TrinityOne Marketing President & CEO and former Patriots CMO Lou Imbriano (@LouImbriano) has written about sports business and now teaches it as a sports marketing professor at Boston College. He said of students being drawn to athlete accounts on social media, "Every individual has their own brand and they should be taught to keep the integrity of their brand; you are the custodian of your brand. If they don’t have a strategy and you go off brand, people will lose interest and be disenchanted." Imbriano discusses social media as a learning tool and the weekly #sbchats he co-hosts.
Importance of #sbchat:
I realized that my life in sports and in general has been touched by many people who have helped me over the years to get jobs, to get information, to get education, to get contacts. I always felt it was my obligation to do the same. We wanted to have an open conversation with people who have been in the business a long time where they can share their knowledge to help folks who really want to be in the sports business get a feel for what it’s really like and how we approach and look at things.
Learning or teaching from social media:
It’s probably a combination of both. The funny thing is social media in all its platforms broadens your reach, so there are people who I would never if it weren’t for social media. To get that further reach with your message and get people to connect with what your philosophy is all about is much easier because of social media. That being said, because of the messages coming from all walks of life, there are things I wouldn’t be privy to if it weren’t for social media. There’s 360-degrees of learning ability because of social media. If you think you are just giving and not getting, you are sadly mistaken.
Best social media lesson:
There’s a lot of smart people out there. Collaboration clearly puts you at a better vantage point than by doing something yourself.
How social media changed sports business:
I’d like to see it change it a little bit more because many in sports business are very protective of their jobs because there are a lot of people in the industry who shouldn’t be in the industry and they want to keep hold of their phony-baloney jobs. I wish that folks were more open and spent more time contributing who do not. There are a lot of executives in their ivory towers who do not participate or contribute at the level I believe they should. There are many who do. That has been an amazing aspect, when owners of teams and executives of teams and athletes share their thoughts and opinions on how they feel about something. That only makes things better.
Lessons teams/leagues should apply to social media:
I have a feeling many teams put social media with PR, and the teams that do that are missing the boat. Social media is a great opportunity to engage fans, who by the way, are consumers. There needs to be a multi-department collaborative effort like marketing, PR, sales, C-level executives where there’s a plan on how to engage with the team’s fans on the highest levels to provide for them information on opportunity, promotions, all different aspects that make the game richer. I don’t see this concentrated effort between team, athletes, coaches and C-level folks working together to have a collaborative message where everybody is communicating with fans on some level. Athletes should be able to tweet and make their expressions during games, not just outside of the games. I know that is a no-no, but why can’t a guy who pitched the night before be in the bullpen tweeting instead of eating sunflower seeds? Talk about the game a little bit. That would be powerful and impactful.
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