Developing a Personal Brand in Sport using Social Networks
iStadia is a social network albeit a professional one focused on sport. The use of such networks is important for building business and/or developing a brand, personal or othewise. For individuals who want to attract sponsors this is a very useful way of doing it. However Manchester United has announced that its players do not belong to any online networks, and advised users to treat with “extreme scepticism” any profiles in the names of its players.The BBC reports that a spokesman for the club said it had not stopped players from using the networks, but had advised its players, especially the younger ones, to be careful. The sceptic in me suggests that this might have more to do with potentialy diluting the effectiveness of the Manchester United brand than protecting its players.After all the complexity that arises if one player for example gets sponsored by brand X say Nike but the Club he plays for has some level of sponsorship (clothing) with say adidas.
At least three players at the club are believed to have had genuine Twitter accounts which have now been closed – Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher. Does anyone know if they were advised to close them?
There are many more accounts across the popular networks claiming to be top football players. A player at English Premier League club Sunderland, Darren Bent, got into trouble last year after using Twitter to complain about transfer negotiations with his former club, Tottenham. Building up a personal fan base is important to sponsors and the use of twitter is now an important tool in doing this. Typically this is much more of an accepted practice in the USA eg. Shaquille O'Neal and Serena Williams, than it is over here (UK/Europe). Do you think it will it become more acceptable here?
Keith
Keith Irving
iStadia
Successful Sports Networker and iStadia Networking Event
Our inaugural networking event held in London yesterday evening held in conjunction with Sports Networker Lewis Howes proved to be very successful judging by the feedback we received on the night. Over 130 attendees turned up stretching the capacity of the lower ground floor at the Eight Club. Sport at all levels and sectors were represented from performance (including a 'keepy uppy' world champion and a world record holder Dee Caffari) through to all aspects of business from marketing and broadcasting to sponsorship, events and recruitment. This provided for a broad eclectic mix and made for some great networking possibilities.We received a lot of encouragement to organise another networking event in the not too distant future which we are already looking at. We will be posting photos of the event on iStadia and please get back to us if we haven't identified you properly. Don't forget to keep an eye out for Lewis Howes' blogs and emails which will also be forthcoming.
The atmosphere created by everyone was convivial, friendly, open and welcoming so thank you all for contributing to this. Thanks go to David Fuller and the Eight Club for providing our meeting space and the support given to us to help provide what we needed.
Specal thanks go to our main event sponsor Tim Gentles of Football Fans Central Network who has several businesses in professional sport such as Brands in Football, Soccer Coach Central and FFC News.
We would like your feedback on your experience at this event and how you think we can improve things. For instance did you think the colour coding of specfic areas of interest helped (coloured dots on badges)? The atmosphere was 'cosy' and relaxed but spread across different areas which was not conducive to addressing the whole audience but did that matter? Would any organised networking activities have been useful? How often would you like to attend such an event?
We've already reflected on several aspects such as:
- The difficulty of finding the location
- Registering attendees more efficiently
- A PA system to address everyone via the speaker system to make announcements, introduce sponsors, make short speeches, mention sponsors, organise networking activities etc. etc.
- Attendees list posted at one or two places for everyone's convenience
- Open the event earlier as people started arriving at 5.30
- Understaffed bar (though difficult to anticipate)
Your feedback will be greatly appreciated - both positive and negattive as it will help improve the next event.
Keith
Keith Irving
iStadia
