SeatGeek Exec VP/Client Partnerships Jeff Ianello (@Jeff_Ianello) has been with the event tech company for a little more than a year after spending over 13 years on the team and league side of the industry. He worked his way up from a Hornets sales rep in '02 to numerous positions with the Suns and then a role as NBA VP/Team Marketing & Business Operations from '13-15. Ianello now brings this wealth of sales experience to SeatGeek as the company looks to create partnerships with properties, consumers and ticketing companies. His social media activity reflects
SeatGeek's continuing effort to open up the ticketing market and to be one of the change agents in this rapidly evolving space.
Consuming social media: I'm absorbing the majority of my news through Twitter. When I want to know what's going on, I simply look at what's trending on Twitter. I'm much lighter on book reading, because I'm now following my favorite authors -- whether it's Simon Sinek, Seth Godin or a variety of different sales trainers and coaching trainers -- on social media.
How SeatGeek uses social media: We're trying to serve to our demo, which is young 18-34-year-olds who are looking for interesting, 'poppy' content on live events and technology.
How social media can help cement/secure partnerships: We have seen a strong shift in the way consumers -- and I use that term broadly, it could be a fan or it could be the CEO of a corporation -- want to be communicated with. It has moved toward a full arsenal of tools: phone calls, emails, text message, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. All meant to make sure you're leveraging your networks. My job is not to pound the phones all day, but to tell a great story that I firmly believe in, which is around customer choice. The push is to get people buying tickets where they want to buy tickets. For the prospects that I'm targeting, it's looking at what is relevant on their LinkedIn, Twitter and their team property accounts. I also look to make sure that when I'm delivering a value proposition story, I'm making it as customized as I can.
Most engaging content: If you look at who I am following on Twitter, it's a hodgepodge of sales trainers and coaches, sports teams, figures, content blogs, political, boxing and golf. So it depends on what mode I'm in. One of my favorite follows is Michael Collins (@ESPNCaddie). He's got a colorful, unique take on golf. I go to him looking for energy and fun. When I'm consuming business-related things, I'm looking for really meaty content. So I'm focused on longer-form blogs and posts.
Social media's continued influence on ticketing: We're trying to disrupt the industry, in a good way, because it has been a massively sub-optimized vertical. In no other space would somebody come in, start a business and not try to sell their product in the five or 10 places where folks consume the product most. Ticketing has been a one-stop, pay-to-play vertical, and we are trying to change that. We believe teams should participate in all forms of commerce at their own choice. Social media gives us a platform to have that conversation. It's not isolated, with teams having one-on-one conversations with their ticketing company. There's a bigger conversation happening, and we believe that is going to play in our favor going forward as people become more educated on the topic.
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