The New Media Has Changed Everything!
That is the poster that hangs on the wall in my “lab” and serves as a constant reminder that with the New Media, the smallest things can make the biggest difference. It was only a few years ago that a comment to your “friends” would not effect your lively hood, but today a misplaced tweet or status update can have great effect. Athletes must approach the New Media (i.e. facebook, twitter, etc.) with a well thought out “Self-Brand Design”.
Just as a business or corporation, plans and invests great amounts of resources in developing and cultivating a brand, athletes at all levels must do the same. Now, I am not just talking about the professional athletes. Sure, they may have the largest audience, but even the star high school athlete needs to operate in the New Media with an awareness of their self-brand. Remember, your misplaced “tweet” , may have real consequences when it comes to opportunities. Tone is hard to relay in 140 characters, the power of the New Media should be the vehicle that 
propels you.
Who is thriving in the New Media?
Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, are examples of athlete’s that are having great success in the New Media. Dwight Howard has over 1.8 million followers on his twitter account @dwighthoward, so when he “tweets” about his new foundation (the D12 Foundation), he has directly marketed to 1.8 million people for free! A well placed print, TV, or radio commercial would never have the same effect.
Derrick Rose has over 1.6 million facebook followers that he can communicate and share ideas with 24/7. An example of this mobilization is when Derrick was behind in the all-star balloting for this year’s all-star game a well planned social media campaign pushed the numbers in his favor and propelled him to the starting line-up for the 2011 NBA All-Star Game with 1.914,996 votes. The connections that can be made through the New Media give the individual a link to their fans and anyone interested in connecting with their image like never before. Any many of the great initatives and opportunities within the medium are yet to be realized.
How do you create a Self-Brand that is true to you?
The most important part of Self-Brand design is to remember the words self-brand are linked together in this instance for a reason. You as an individual (self) will always be linked to your brand. Get chased by your wife with a golf club on Thanksgiving (you all know who I am talking about!) that image of you is now linked to your brand. Work to convey the real you while allowing the flexibility for your Self-Brand to change as you do. You will not be the same person at 28 and in the prime of your professional career as you where when you were 18, but your image will grow from its “roots”. The New Media is the water and the nutirents that will grow your Self-Brand.
Which athlete(s) do you think does the best at Self-Brand Design? Let me know in the comments.
Trend – tendency: a general direction in which something tends to move.
Being aware and following Web trends are “key” in brand management. A brand can be a company, an event, or an individual with any of them, having a clear understanding of how you are trending must be tracked and the information used as part of your business intelligence process. In this post I will focus on discovering an individuals Web trends.
The first part of the process is to discover what keywords people use to search on the Web when they are looking for information on the specific individual. This can be done most effectively by using Google’s external keyword tool and a brainstorm list of the most common keywords or phrases that apply to the individual. As an example let’s take a popular sports figure such as Dwight Howard the center for the Orlando Magic. Here is a graphic of some of the keywords I came up with for this post.
Based on the keyword search, the term “Dwight Howard” had 1,000,000 searches in February, not to bad! When I look at the other search results, I see how Dwight is primarily searched and that his ability to dunk and even his nickname “Superman” is in there.
Once you run the keywords through the keyword tool and found something that has a decent audience size check Google Trends to give you an idea of whether the audience is growing, declining, or staying at a steady level. If the keywords are staying steady or climbing you have identified the trend in the athlete’s brand. Using the keywords “Dwight Howard” in Google Trends I come up with trends that tend to follow the peaks and valleys of the NBA season. The graphic below shows the highest peak in 2009 around the NBA Playoffs, stressing the importance of the post-season to an athlete’s brand reaching the widest audience. The graph’s other peaks are focused around when Dwight was in the news. An example of this is when Shaq said that he was the “real Superman” and not Dwight.
Another metric that Google Trends displays is the regions and cities that are trending. This gives you insight into where the highest level of interest is in your athlete as it relates to the Web. As for regions, the United States is ranked 2nd to the Philippines and as for cities, the top city is as expected Orlando. Looking further down the chart you see Waterloo, Canada?
When trends are researched many of the times our assumptions are correct about a brand, but sometimes, a Waterloo or Philippines pops up and it requires greater investigation. The results may produce a hidden marketing or a potential gem of a niche market. I will cover in a future post how to effectively reach those potential customers via the social media.
Self-Brand Design: You Are A Brand Now Act Like It!
Posted by: JLandis | Comments (0)The New Media Has Changed Everything!
That is the poster that hangs on the wall in my “lab” and serves as a constant reminder that with the New Media, the smallest things can make the biggest difference. It was only a few years ago that a comment to your “friends” would not effect your lively hood, but today a misplaced tweet or status update can have great effect. Athletes must approach the New Media (i.e. facebook, twitter, etc.) with a well thought out “Self-Brand Design”.
Just as a business or corporation, plans and invests great amounts of resources in developing and cultivating a brand, athletes at all levels must do the same. Now, I am not just talking about the professional athletes. Sure, they may have the largest audience, but even the star high school athlete needs to operate in the New Media with an awareness of their self-brand. Remember, your misplaced “tweet” , may have real consequences when it comes to opportunities. Tone is hard to relay in 140 characters, the power of the New Media should be the vehicle that
propels you.
Who is thriving in the New Media?
Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose, are examples of athlete’s that are having great success in the New Media. Dwight Howard has over 1.8 million followers on his twitter account @dwighthoward, so when he “tweets” about his new foundation (the D12 Foundation), he has directly marketed to 1.8 million people for free! A well placed print, TV, or radio commercial would never have the same effect.
Derrick Rose has over 1.6 million facebook followers that he can communicate and share ideas with 24/7. An example of this mobilization is when Derrick was behind in the all-star balloting for this year’s all-star game a well planned social media campaign pushed the numbers in his favor and propelled him to the starting line-up for the 2011 NBA All-Star Game with 1.914,996 votes. The connections that can be made through the New Media give the individual a link to their fans and anyone interested in connecting with their image like never before. Any many of the great initatives and opportunities within the medium are yet to be realized.
How do you create a Self-Brand that is true to you?
The most important part of Self-Brand design is to remember the words self-brand are linked together in this instance for a reason. You as an individual (self) will always be linked to your brand. Get chased by your wife with a golf club on Thanksgiving (you all know who I am talking about!) that image of you is now linked to your brand. Work to convey the real you while allowing the flexibility for your Self-Brand to change as you do. You will not be the same person at 28 and in the prime of your professional career as you where when you were 18, but your image will grow from its “roots”. The New Media is the water and the nutirents that will grow your Self-Brand.
Which athlete(s) do you think does the best at Self-Brand Design? Let me know in the comments.