Anyone out there curious about how to use Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc., to promote their team, event, or such?

A buddy of mine involved in automotive/motorsport promotion and marketing in the UK and I have been thinking about collaborating on a series of articles for Gearbox. We want to put something together that helps regular joes get more miles out of their time online. Some of the topics we'd probably address: why this is a good idea, how it works, what you can expect, and - this is the big one - how to legitimately measure ROI.

I'm posting this here because I'd like to know if anyone had any specific questions we ought to address in this series. If you think it's all a waste of time, that's fine, but what would it take to change that perspective? How basic should such a series be? How advanced? What kind of examples should we include? This would be a multi-part series in the magazine over the summer.

I know such a project might seem pointless to a lot of people, but we're trying to do something good for the community. Appreciate your taking this seriously. If you'd rather ask in private, drop me a PM or shoot an email to brian.driggs, gearboxmagazine.com.

Thanks and press on.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

Sounds like a decent project as there have been several group sponsor racing campaigns popping up lately. I can't remember his name, but there was even a moto rider who was group sponsored for this year's Dakar attempt - his riding suit had every contributors name on it.

Danny George did something similar but with contributor photos: http://savedannygeorge.com/

There are three routes to a successful social media campaign.

Route One: Be female.

Route Two: Be rich, famous extreme athlete, or both.

Route Three: Make a funny video of your dog/child/ex.

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast
There are three routes to a successful social media campaign.

Route One: Be female.

Route Two: Be rich, famous extreme athlete, or both.

Route Three: Make a funny video of your dog/child/ex.

Wow, you nailed it

Or crash, a lot.

Anders' Law of Media Exposure: As technology develops, the tools for reaching people get better and better. However, every time you double the number of people you can reach with X amount of work, the people double the amount of information they ignore.

It used to be, we could only reach 500 people... and 25 paid attention. Now we can blast 5000, 50,000, 500,000.... and no one even blinks at the message.

So to answer your question, for me to be interested, it would have to be a very high level discussion. I would want to see statistics from actual successful accounts, industry norms for price and clickthrough, landing stats, breakaway timing, discussions of the various post promotion policies and their costs contrasted with google adwords, and finally, multiple discussions from companies within motorsports, both those in retail AND those in brand development. I would also want to hear about the details of contracts/agreements that sponsored teams had made, as in, what were the deliverables and metrics they promised.

I know, I don't ask for much.

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

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Anders Green
So to answer your question, for me to be interested, it would have to be a very high level discussion. I would want to see statistics from actual successful accounts, industry norms for price and clickthrough, landing stats, breakaway timing, discussions of the various post promotion policies and their costs contrasted with google adwords, and finally, multiple discussions from companies within motorsports, both those in retail AND those in brand development. I would also want to hear about the details of contracts/agreements that sponsored teams had made, as in, what were the deliverables and metrics they promised.

I started an Adwords campaign for my wife's business. Kinda fun and cool analytic tools. Looks like it has been super successful but only been going for a month so needs more data!

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Grant Hughes

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corax
Sounds like a decent project as there have been several group sponsor racing campaigns popping up lately. I can't remember his name, but there was even a moto rider who was group sponsored for this year's Dakar attempt - his riding suit had every contributors name on it.

Danny George did something similar but with contributor photos: http://savedannygeorge.com/

Thank you, sir. I see plenty of businesses getting on social media seemingly because they feel they have to.
Better to not do something at all than to do it poorly.

Rally Team for Dreams did something very similar to that car for their run to WRC Mexico a few years back. Funds went to a summer camp for children with HIV. I'm proud to say my logo was on that car when it crossed the podium in Leon.

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NoCoast
There are three routes to a successful social media campaign.

Route One: Be female.

Route Two: Be rich, famous extreme athlete, or both.

Route Three: Make a funny video of your dog/child/ex.

What you did there; I see it. That said, thanks for illustrating the flawed thinking around social media "success" so rampant in the world. Success is not follower counts. Everyone from Justin Bieber to Mitt Romney purchased fake followers because they either don't know what they want from social or don't really care about interacting with people. Shills. To put that sort of thinking in rally terms, I believe there's a thread here somewhere about a kid named Fogg. That's the kind of thinking that drives the routes to "success" listed above.

Food for thought: There are 7 billion people on the planet. If what you're after is something only one in a million would agree with, that's 7,000 people. How would your team/event/business change if you had 7,000 supporters? So why do you think success requires millions of followers?

9 out of 10 people in social can't even give you a legitimate ROI calculation. Which brings me to that 10th person...

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Anders Green
Anders' Law of Media Exposure: As technology develops, the tools for reaching people get better and better. However, every time you double the number of people you can reach with X amount of work, the people double the amount of information they ignore.

It used to be, we could only reach 500 people... and 25 paid attention. Now we can blast 5000, 50,000, 500,000.... and no one even blinks at the message.

So to answer your question, for me to be interested, it would have to be a very high level discussion. I would want to see statistics from actual successful accounts, industry norms for price and clickthrough, landing stats, breakaway timing, discussions of the various post promotion policies and their costs contrasted with google adwords, and finally, multiple discussions from companies within motorsports, both those in retail AND those in brand development. I would also want to hear about the details of contracts/agreements that sponsored teams had made, as in, what were the deliverables and metrics they promised.

I know, I don't ask for much.

Curve-wrecker. I thought we were pie sizing.

Rule of thumb for content on the internet: 1% create it, 9% share it, 90% merely consume it and move on. There's an interesting dynamic at play where the first 100 or so people are very interactive, but as reach increases, said interaction drops off precipitously. It would be interesting to see real numbers from a scientific study on this stuff.

My question on reach: who are these 5,000, 50,000, 500,000 people? How are those lists qualified and built? Beyond that, it's a question of message. Does it start with why? Or does it start with what?

As for the rest of your high level specifics, damn, dude. I can only try! I don't know how willing people will be to sharing specific numbers, but I'll see what I can find. My vision for this series is more targeted toward the handful of guys who want to see their LeMons efforts evolve into something more, or for the mom-n-pop peddling gear to niche markets to expand into new markets. In essence, getting people from thinking they have to be on Twitter/etc. to thinking about what they want it to do for them, ultimately getting to the point where they're setting the pace like certain people who just laid down the gauntlet.

High level. Multi-part. Obstacles come in many sizes. This will be about getting over/around them.

Thanks, guys.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

We don't tweet, facebook or otherwise use social media. I'm on several forums, this being one. Business wise I advertise in 2 of the 4 or 5 phone books around here (how many phone books does a small community need anyway?) I turn away enough work to keep another shop going full time. I can ad another employee but in the past that has shown to be as much a problem as benefit and sometimes very tough to deal with.

I get all the sales calls from the traditional copy toner to getting my website placed on Google (what website??). I went round and round with Berry Company on an internet ad that I never authorized nor could find yet they were happy to sneak a charge in on the phone bill. I won I guess but the electronic world is full of scammers. I don't need listed in Dunn and Bradstreet or Briggs and Stratton.

People like Cody get entries paid thru social media to a degree but that is because they already have friends and fans from real world interaction. I'm sure there is some value to it because it allows people to maybe feel connected to greatness (maybe not the best choice of word) but at the same time it exposes 'you' to every wacko and nutjob with nothing else to do. Right now the news has a story about the number of retweets some ass put up about donating (fake) for the Boston marathon.

ROI is a very tricky concept. You first need to have a product or service worthy of selling andthen you need to have a market area that is realistic and willing. Internet blitzing in an area of say 50,000 for a window cleaning business is just flat stupid. There is a very real level of production that is reached and cannot be exceeded for the vast majority of commercial attempts. You can't take FB likes down to the gas station and fill your tank.

Coupon books, trading credits, bit dollars, social media only truley succeed for a very few at the expense of many. Any measurement of ROI will be anecdotal at best. Because it worked for Barney doesn't mean it will work for Fred. Take Jv and myself. I deal with Ma and Pa Kettle daily face to face. That is my world, internet just not needed. I get maybe one customer every two months that is new and found a review on a website. I get 3 or 4 customers a week who were referred in by a friend, neighbor, co-worker, relative, parts stors, towing company even other shops in the area. JV on the other hand deals with a continental customer base. He rarely has face to face contact with his customers. He is limited with the amount of production he can sustain as well as the size of market willing to buy his product. So..SM might be a bit helpful in JVs world for a amount, nothing in mine. John could concievably spend a little money advertising but not lots and not for an extended period of time. JV might show a ROI on electronic investment, limited, and that ROI would be meaningless to my world.

Relativity and ROI are at odds with each other and that is the one thing all advertising sales people seem to want to ignore. Time spent for a ralliest on social media is time that should be spent working on the car, working a second job, helping another team . That is time spent that would show a real return.

Nameless rally has a FB page, someone else does it, I don't. In reality it replaces the mailing list and phone calls of the old days. To some degree the electronic age is what stifles rally clubs as well as many other forms of spare time face to face activities such as quilting bees. FB won't get me entries from Stockholm might help communicate with workers from Seattle. There could be a small ROI in that but not much from a commercial standpoint imo.

Be interesting to see how you present SM ROI numbers to grass roots rally hobbyist and what that would translate into actual time and dollars spent for them.

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heymagic
We don't tweet, facebook or otherwise use social media. I'm on several forums, this being one. Business wise I advertise in 2 of the 4 or 5 phone books around here (how many phone books does a small community need anyway?) I turn away enough work to keep another shop going full time. I can ad another employee but in the past that has shown to be as much a problem as benefit and sometimes very tough to deal with.

Excellent point, Gene. Promotional tools are worthless without a solid understanding of their current state of affairs and what they want to achieve. Different product/service offerings require different modalities. Personally, I jumped through many hoops to finally stop all those phone books from being dropped on my step every year. Why would I ever want a stupid phone book when I can google the number from the palm of my hand?

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heymagic
I get all the sales calls from the traditional copy toner to getting my website placed on Google (what website??). I went round and round with Berry Company on an internet ad that I never authorized nor could find yet they were happy to sneak a charge in on the phone bill. I won I guess but the electronic world is full of scammers. I don't need listed in Dunn and Bradstreet or Briggs and Stratton.

Also why I haven't had a land line phone since 1995. Aside from dastard shill political robo calls, I haven't had a telemarketer contact me in ages.

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heymagic
People like Cody get entries paid thru social media to a degree but that is because they already have friends and fans from real world interaction. I'm sure there is some value to it because it allows people to maybe feel connected to greatness (maybe not the best choice of word) but at the same time it exposes 'you' to every wacko and nutjob with nothing else to do. Right now the news has a story about the number of retweets some ass put up about donating (fake) for the Boston marathon.

That's the key element to social - interaction around shared interests. Like it or not, social media is the evolution of forums. Don't get me wrong. I hate all these shills talking about engagement and brand community on social like it's some new thing. NEWSFLASH: Enthusiast owners/customers have been doing this on forums for about 20 years at this point. Brands aren't moving into the forum space because most brands - surprise - aren't actually interested in interaction. They want your money. That's all.

Think about some of the more meaningful relationships you've built through forums. You probably met those people in real life, too, right? Mutual benefit there? Social is the same way, just far less filtered. Social is how I met Eugenio Perea, one of the organizers of Rally Mexico. He, in turn, introduced me to Malcolm Neill, who ran Rally GB for 14 years. It's also how I ended up driving a brand new Mitsubishi press car for a week while in the UK last summer, scored a tour of the former RalliArt facilities, had dinner with a publisher who also organizes over a dozen motorsport events every year, and slept in a 1,000 year old Abbey free of charge, with the head of operations for a major race circuit and a professional driving instructor.

I get what you mean by "connected to greatness." It's nice to feel like you have an inside track. Today, I have a standing invites for WRC Mexico, Rally Day in the UK, I contribute stories of American enthusiasts to Evolution Magazine quarterly, have a couple hundred close up pictures of WRC-level fabrication on Mitsubishis, and feel a connection to humanity and history I never thought possible.

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heymagic
ROI is a very tricky concept. You first need to have a product or service worthy of selling andthen you need to have a market area that is realistic and willing. Internet blitzing in an area of say 50,000 for a window cleaning business is just flat stupid. There is a very real level of production that is reached and cannot be exceeded for the vast majority of commercial attempts. You can't take FB likes down to the gas station and fill your tank.

YES. YES. YES. Internet blitzing is a throwback to the old, one-way marketing model. It's a race to the bottom. Look at the newspapers failing because ad revenues are dropping so fast. Even in digital, we condition ourselves to ignore that which we can't block with a browser extension like AdBlock. Why would anyone want to give a forum or blog money to put a logo somewhere it will be ignored. That's just lazy. "We gotta advertise, but we aren't really concerned about a return on that investment." Nobody really pays attention to ROI when it comes to things like obsolete phone books or fax machines or printers, but you mention social media, where everyone's voice matters, and WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Suddenly everyone's a CPA or something. Derp.

ROI is as simple as (gain from investment - cost of investment) / cost of investment. What did it cost you (time is money) to spend an hour a day last week talking to people and sharing interesting content on your Twitter account? How many leads did you get from that activity? How many of those leads converted to sales? Most people never go this far. (And anyone talking anything else is a huckster and to be avoided like the plague.)

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heymagic
Coupon books, trading credits, bit dollars, social media only truley succeed for a very few at the expense of many. Any measurement of ROI will be anecdotal at best. Because it worked for Barney doesn't mean it will work for Fred. Take Jv and myself. I deal with Ma and Pa Kettle daily face to face. That is my world, internet just not needed. I get maybe one customer every two months that is new and found a review on a website. I get 3 or 4 customers a week who were referred in by a friend, neighbor, co-worker, relative, parts stors, towing company even other shops in the area. JV on the other hand deals with a continental customer base. He rarely has face to face contact with his customers. He is limited with the amount of production he can sustain as well as the size of market willing to buy his product. So..SM might be a bit helpful in JVs world for a amount, nothing in mine. John could concievably spend a little money advertising but not lots and not for an extended period of time. JV might show a ROI on electronic investment, limited, and that ROI would be meaningless to my world.

Your mileage may vary. Sooth. I should be clear - My reasoning for pursuing this project is NOT to tell everyone in rally how much they HAVE TO use social media; how it's the ANSWER to EVERYONE'S problems, but to provide enough information that people can determine what - if any - social tools could help them supplement their efforts. There are ways to accurately track ROI that deliver far more than anecdotal implication, and we'll be sure to include them.

You make the case for word of mouth and referral business. If your target market is NW Washington, you aren't going to fly to Manhattan and spend a couple days in Times Square with a bullhorn telling everyone how awesome you are. (Even if you are THAT awesome.) The reason why most social programs fail is because people get caught up in the I-need-a-billion-followers/likes idiocy. It's just word of mouth, referral business in new, digital communities.

The few only benefit from the many when the many are either too lazy or indifferent to learn better. This project is meant to help those who want to do better do better.

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heymagic
Relativity and ROI are at odds with each other and that is the one thing all advertising sales people seem to want to ignore. Time spent for a ralliest on social media is time that should be spent working on the car, working a second job, helping another team . That is time spent that would show a real return.

Depends on what that rallyist is looking to do with his time. Is he looking to court sponsors? In which case, a larger follower count and regular participation in Friday Night Rally Chat on Google+ could make him more attractive to potential sponsors who might throw him more than a free tire now and again. He could find new ideas for building/repairing the car, help other teams with recruiting volunteers or even volunteering himself to do remote timing for an event.

It's also worth mentioning, ROI isn't entirely relevant to rally, as pretty much every dime spent on rally is a dime lost forever. It's almost like saying, "We methodically track every dollar we generate from these efforts so we can throw it into a bottomless pit."

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heymagic
Nameless rally has a FB page, someone else does it, I don't. In reality it replaces the mailing list and phone calls of the old days. To some degree the electronic age is what stifles rally clubs as well as many other forms of spare time face to face activities such as quilting bees. FB won't get me entries from Stockholm might help communicate with workers from Seattle. There could be a small ROI in that but not much from a commercial standpoint imo.

Wait. Nameless? Once upon a time, I was talking to someone from Nameless on FB about an interview for the magazine. They just sort of stopped responding. Interesting.

The electronic age, with all its fleeting immediacy, does do the club scene a disservice, but at the same time, it's bringing people together in ways no small, local club ever could. I started a local car club years ago in Phoenix. We went from 4 to almost 70 members inside two years. Nobody could coordinate anything, we all got bored with it, and it went the way of the dodo.

And yet, my digital connections have paid off in spades. I'd provide ROI, but don't really care about ROI, personally. I do what I do because I believe it should be done. My business exists to make a difference. Profit will follow (when I actively court it).

All depends on what you want to DO with your efforts.

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heymagic
Be interesting to see how you present SM ROI numbers to grass roots rally hobbyist and what that would translate into actual time and dollars spent for them.

We will do our best to provide relevant, replicable numbers in this stuff.

Thanks for your thoughtful, detailed response, Gene. I appreciate it.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

Brian,
Thanks for the conversation. I do see a use for SM (not so much for S&M) and it certainly does make the world smaller. It has uses, more so for people to easily and quickly stay in touch than capturing that elusive golden egg we all seek. I've definitely made friends on the net. JV and I went from advisaries to friends, I met Keith (trolling bastard that he is ). Have boating 'friends' in the Netherlands and recieve calls from the infamous Anders on a regular basis. If you measure the enjoyment I get from all those interactions then the ROI isn't measurable , no scale goes high enough.

So, after spending all kinds of time trying to figure out the potential benefit and how to get it, then what? What's wrong with just working on the car and racing it...you know...for fun? Did that all get lost in the interaction? Why does everything need to be a money grab? I guess some people are starving for attention maybe? Look at me, I rally? I have a simple solution for sucess in racing.... Be good at what you do and if you're not that good, have fun instead. If possible, do both. Seems like the people screaming the loudest have the least amount of talent.

Help me out here please, maybe I'm missing the point?

Damn you two. Good discussion.
How do you define your social media goals?
What are realistic goals and how to prioritize/achieve them.
What are available tools?

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast

How do you define your social media goals?

To find as many Tibetan cabana boys as possible and arm them with automatic weapons...duh? The real trick is finding the Rainbow disco ball and optional velvet bubble fountain.... Facebook Heeeeelllllppppp

>Nameless Rally has a FB page, someone else does it

As the 'someone else', I just wanted to note that we are there because there is an expectation that we be there as a source of information about the event. I don't think of our presence there being to promote the event.

I discovered that different people look for event info in different places working on Olympus when our schedule got turned upside down a couple of times in the week leading up to the event. This was made abundantly clear on the occasions when I didn't have the updated info on both the web site (and every single page on the web site that might reference the topic) AND the FB page.

alan