The Drexel Connection: Kevin Giordano

This week the Drexel Connection spotlights Kevin Giordano. Kevin currently provides social media expertise to a global pharmaceutical company. Kevin is also the co-founder of the Drexel Sport Management Student Union. After graduating last year, Kevin now holds a position on our advisory board. 

Kevin is part of a small team that is tasked with governing the company’s use of social media. The team also actively provides guidance to a variety of departments, from commercial brand teams to R&D and HR. Prior to landing this job, he focused on business development and cultivating innovative marketing partnerships within the sport industry. He spent some time with a small agency called Two Affix where he provided a variety of consulting services including social media support to top professional athletes. Kevin had other stops as a partnership marketer with the University of Pennsylvania and operations in both men’s and women’s professional soccer.

HIO: Promoting Team Loyalty Through Social Media

On social media, whether a team is promoting the score of a game or a community charity event, groups of audiences will view the content differently. Social media is a broad swipe, sending bits of content to any and all followers or fans. It is impossible to distribute content that will hit only one target audience. The hope is that messages will appeal to a large base.

HIO: Twitter & Athletes - Tips for Athlete Marketers/Agents to Manage the Risks

Professional athletes, and celebrities in general, understand the power of Twitter: it is a revolutionary way of connecting with an interested audience, allows marketers to quantify the fan base, and it gives a complete view into the athlete's life. While these are fantastic, there are countless examples of athletes using the micro blogging platform recklessly. 

Athletes and Twitter: What Can I Say?

We currently live in a very social media driven world and an even more social media driven sports entertainment industry. Twitter is the quickest and most effective way to receive the up to the second updates on your favorite leagues, teams, and players. Remember the days of turning on SportsCenter every morning and night to get that day's news on all your favorite sports? Not anymore. As long as you have a twitter account you can now receive updates by the seconds on the leagues, teams, players, and so much more that you choose to follow. Not only to you get the updates faster, but you also now can choose to only get the news you want to read. Waiting through a whole hour long episode of SportsCenter for the report you want to hear is a thing of the past. A wise, fictional, character once said something that correlates to the social media world perfectly. "With great power, comes great responsibility."

The Sports Biz Report - Episode 3 - Kobe Tweets

NBA Launches Tumblr/Pinterest Pages for Playoffs

Pinterest. Tumblr. NBA Playoffs? One of these things is not like the others… but in order to extend their social media presence in time for the 2012 Playoffs, the NBA now has pages on both Pinterest and Tumblr. These campaigns will support existing Twitter and Facebook campaigns.

The main purpose of these extensions is to increase attention to the playoffs through photo sharing. The league sees this as a worthwhile endeavor to use their “rich library of content to drive further engagement.”

Color me skeptical; I’m all about extending social media engagement wherever possible, but when I think of the NBA, Pinterest and Tumblr is largely incongruent. The main demographics for these two social media sites are hipsters and women. Unless I’ve missed something, I don’t think these are the most active supporters of the NBA. Expanding the league’s social media footprint to as many people as possible is a great idea, but this might be too large a jump. (Facts to back my assertions up courtesy of MarketingPilgrim.com: 68% of Pinterest users are female, compared to 38% of NBA fans) Noble idea, unlikely reward.

This being said, the NBA also plans on trying to push a great deal of e-commerce through both platforms—this is about the only way Pinterest makes sense to me, although they’re going to get to offer a bit more than another outlet to buy league apparel to get (let alone keep) the attention of users. Whether that’s possible has yet to be seen.

What do you think? Is this a brilliant business move on the NBA’s part, or a flop-campaign in the making?

How Sports Teams Can Leverage Instagram

The saying "a picture says a thousand words" is a true, if not overly used expression. But as Facebook's recent acquisition of photo-sharing social media platform Instagram proved just two weeks ago, a picture, or rather a way to share a picture, is worth a billion dollars. 

It's surely frustrating for sports franchises, having new platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest pop up just when it feels like they're really getting the hang of Facebook and Twitter. Staying ahead of the social media curve is important though, and that means we will surely see many teams popping up on Facebook's new baby in the near future. In fact, some teams like the Celtics, Knicks, Bulls and Eagles have already jumped on the opportunity to create some more brand exposure and build stronger relationships with their fan bases. 

We can all agree it's a pretty sweet app with a simple, attractive layout, but how can teams use it? It's pretty simple, really. Use it for whatever you want to promote. New facilities, a new ad campaign, a particular event or promotion. Instagram can serve essentially as a digital billboard in a way that not even Twitter can. Below, check out a picture from the Eagles' Instagram account (@philadelphiaeagles), with the caption "Jeremy Maclin participating in our first #Google + hangout #philadelphiaeagles".

-Written by Dan Mullin

HIO: The Importance of Audience in Social Media

The recent emergence of social media has revolutionized the way we communicate with others. Sites like Facebook and Twitter allow individuals the opportunity to present themselves to the general population in their own unique way.

Furthermore, social media sites optimize user customization. The content, appearance (for the most part), and overall feel of individual profiles are chosen by the individual. While this allows for freedom and one's personality to shine through the computer screen, knowing your audience is key.

Audience can be broken apart into two primary elements: personal and professional. The biggest mistake with social media is not selecting an audience to hit. If you post about that awesome party last night (personal) and then reach out to a former colleague about an internship opportunity (professional), you have not established a formal audience.

With a Facebook profile and a Twitter account, I utilize both to reach different audiences. To me, Facebook is a highly personal network of friends and constituents. It is not an optimal professional medium. Sure, I am connected with former colleagues who I know personally, but it's primary purpose is for personal use.

Twitter on the other hand is very much a professional networking tool. It is an excellent platform to build a base of general constituents on a professional level. That said, you can still be personable when using a social media site for professional reasons. Do not simply post content of interesting articles, you have to also interact with others. Be personable, ask others about their thoughts in a news story. However, do not be personal, and share the picture of your drunk self crawled up in a ball.

Point being, choose an audience and stick with it. The biggest mistake in social media is combining all of your audiences into one. That is both unprofessional and a little clumsy.

Take some time to reflect upon your target audience and constituency. Have you selected an audience? How can you improve your social media accounts to achieve your personal and professional goals?

At the end of the day, knowing your audience will allow you to better achieve your social media goals and objectives.

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Kevin Giordano is a sophomore Sport Management major at Drexel University, with industry experience working in men's and women's professional soccer and collegiate athletics. To contact or connect with Kevin, you can follow him on Twitter (@KevinGiordano) or connect with him here on LinkedIn.