Pakmode Media + Marketing co-Founder Bilal Saeed (@pakmodepandas), whose firm manages events, sponsorship, marketing and social media, has been involved with sports properties since the company's founding in '08. One of Pakmode's efforts was the now-defunct Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl. He said the bowl's leadership "didn't really understand" the social media space and "wanted to engage better." Saeed: "We started using social as the most active piece of marketing." Saeed also owns National Premier Soccer League minor-league soccer team AFC Ann Arbor, for which Pakmode utilized YouTube to spread the team's brand. The effort led to the team averaging 1,500 fans per match in its inaugural season.
Using YouTube to generate support for AFC Ann Arbor:
Being in a space where we don't have TV or broadcast, we needed a better way to showcase our games and deliver different media. For us, it not only became an opportunity to incorporate sponsorship, but really target our demographic with certain messages and build in our re-marketing. We were a non-existent team, we hadn't played a game yet and we were trying to build a fanbase. It was a little challenging with little to zero presence. With my background being in digital marketing, I knew what video could do and where it was going, but for us it was about getting a marketing list that we could re-market to. It became a huge point of ticket sales for us. The revenue tied directly to our YouTube campaign just started flowing in. For us, with other social platforms, you are doing a lot of educating. We were delivering info, but we weren't really able to drive sales.
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT Favorite app: It's tough, but I have to say Twitter just because you can make a real connection, you can network and you can engage people in a way you can't on other platforms. A must follow: It would be the Galaxy. I just really enjoy what they do. They play into their rivalry with the Sounders really well. Average time spent per day on social media: Seven to eight hours. I bet my wife would say more like 12 to 15.
Philosophy on how to use social media as a promotional tool:
It's all about being real. I gave a Ted Talk once on real relationships. One thing I absolutely hate about Facebook is it's turned into this unofficial press release platform for people's lives and a lot of people project on there. With Twitter and a few other platforms, people are more transparent and real. It's so important for any business or team to find your tone or your voice. For us it's being open, being up front, really creating a sense of engagement with your audience that's not overstepping your boundaries.
On why apps other than Facebook are transparent:
Part of it is the algorithm and quantity of posts. Twitter to me seems to be much more conversational. The idea of Snapchat, where things are only going to last a certain amount of time, you want to share those things. You are more comfortable to share those things because Facebook has become a forum where people are projecting and it now has almost a negative connotation to it. If you post some big announcement, even if it's great news, you are sure to piss some people off. It's almost become like a style and a brand. When you go to platforms like Twitter being limited to a certain number of characters, you can't be like, "I'm humbled, I'm honored, I'm excited about this opportunity, I'm blessed with this." No, you have your 140 characters, you have to tell it like it is and it creates real conversation.
Important lesson learned on social media:
There's a campaign that adidas did called "There Will Be Haters" and I'm obsessed with that campaign because in soccer, one of the biggest challenges we have is trash talk is amplified with the supporter groups and hooligans. The trolls are pretty strong in the soccer world. A campaign like that showed me how you can deal with trolls and people that are real negative and turn it into a positive. Seeing a brand taking the lead on that and being able to do it in a successful way showed me you can turn that negativity into a positive.
If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com
