Takeaways: When and How to Include Sponsors in Social Media
Posted: 9/16/2009 2:26:00 PM by
Diane Knoepke | with 0 comments
In conversations over the last week—with an association client or two, a group of zoos and aquarium sellers, and a financial services sponsor—the appropriate use of social networks for sponsorship activation has been a hot topic. How do we take sponsorships—those that live primarily off-line and those that have a foot firmly in both worlds—to the social nets?
In keeping with the old mantra of “if one person has the question, probably a lot of people have the question”—here are a few takeaways from those conversations.
- People love to love brands, and we will welcome them into our communities if they’re worthy. If the sponsor adds real value, we will carry them around on virtual shoulders like heroes. If they prove themselves unworthy, we’ll toss them out on their virtual behinds. Note the stat released on Monday that 20% of all tweets involve brands. (Read more of the Penn State study here) Brands are part of the conversation; they can absolutely be part of the community if they—you guessed it—act like they deserve to be part of the community.
- Good idea to create internal standards for how to use each social network. And then, to give the standards legs, insist on sniff tests to determine what actually lands on the page each time. Rule of thumb: Everything posted will be so newsworthy that the organization/company would have wanted to [tweet or post or update it] even if no deal was in place, just because it’s that good to share with the audience.
- A few thoughts on specific vehicles:
- Don’t put generic sponsor commercials on the property’s YouTube channel. A behind-the-scenes video of how a thematic commercial was made? That could work and be fun. A video interview with the CEO talking about the relationship? That depends—is it interesting? On a scale of 1 to 10, how self-indulgent will the sponsor sound through the audience’s ears? If it’s 5 or more, go back to the editing room.
- On Facebook, highlight promotions if they’re worthwhile to the community. Sponsor logos or glorified ads on the property’s group or fan page? Eh, not so great. If it feels like even a distant relative to the ads on the side of the Facebook page, skip it. Doesn’t matter if you can monetize it; it’ll end up costing all parties.
- Don’t do any sponsored tweets or guaranteed blog inclusions. O.K., so you wouldn’t have done that, I know. So now don’t have sponsors receive any preferential treatment in this space either. Sounds counterintuitive, but what I mean is this: make it so the company has to pitch those controlling the Twitter and blog strings to get an inclusion. It’s highly intangible and you won’t be able to add this as a benefit in your contract (or valuation exercise), but this is the credibility of the property and the likability of the sponsor at risk. If it’s not newsworthy, we don’t talk about it. Protect each other from your well-intentioned ideas—we all know intentions make a great paving material for roads leading nowhere you want to be.
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Filed under: contracts, digital media, guidelines, negotiating, packaging, selling, servicing, activation