing with 'credits' that can be redeemed for anything from more content to greater access to live events or online experiences.

Think Air Miles + Vodafone VIP.

Think FourSquare + Groupon.

Play more.  Get more.

Social gaming enables a sponsor to 'amplify advocacy' - to encourage and enable positive word of mouth through the promise of more value to the consumer.

You can't add value if you haven't listened.

The first critical step is to listen to and understand what your target audience really want as it relates to their passion.

Music fans might want cheaper access to big live events.

Comedy fans might want help learning who's hot.

Sport fans might want faster access to richer stats.

Arts fans might want privileged access to behind-the-scenes stories.

Find out what your audience value.  This becomes the value they can earn through you, through social gaming, as they spread your word.

josh@robinsonpincus.com

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COMEDY SPONSORSHIP GETS SOCIAL? HERE'S AN IDEA...

Comedy has huge potential for brands, not least because of its power as social currency.  The question is, are brands making the most of this potential through sponsorship and if not what could a more socially-supercharged comedy platform look like and deliver?

Historically, brands have looked down upon comedy like it’s the dark arts.  The black sheep of the sponsorship flock.  Underground, unpredictable and grungy, not polished, planned and professional like sport or even music.  Interesting then, that over the last 18 months we’ve seen big brands including mobile phone operator 3, Innocent Drinks and Fosters shift sponsorship budget out of sport and music and into comedy.  Here they find loyal audiences, cost-effective access to talent and the opportunity to show they don’t take life too seriously.  And that’s not all.  Comedy isn’t just good entertainment.  It’s great social currency.   In a world where the right kind of content is shared more quickly and easily than ever before, comedy has massive ‘share value’.   Here lies the opportunity to get so much more from comedy sponsorship than awareness that lacks value, PR that lacks relevance and live experiences that lack reach.   

When you embrace the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of comedy fans out there, active across the social web, you open up a new dimension to sponsorship activation.  Online communities give you great insight into what fans want and the cost-effective channel through which to give it to them, thanks to the social web’s built in advocacy-button.  To get the true potential out of comedy, the first question has got to be, what do comedy fans really want? 

By tapping into live forums and social networks we can listen to the natural banter that runs through communities of everyone from comedy connoisseurs to everyday people who love to laugh (aren’t we all fans of comedy in some form or other?).  One thing rings loud and true.  People love live comedy and they want more of it.  How often have you heard someone say, ‘We went to a comedy gig last night.  Never heard of most of them but it was bloody brilliant.  Don’t know why we don’t do it more’? 

Where there’s desire, there’s opportunity to add value.  And it’s the stuff that’s valued that gets shared and remembered.  If we were a brand engaged in comedy sponsorship or thinking about it, we would set out to become the hosts and facilitators of the most active comedy community.  Nike boast the world’s largest running community.  It works because the fan base is there and the opportunity to add value is broad, varied and long term, from soundtracks to crowd sourced runs to product purchase.  This is not a dip in and out activation.  It’s a longterm relationship.  Running fans will love running til their knees give out, just like comedy fans will always want to laugh.

So, what would our Comedy Club look like and how would Brand X benefit?   Comedy Club would host the best of the best in live comedy content and give members access to an ongoing and ever-evolving calendar of live gigs, from up-and-coming talent at your local pub to Alan Partridge at the MENA.  Members would earn ‘Smile Miles’ when they shared their favorite content.  Smile Miles would act as live event credits, a kind of Comedy Currency.  On average, people share content with 66 others, so Comedy Club would grow and grow.  Brand X would support grass roots by rewarding the most shared talent with their own gigs.  Comedy Club would always lead with the best content as voted by the people, so quality of content would always be high. 

This is a platform built on audience insight first, not sponsorship opportunity.  Comedy Club would be fed by a number of sponsorship deals and associations with Brand X’s pick of new talent, big talent, venues and ticket sellers.  It’s hard not to point how incredibly appropriate Comedy Club would be as a footfall driver to pubs and bars, the natural home of easy-access live gigs.

Comedy Club is an example of what a more ‘social approach’ to sponsorship can look like.  It shows how a layer of real value that is often missing from traditional sponsorship activation can be created and how choice of assets should be driven by concept, not vice versa.

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5 CRUCIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SOCIALLY-SUPERCHARGED SPONSORSHIP

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RESEARCH REVEALED JAN 2011: DEMONSTRATING HOW SPONSORSHIP & SOCIAL MEDIA WORK BETTER TOGETHER

Looking forward to seeing you all in what we're betting is going to be a positive and prosperous 2011.

Look out for our research which we'll publish mid-January. The first piece of research to explore how fans across sport, music, fashion, film, gaming and the arts use social media to access and share their passions.

We'll include some recommendations for how brands and rights holders can make the most of the insights and opportunities that are revealed.

Happy Holidays.

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SOCIAL MEDIA GETS YOUR SPONSORSHIP ASSETS WORKING MUCH HARDER

Brands often find themselves in the position where their Sponsorship assets no longer deliver for their business. Whether your business has grown tired of a particular Sponsorship, your objectives have changed, or the contract of rights you signed for X years no longer appears to be relevant, Social Media offers a compelling opportunity to strengthen your Sponsorship strategy.  

Over 70% of Social Media usage is driven by people’s interests (Source: November 2010 Robinson Pincus with 2CV - 501 respondents) with likeminded individuals coming together in tribes for shared experiences around shared passions. These tribes are not elusive clouds of faceless followers but physical networks of content-hungry consumers that are of huge value to brands: a hotbed of raw data, inspirational insight and creative energy.

We access these tribes and draw out their insights.  We pinpoint passionate, vocal leaders and new potential audiences that watch from the outskirts of passion-powered communities.  We explore their behaviour and answer valuable questions that inform better Sponsorship platforms: how do they like to consume content? What do they like to share?  Where would they appreciate help in getting more of their passions? etc.

Combine this insight with a brand’s desire to engage and grow a bigger consumer base (through content that is shared) and you have a very powerful new approach to Sponsorship.  An approach that reconnects your brand with your assets and opens up a richer brand-consumer relationship with a big, targeted audience.

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WHERE TO START WITH SOCIAL MEDIA?

Building a Social Media destination, like a Facebook page, LinkedIn group or new website with added social functionality is rarely the way to embark on a Social Media campaign.  

Whilst an overall Sponsorship & Social Media strategy might ultimately feature these tools, unless you've got bags of new, on-brand content sitting in your media library, they're unlikely to be the best first step.  

Social Media is nothing without Social Content, in the same way that a billboard is nothing without an ad and a Radio Show nothing without a DJ.  Social Content comes first.  What you need to put out there comes before where you put it.  This means asking yourself the same question you normally would before embarking on any marketing activity, 'what do I want to achieve and who am I targeting?'

Your passionate target audience are already out there, using Social Media, consuming and sharing content, across many digital destinations and platforms, from blog posts to Twitter accounts to Facebook pages to specialist interest communities to good old fashioned one-way web sites.   

The key is to create something that is of value to your consumer (read our POV on entertainment vs. enablement as Social Content) and put it where they can most easily find and appreciate it.  If your Social Content offers real value, it will naturally be shared across existing destinations.  Your own destination can come when your consumers have developed a taste for the value you offer and it comes frequently enough to warrant it's own 'outlet'.   

But as a first step, create Social Content that gets your message across and is of value to your community.  This will travel and transcend boundaries.

Long before running fans flocked to Nike's Running Community (the world's largest running club), they consumed and shared news of 'NikeRun 10K' events (Social Content).

Long before live music fans embraced o2's Blueroom as a conduit to premium music experiences, they signed up and poked their friends about PRIORITY (Social Content). 

Long before football fans checked in at McDonalds Football, mums signed up and encouraged other mums to join the brand's grass roots coaching scheme, 'Mums on the Ball' (Social Content).

Content creates Connections create Community.

What do you want to say?

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SPONSORSHIP SOCIALIZATION

Could Social Media be the New Lease of Life Sponsorship Needs?

Sponsorship and its activation evolved principally out of PR, it gave PR exciting and credible content to build stories around brands.

As the industry developed, other benefits to sponsorship beyond PR content evolved (brand awareness, image association, sales, etc.) and in response sponsorship became content to be leveraged across other disciplines. Whilst this has been a success for the industry, we increasingly found and find ourselves being measured by factors out of our control. ‘Our success often sits in the hands of others…’

Furthermore the economic pressures of the last few years have driven brands to either end of the sponsorship objectives continuum. On one end, Sponsorship as a ‘cost effective’ brand awareness/ stature vehicle, and the other, Sponsorship as a means of engaging consumers/ customers through their passions and in their leisure time. The middle, the unrealistic staple of the last 15 years has now gone.

If you’re using sponsorship for engagement, then we need to find a new lease of life and take back control of our discipline. Could Social Media be that opportunity? We think so. The union of Social Media with Sponsorship works, because;

1. The way consumers behave - Social Media is heavily fuelled by ‘shared interests & passions’, and 2. Sponsorship engages through ‘shared interests and passions’, but with Social Media, Sponsorship can now deliver;

-        Greater Richness and Closeness

-        Bigger Reach for Less

-        Longevity beyond a single event

-        An easy transition into CRM/ Sales

-        Measurement like never before

Ben Pincus

ben@robinsonpincus.com

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THE NEW VALUE OF 'HELP'.

Consumers are increasingly intrigued and delighted by ideas that help.  Ideas that help us run our lives faster, smoother, safer, better.  We are gobbling up all manner of nifty little life-enhancing apps, tools and technologies with an incredible appetite.   

It seems we want all the help we can get. 

Teens are more interested in what their mobile phones can actually do than what make, shape or colour they are.  Londoners are embracing Boris’s bikes like they’d never seen a bicycle before, turning a blind eye to the system’s inevitable teething troubles.  And at Glasto, it’s the beer brand that’s laying on super smart queuing systems, giving punters more time with their music, that’s really turning festival-goers on.

More and more, we are inspired and excited by those things that add real functional value to our lives.   

This isn’t to say, of course, that we aren’t just as eager to be endlessly entertained.  But what happened to the ad man’s mantra, ‘sex sells’?

Are we entering a new era where ‘help sells’?

This is interesting stuff for Sponsorship & Social Media.  Content is not just about entertainment, about running recorded footage of the lucky few enjoying real life events and experiences through broadcast channels as ‘second chance’ branded entertainment.  

Consumer desire to be enabled is fresh and insatiable.

Let’s create insightful, compelling, value-adding content that helps all consumers get closer to what they love, through the brands they will grow to love.

Let’s ‘app activation’. 

Josh Robinson

josh@robinsonpincus.com

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SPONSORSHIP AND SOCIAL MEDIA - PERFECT PARTNERS

Traditional sponsorship principles are straight forward enough.

Brands/ companies want to talk about and ultimately sell their brands, products and services to consumers. This gets done predominately through ADVERTISING in ADTIME – at best, when consumers expect it or are receptive to it.

Outside ADTIME, brands can talk to consumers in their LEISURE TIME. SPONSORSHIP sits in that LEISURE TIME, around peoples PASSIONS & INTERESTS.

Sponsorship can do AWARENESS, IMAGE/ VALUE EXCHANGE and offer CONTENT for brands to connect with consumers in that LEISURE TIME.

SPONSORSHIP CONTENT can be particularly powerful as it,

1. Has the endorsement or a credible 3^rd party and

2. Addresses an already receptive and hungry audience.

Social Media’s arrival in mainstream culture has created a huge new opportunity for brands and sponsorship, specifically.  Crucially, this not just about seeing Social Media as a channel to tell consumers about a sponsorship.

SOCIAL MEDIA and SPONSORSHIP share some dynamic and unique ground: They are both fueled and powered by people’s PASSIONS & INTERESTS.

However, when SOCIAL MEDIA is INTEGRATED with SPONSORSHIP, exciting new benefits for brands emerge:

1.     DEPTH, through a real dialogue

2.     REACH, way more cost effectively

3.     LONGEVITY, beyond a single event

4.     CRM, data to integrate into sales channels

5.     MEASURABILITY, like never before

SOCIAL MEDIA could have become the new lease of life that SPONSORSHIP needs.

A final thought - Social Media opens up a raft of new opportunities for brands.  Amongst them, Sponsorship online of social media/ blogs and the opportunity to access fans without the need for rights  – more on this to follow.

Ben Pincus

ben@robinsonpincus.com

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