When Football meets Social Media

“Football is the world’s biggest sport, so the world will practically stop for the month of the World Cup,” Matt Stone, Head of new media for world soccer’s governing body FIFA. (CNN)

But while the world as we know it may stop, you can be guaranteed that the social networking will not. In fact, rest assured that the sites like Facebook and Twitter will blow up during the month-long footballing bonanza. Though I looked at the money side of this global event  previously, WC2010 is a great time for getting together and meeting up with people you may never have previously met. It's a great time for football and destination blogging, video and photo sharing, tweetups and meetups, virtual discussions, podcast shows and social media promotions and giveaways. During the last World Cup, while some of us (myself included) blogged our way through the Finals, there was no Twitter, and Facebook was still a proverbial infant. So this has been described as the first World Cup of the social media age and it's left to be seen just how huge the tournament will be this time around. But between you and me, I imagine it will be HUGE.

My profile on The Club. My avatar is pretty damn stylish.

FIFA has already attracted 1.6million fans (including myself) to The Club, which is an onsite social networking platform, which connects fans of the beautiful game and allows them to get up-to-the-minute news and interact with fans across the globe. Soon they will add Facebook Connect and official Twitter sites, with promises of tweets from high ranking FIFA officials. Of course as the tournament draws closer, the number and variety of channels will undoubtedly increase - both official and unofficial, but all ultimately lending a global space for passionate fans to express their views and opinions on the game. From the bars and pubs,  tv rooms and office kitchens, cubicles and coffee shops, the age of social media will bring the tournament to more people in ways that they may not have experienced before. Instant video replays, coach perspectives, fan accounts, player feedback (hopefully, depending on the level of restrictions imposed by home FAs) - straight to laptops and mobile phones across the globe. The football community will not only grow but will be more connected to each other than ever before, eclipsing probably any other event - sporting and non-sporting - which has preceded it.

Events such as the Olympics and FIFA also raise the level of awareness on social issues due to their mass global appeal and the attention which is placed on these events. So while there will be action on the field, from a CSR perspective, it is also what happens off the field which is important and 1Goal has already started to draw attention to the issue of education for all. With over 3.5million followers already, 1Goal is "a campaign seizing the power of football to ensure that education for all is a lasting impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup". I'm happy to see this aspect of the tournament on social media as well, as it should be, since social media has the power to catapult these issues to an even wider audience than ever before, thus providing the opportunity for millions of poeple to understand and make an intangible contribution. I think more sponsors should use the opportunity, in much the same way Pepsi did for the Super Bowl, and not only focus on sales/marketing gold but also on playing a part in the way we, as fans, view the game and its impact on the issues which affect millions of people.

And who knows, maybe for one full month, Justin Bieber won't be a trending topic on Twitter! I do not think it's impossible! 43 days and counting...

Photo credit: CNN; screen shot of my profile on The Club. Feel free to add me.

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Friday Peeve: The Black Elephant in the Room

Thanks to Guy #1 and Guy #2, you get this post. It's not a discourse, just an observation but stay tuned when we will have an awesome guest post from one of these gentlemen (you will just have to wait to see which one) about this phenomenon.

So last night I had the privilege at being at a very swanky function (which I almost never made it to but that story is from my lips to God's ears). Decor was gorgeous. Food, fantastic. The general ambience was amazing. Beautiful people, beautiful setting. Great performances. Great friends. Great moments. Except...

For the guy in front of me with the Blackberry who insisted on snapping everything that moved and those things that did  not move as well. I mean....REALLY???

And Lord help me, I was really close to taking out my own Blackberry and taking a photo of how stupid he looked but it seemed too stupid to even be ironic.

As with most of these types of events, the onus was on mingling and networking, in addition to being sold the creativity of talented people. So I would have expected this dude, like others, to be meeting people, commenting on how amazing the place looked, perhaps exchanging business cards, making some contacts. Nope. His aim in life was to take photos with this phone of his. It was as though noone else in the room existed unless you were the subject of the photo. What was most annoying was when the performance started and by this time, people had started to get loose and were having fun and shaking a little rump. Not my buddy, BlackBerry Avenger. He was snapping away. When his hand and his 6th finger aka the BB blocked my view of the great performance in front of me, that's when it became extremely personal.

I mean...why? I know I touched on this earlier this week - this phenomenon with technology, to the point that we lose sight of the things happening around us - but this guy was the poster child. He even took photos of the REAL photographers doing REAL photography. I am sure today his friends have in their Facebook feeds "Jack's night out - 100 new photos".

Pyscho!

I would hate to be a boss who sends my people to an event to network and instead of doing that they get lost in their BBs and miss the big picture. And there it is - missing the bigger picture. Relationships are under threat if these people attached to their smartphones are set to take over the world. Be it personal relationships - because the Avenger came with a significant other, who was forced to dance alone - or professional relationships. So while the technology strengthen social networks, it seems to, in some cases, adversely impact and denigrate relationships.

I also have a problem with the intrusiveness of camera phones. I  once caught a weird, pervy man trying to take a photo of me with his phone. He insisted he was not, that he was sending a text but one does not normally hold a phone like this...

to send a text message, do you?  He needed to read this.

It seems many people do not realise that their actions, besides being acutely annoying, also often can leave them on the periphery of human interaction. And while photography is an art I admire and wish I were more passionate about, it is now being cannibalised by people like BB Avenger. Mobile phone photography is not always, but can become a menace depending on the person yielding the weapon of choice - be it Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia etc. And while you may share a deep initmacy and a strong, unbreakable bond with your device, it should not affect my enjoyment or impact on my comfort level. This is an awesome statement that describes the beast:

"Public places are commonly “colonized” by the private lives of mobile individuals"

I will further revise and say "public places are being terrorised by mobile individuals". And while mobile technology has brought communications to a state of "anywhere, anytime", please, let's not take it that literally. It should NOT be anywhere everytime. I think we all have a personal responsibility when it comes to mobile phones and the accompanying tools. Let's use discretion and let's take a load off and get a grip when it comes to brandishing these devices in the public domain where other people are trying to have fun. Silly us for wanting that.

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Social media

So I am back from the Big Apple, and one can say so many different things about this single experience.

I was participating in the IABC's Social Media Conference in New York and I was pleasantly surprised that there were quite a few men in the room. Here, you go to a communications meeting or forum or anywhere where one has to network and you encounter more heels than loafers. It was quite refreshing to have so much testosterone in the room.

Some of the presenters went over pretty well.

James Lynch of Amex basically opened the first morning session with a well thought out presentation of an equally well thought out social media strategy. I was quite impressed with how they have revolutionised the blog and made it hip, interactive and highly dynamic. And even though I have never met and may never meet Ed Gilligan, Vice Chairman, American Express, kudos to him for leadership in actively leading employee communications at the company. It is not every senior executive who would take such a hands-on role in speaking to employees about issues that matter to them - engaging them on such a deeply personal level.

Steve Crescenzo was also quite an animated and compelling speaker, and I agree that you cannot force a social media policy. You have to have a communications plan before you plan any type of social media strategy. Too often we get caught up in wanting to be in and on every app available and to what end? To have your brand uselessly saturating cyberspace?

Great presentations as well from the Fleishman-Hillard duo and our keynote speaker, Aedhmar Hynes. I am sorry I missed the Dow Jones brand reputation session but hopefully the presentation will be comprehensive enough to make up for this.

It was a good conference. There could have been greater opportunity for social networking. I mean, so much was crammed into the 1.5 days that you really could not get around and meet everyone, but the conversations that were had proved to be meaningful nonetheless. Hoping to keep the conversations going as we all go back home and back to the proverbial drawing boards.

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