THE Sports Techie Online Community.
THE Sports Techie Online Community is 3,000 – 1,500 – 500. What does that mean? Those are the statistics that make up the social media numbers of our engaged Sports Techie online community. Sports Techie today consists of my web site blog, plus 3,000 Twitter friends, 1,500 Facebook page Likes, and 500 Linkedin Group members. Sports Techie is also part of Google+, Youtube, Flicker, Myspace and Klout. With this my third NFL season as THE Sports Techie, it has been an honor and a privilege to “make it so,” as Captain Picard of Star Trek fame would say, creating something when there was nothing through a vision and passion for Sports Technology, which is contagious. There will be hardly any name dropping in this blog because our online community is Sports Techie together in heart, mind, soul, and wire.
THE @sportstechieNET 3,000
It all began with Twitter, my first tweet, and initial follower. Nearly three years and over 53,000 tweets later, there are now 3,000 Sports Techie Twitter friends. It is an awesome feeling to be able to connect and lead us all via their terrific social media app. Yes, “Corporations are not people” like the guys sign says above I-5 on the 45th street exit, however, the people behind the brands are, like me. Even though Sports Techie, LLC, operates with a just single official person, I’d like to think that all together, through our entire online community, we are making a difference, just like the thousands of other people that are employed in social media do behind their brands. When you read my Twitter profile, there is the shameless self promotion about myself as “THE Sports Techie.” A community needs a creative founder and a fearless leader with a tireless work ethic, here I am.
As you read my profile further you may hopefully notice that I value the world’s transition to a more #green thought process, especially in terms of tech and sport. Other topics I champion are: #animals, #robots, SM or social media, and something called, #sportsbiz, otherwise know as sports business. You will find the hashtag #GSFB because I was an Official Blogger at the 2012 Global Sports Forum held in Barcelona, Spain: http://www.globalsportsforum.org/blog/day-two-of-global-sports-forum-barcelona-was-fan-tastic/. I encourage you to visit their web site and follow them via social media because the GSFB gets sports technology as a sportsbiz and much more.
How did I get there? I was invited because I have two decade of proven experience in the sports technology industry, most recently with online communities. Two decades of technology scales to 69-years in real time. I grew the Wetpaint.com online communities as a Moderator for: the NFL’s New York Giants historical wiki: http://history.giants.com/account/RRoble, the NBA’s Houston Rockets, the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets), SNY.TV Big East Basketball at http://www.snybigeasthoopswiki.com/account/RRoble, Dancing with the Stars: http://www.dwts.org/account/RRoble, Entourage on HBO, and several killer SyFy channel shows. This wonderful opportunity helped me to see the light as to why online communities work, and how to make is so.
One Twitter stat worth mentioning is that @sportstechieNET has a 1% fake follower rate. What that means is that of my 3,000 Twitter friends, only about 90 are fake accounts, and believe me, I will find and block them shortly. Why does that matter? It matters because it says two things.
One, I have been extremely careful about whom I follow and will continue to be that way as a rule. Two, new 3rd party Twitter apps now data mine and report that sports stars, techies, celebrities, media, brands, and people, are either buying, or somehow involved with allowing fake Twitter accounts to follow, to the tune of 10% to 33% of total followers.
For example, if someone has one million Twitter followers, possibly 100,000 to 333,000 of them may be or are indeed, fake. Sponsors, advertisers, and fans take note; this ugly and dishonest social media trend is something you can stop by honoring those of us on Twitter who grow our startup brands the old fashion way, with integrity, and for many of us, with a bootstrapped budget of zero. Twitter is the Sports Techie online community preferred Platform to engage with on a daily, 24/7, basis. Please join Sports Techie by befriending me on Twitter. I will follow back as a long term promise.
THE Linkedin 500
If you are building a respected and trusted online community you may find that Linkedin is the biggest challenge of them all. Linkedin is essentially an online resume. Most are Linkedin members for the career networking opportunities and to use their incredible business tools and resources. Linkedin is the best place to post your resume on the web. Your livelihood displays proudly on Linkedin like a National flag but in exchange for this service, depending on your settings, your career path is under constant public scrutiny and an open book. That works because competing in life and in work is the nature of the beast. Your work history, achievements, and Company associations, are critical Big Data that make Linkedin important. Linkedin is almost a sport in that we all compete against each other for open jobs and contracts here. Therefore, when someone accepts a Linkedin Group invite, it says they are willing to agree to your invite and join for whatever their personal and professional reasons are, which is perhaps the ultimate social media show of respect, commitment and understanding.
On my side as the Group administrator, I take each of your commitments seriously. Yes, our Group is an Open format so anyone can join in but only after I accept you. This way I can do my due diligence and keep out the fake accounts and spammers that plague social media businesses. In addition, anyone who is not part of the Sports Techie Linkedin Group cannot automatically add content or comments, until approved. All our existing members can post and comment freely as they please.
The diversity of the Sports Techie Linkedin Group is truly outstanding and a good indication of our future demographic growth, worldwide.
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?groupDashboard=&gid=2958439&trk=group_most_recent_rich-an-rr-0.
Further analysis of the four Linkedin Group statistical categories is as follows:
- Summary – We have 489 official Sports Techie Linkedin Group global members with 4 comments last week.
- Demographics – To my surprise, only 13% of our ‘Makeup’ is based here in Seattle, with New York and San Francisco tied for second, followed by Los Angeles, London, UK, and Boston. A whopping 21% ‘Function’ as Entrepreneurs, then comes, Education, Marketing, and Sporting Goods. In term of ‘Seniority’ we have 156 ‘Owners’ who top that list, while ‘Entry Level’ is our third largest category. Finally, 42% of our members are in the ‘Industry’ of ‘Sports,’ while at no surprise to me, ‘Information Technology and Services’ ranks number two.
- Growth: Interesting stats here and perhaps the cost compelling are the ‘New Members’ and ‘Total Numbers’ charts. Adding ‘New Members’ is how group grows and we certainly saw a spike in membership when I started it. Our other surges happened whenever I used the 30-day free trail of a Premium Linkedin account. An actual Premium account costs around $50 per month and upward. That comes out to an extra $600 a year minimum in Sports Techie marketing dollars in order to upgrade, an expense that is worth it if you can afford the fee. Our ‘Total Numbers’ graphic shows a consistent and steady growth scale that is really what you want to achieve over time. Our Week-to-Week Growth Rate is at 38% but that number has fallen dramatically or how I see it, grown, when compared to 2010 and 2011.
- Activity: This one is tricky to breakdown. I disagree with Klout and other like minded companies that code their algorithms based primarily on social media engagement and activity. While it is nice in theory to give the high social media scores to popular people and brands who accumulate a ton of posts or Likes on their Facebook wall, or are included in a Tweet mention or retweet, but this fails to recognize what I consider to be ‘True Influence.’ In other words, of all the social media platforms, the one that has the most sports business value as a measure of online influence might be Linkedin. This is something I feel that Klout does not quite get yet or else their scores would reflect that. What is recognized and not weighted appropriately is whether Nike, UCLA, or Apolo Ohno and the DWTS brands engage with you. For me, that is not the best True Influence gauge of a person or companies total influence. Although our Sports Techie Group on Linkedin does not engage much according to the latest numbers, I know that we are fast becoming the leading resource for sports technology. The sports tech industry is possibly a $200 Billion global market so having a trusted resource such as Sports Techie, where career sports technologists and others can join together, is perhaps the most significant sign of activity anyone can possibly achieve in social media. As I mentioned before, Linked represents a person’s past, present, and their possible future career achievements and paths. When you connect on Linkedin, there is a little more at stake then there is with a Twitter or Facebook connection. The folks behind a brands tweets or posts are joining the Sports Techie Linkedin Group and that in itself is the most important activity to measure. If you build it they will come, is more far more important then if you build it and nobody comes. Our Sports Techie engagement numbers will only increase as more Linkedin members join and become comfortable with our Group over time, escape velocity is near.
The one thing to keep in mind is I that started this incredibly diverse Linkedin Group on April 14th, 2010, with one person who believed in me and continues to believe in me, and that person is … THE Sports Techie.
By the year 2015, I visualize that Sports Techie will ramp up with Linkedin believers who want to become part of our innovative Group. If you are into the hashtags #sportsbiz, #smsports, #digisport, #sportstechnology and #sportstech, our Group and Twitter user name are both outstanding fits. Please join our #SportsTechie Linkedin Group today, we would be honored.
THE Facebook Fan Page 1,500
I love Facebook enough to have a profile and also a fun Sports Techie fan page so that says a lot about what I feel about their Platform, technology, and social media importance. Yes, I said feel. I enjoy getting outside and doing things; it’s in my nature to try about anything. Having said that, the feelings you get when capturing a Sports Techie moment or image, and then sharing it with my Facebook connections and page mates is like no other, and a super positive experience. The same can be said for any coach to player, parents to children, or peer to peer, digital media sharing and exchanges.
The core of Sports Techie Facebook followers are family, or from my hometown of Redmond, WA, or else live in Seattle where I reside and my company address is. The rest of our fan page Likes consists of old and new friends, school mates from Whittier College and Western Washington University, sports tech and other work colleagues, in addition to the people who joined through the Internet from all over the world, for whatever the reason. The only acceptance criteria here are that you like sports and technology. Facebook is a major component to the future of Sports Techie because it has the most social media population and is worldwide in scope. Please go to our Facebook Sports Techie fan page, click on the Like button at the top, and begin being part of the original online Sports Technology community.
Sports Techie, I founded a socially conscious startup in early 2010 when that was not a major trend as it is now. ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL, Mashable, and CNN, plus any of our large or small sized competitors, have all followed my Sports Techie lead, some to almost a tee, and now share in our business mission. Evening out the sports tech playing field for everyone is what we are here to do. Taking care of our environments is a global community need that the Sports Techie online community prioritizes together as a whole.
Because I have zero checks and balances in place such as a boss, director, manager, editor, or web master, Sports Techie is Internet speed fast finding and covering the topics you want to know more about. Whether its the prosthetic and bionic movement of this past summers London 2012 Olympic Games; or whether you like our cutting edge info about how all of sports is integrating sports technology into their games, such as the implementation of instant replay to assist officials with making correct calls like FIFA is supposed to do; or whether you found interest in following the Red Bull Stratos team and the other progressive private companies that are now immersed in the last Race to Space, complete with robot co-pilots, Sports Techie is indeed the way. I have learned to trust my hard-earned Sports Techie gut instinct and so will you, by supporting and joining our online community.
There is no written business plan in place other than what is in my head because my intentions are not to go for an IPO or sellout to a Fortune 500 or large media company. I went down that road with my other startup and have learned over time that many business plans are obsolete by the time they get funded, and once they do get funding, many immediately begin to change their existing biz plan in order to make adjustments for the rapidly changing and constantly evolving global economy. Producing a Sports Techie Executive Summary is a proper next step I am ready to create when the time is right.
I truly care about Sports Techie, Earth, our fellow man, women, children, seniors, and animals, just like you. Ideally, those are good enough reasons to continue on with our steady International, domestic, regional and local, online growth. I strongly beliebe (that word is for all the Justin Bieber fans in town this week) that Sports Techie will become a new business model and lead the way in offering cost effect Sports Technology products that the entire planet can afford to willfully buy and happily use. Sports Technology Systems, Solutions, Tools, Apps, Products, and Apparel, are each wonderful innovations worthy of an informed and happy user base. Sports Techie will one day soon be the Amazon of Sports Technology.
Sports Techie will be an OEM of Sports Technology goods but until that time, we will settle for having the coolest thing in the Universe, and that is plenty enough for me just like it was for Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, before he got greedy. While I have not hired anyone yet, that day and pivotal step will also soon be here like it was for Mark, I am sure of it. President Obama has been campaigning now for two terms on how everyone can, “Make a difference,” especially small business owners. Well, here I am still doing that exact thing and praying a lot along the way that my Sports Techie dreams will become reality on this incredible journey of a lifetime.
Please join the Sports Techie online community via any of our social media portals links below and let us all continue making a difference, together. So say we all, Sports Techie 3,000 – 1,500 – 500.
I will see ya when I see ya, THE Sports Techie
Sports Techie Twitter: @sportstechieNET, http://twitter.com/SportsTechieNET
Sports Techie Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/SportsTechie
Sports Techie YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sportstechie
Sports Techie Google+: http://gplus.to/SportsTechie
Sports Techie Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Sports-Techie-2958439
Sports Techie Mobypicture: http://www.mobypicture.com/user/sportstechieNET
Sports Techie MySpace (Bob Roble): http://www.myspace.com/549000677
Sports Techie Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/67964145@N05
Sports Techie Klout: http://klout.com/sportstechieNET
Sports Techie Blog: https://n5y.1cd.myftpupload.com/
