Keeping WGI On Track With Social Media

I recently had the chance to speak with Paul Hemingway of Watkins Glen International Speedway in Watkins Glen, New York. Paul is the Senior Director of Sales and Marketing at the track and leader of the track's social media efforts.

WGI was recently recognized by sportsin140.com in the first "Most Valuable Tweet" awards. I was interested in how WGI was using social media and Paul was kind enough to oblige.

BT: When did Watkins Glen start using social media?

PH: Roughly 2006 with MySpace

BT: What social media tools are you using?

PH: FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn

BT: How did you know it was the right thing to do?

PH: We didn't! Great thing about social media is there is very little risk/investment. Worth its while for trial and error. We took a look at the sports/entertainment landscape and saw less dependence on traditional communication methods.

BT: What are you trying to achieve through social media?

PH: Bridge a gap inside the consumers mindset of where they are now and where they want to be. Create track affinity.

BT: Describe a social media success story.

PH: Staged first IndyCar "tweet-up" at WGI in July. Created means for our followers to come together and mix/mingle along with IndyCar drivers/teams who embrace Twitter (Tony Kanaan, Ed Carpenter). Created a lifetime connection with fans.

BT: In your opinion, what businesses are using social media well?

PH: Zappos, ESPN, Phoenix Suns

BT: In five years, will social media be more or less important to businesses. Why?

PH: Interestingly enough, I think equal to or less. I think traditional media advertising will rebound with economy and sophisticated consumers will see through many rogue attempts to connect disingenuously through social media platforms. MANY businesses do not embrace social media, but do it because everyone else is doing it. If you don't own it as a culture, it becomes transparent.

A success that Paul attributes to Twitter was the Indy Car tweetup. He essentially took online offline and made followers "friends" in the true flesh-and-blood sense. This is a fantastic lesson in how to make Twitter work and give the online efforts a tangible result.

Paul presents and interesting viewpoint on the future of social media. Seemingly attributing a portion of the success to a down economy, the future growth of this new marketing medium may dwindle as the Dow climbs. In fact, recent activity on social media sites Twitter and Facebook show traffic stagnating. At the same time the Dow has cracked the 10k mark. Conspicuous timing that supports his theory.

The WGI contingent has truly embraced the social media technology and continues set the pace for other tracks around the country. To keep up with Paul and the gang follow @WGI on Twitter.

Some Brands Don't Get It

In an October 2 piece by Brandchannel blogger Peter Feld, he asks whether brand flocking to social media is marketing savvy or bandwagon jumping. If it is the latter, do Twitter and Facebook run the risk of alienating the individuals that made them social phenomenon to begin with?

Twitter, recently valued at $1 billion, is attracting a brand receptive audience. Even rather obtuse promotional Twitter campaigns by the likes of Ford are garnering some pretty impressive numbers. It's to be determined whether sales will follow. Companies like TGI Fridays and Starbucks are trading gratis product for Facebook friends.

Countless companies are struggling through the social media landscape with a broadcast-style mentality. They'll continue to struggle until they realize that social media is an analog style, one-one-one conversation, in a digital setting.

Is "friends for freebies" the true spirit of social media? I'll give you something if you'll be my friend. I knew some of these people when I was younger. I took their toys and then convened with my real friends who also took the toys.

What are people actually saying on Twitter? A recent study from Pear Analytics of the site’s public timeline revealed the following:

Tweets were placed into one of six categories, and fortunately for the skeptics “pointless babble”— was 3% higher than conversational tweets. Conversational tweets—those part of a dialogue between users or starting with the “@” symbol—made up another 37.55% of tweets. Tweets with pass-along value, also known as “retweets,” were much less prevalent, at 8.7%, and self-promotional messages made up just 5.85% of the total. Spam and news were even rarer. Re-tweets with pass-along value, important for marketers hoping to get their messages distributed as far and wide as possible, were highest on Mondays and Wednesdays, when they made up about 10% of the tweets per day.

Any self respecting brand manager would ask where is the efficiency in one-on-one conversation? In a word, it's not. It's not supposed to be. It never will be.

The question really becomes, 'how many customers equal one brand evangelist?' Effective (note: effective does not equal efficient) social media strategies should turn luke warm customers into fierce brand proponents. Brand neutral onlookers see this relationship between brand and fan and want to be a part of it. Why settle for a "human" online friend when you can befriend a brand, an icon, a larger-than-life status symbol? The psychology of Twitter supports this. Maslow's hierarchy of needs puts Twitter somewhere between having safety and possessing self-esteem. Let's just hope it is that important.