Synergy CEO Tim Crow (@synergytim) uses a couple of rules for engaging on Twitter: "If in doubt, don't, and the more personal it is, the less interesting it's likely to be." Here’s a look at how the London-based exec believes the platform has helped sports business and the challenges ahead.
Initial feelings:
It had a lot of potential. There were a lot of communities developing there already, and it was pretty obvious things people were passionate about in real life, they were going to be passionate about when they were talking online. I had a hunch that it was going to be interesting and immediately draw communities of interest. Sports were going to be huge. I had no idea how huge it was going to be. I was very interested by the fact that once I started doing it, people were interested in what I had to say (laughs), which was surprising.
Learned lessons:
I didn’t learn anything personally, but I saw other people making mistakes and I learned from them very quickly. There were some pretty high-profile mistakes, and that’s why I was an early adopter, but also an early viewer. I learned quite quickly by what other people were doing.
How do you and your brand stand out:
What we learned quickly was that it was about authentic voices. We don’t tweet as Synergy, we tweet as individual people. We aggregate that feed onto our website so we give people a glimpse of what Synergy is like as a group of people. Authenticity is key. It’s about speaking as an authentic voice and having something interesting to say. A lack of authenticity really counts against you whether you are an agency or a brand or rights-owner. People can tell a lack of authenticity really, really quickly.
How has it changed sports business:
Fans are out there and it’s easy to reach them without relying on traditional media. The tough bit is how do you become part of the conversation. Traditional media is about, basically, interruption, whereas social media gives a brand a chance to become part of the conversation. What I see is a lot of brands using the interruptive model instead of thinking, “How do we become part of the conversation rather than interrupting it?”
Biggest challenge for brands:
Millenials are not watching TV. They are diving into TV when it suits them. They are not consuming media in the same way, and I still see a lot of rights-owners, in particular, who feel people are going to grow up and are going to start watch TV. That’s not going to happen. The way they consume media, the way they consume sports, is never going to be the same way their parents did. If you take a lot of rights owners, their business model is still based on television. In 10-15 years' time, they are going to have a real problem because they are not recruiting a new generation. Their primary interaction with sports is not television.
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