Bespoke Sports & Entertainment VP/Strategic Planning Jonathan Norman (@Jonathan_Norman) handles the Charlotte-based firm’s social and digital efforts. One thing that he would like to see is the expanded use of the sportsbiz hashtag. “First, I would promote it’s usage in the industry. I see a lot of great folks who have strong content who don’t use it. I would promote its usage among the sports management graduate schools and undergraduate schools, the learning forums, conferences and the likes. And then it’s about surfing the tag and following up on conversations among that hashtag,” he said.
Initial thoughts when getting involved with social media:
I saw social media as an opportunity to go beyond traditional PR and advertising to extend a brand message. I saw it as an opportunity to engage consumers of sports and entertainment in a much different way for properties and athletes. The evolution has been fascinating. We couldn’t consider where technology has taken us, much less social media.
Social media evolving into the primary source for news and entertainment:
My primary news source is Facebook. I don’t read websites any more. I follow what I would consider “traditional” media companies and keep up with their breaking news and their content through Facebook. I love what Adweek does through its social channels. They are really smart about what content they are posting, they typically don’t paywall it so that gives you some opportunity to read some stuff that you normally wouldn’t, and they normally have some insight behind it. One of the great things about it is that it’s very snackable content. That’s critical in today’s environment.
What you look for when planning social for a client:
The first piece is what is their strategy? What are they trying to accomplish through social media and how are they going to do that. Then we use the strategy to really determine the voice and the voice is what tells the story, and I would consider that to be the tactics. From our perspective, we take a much different approach because we let our clients help us tell how the story unfolds. We want to make sure it’s very authentic to the audience, very relevant and it’s very different than what they might be seeing somewhere else.
Social media campaign you admire:
I absolutely love the Apple-Cookie Monster campaign. It’s irreverent, but it is also very meaningful, and even on top of that, it’s nostalgic. It’s one of those things you can share across generations and people will understand what’s trying to be conveyed. The integration of Siri with a beloved children’s character is almost the perfect intersection of branding and entertainment. I’m anxious to see how we can use a campaign like that in sports and entertainment to really build on fandom.
Biggest social media misstep for brands:
There’s an incredible opportunity to allow your followers to be part of the story. We as an industry are still perhaps speaking to the audience rather than from within the audience. Look at Under Armour. Jordan Spieth is one of their top endorsers and during The Masters, what happened on 12, is certainly disappointing for Jordan Spieth fans. But it created a brand moment for Under Armour. What I found interesting was Under Armour did not use their main handle to speak about Jordan, but they used @UAGolf. They didn’t speak from their brand, they spoke from within the golfing community.
If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at
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