By Athima Chansanchai
It'll probably take the rest of winter for Niners and Ravens fans to get over what happened yesterday that knocked their respective teams out of Super Bowl XLVI (that would be 46 for all of you who don't read Roman numerals). But for Patriots and Giants fans, the fun is just beginning. Through a newly installed social media command center, visitors to the big game in Indianapolis will be able to ask questions and receive answers leading up to the Feb. 5 showdown.
For the next two weeks until?the NFL's most important game, an Indianapolis-based?team (no, not the Colts) is operating out of a 2,800-square-foot space to read and respond to fans who are one of 100,000 to 150,000 lucky souls who will be in Indianapolis for the game, posting about the Super Bowl and their beloved teams. (This includes those who are traveling to the city for pre/during/post-game festivities, or watching from places other than the about 70,000-capacity stadium, but still in and around the city.)
This social media super team will provide directions, to-do around town suggestions and other important information (such as what to do in case of an emergency at the stadium).
Indianapolis digital marketing firm Raidious is in charge of the operation, with CEO Taulbee Jackson at the helm. Jackson sits on the Super Bowl host committee and was asked to help with social media strategy. I reached to Jackson by phone this morning and he shared more details on this Superbowl first.
"It's the first time any facility like this has been built to manage social media for such a large event," Jackson said. "We were outgrowing our second office in 18 months at the same time the Host Committee asked for our help, so we designed and built the space with the express intention of using it as the Super Bowl Social Media Command Center, then taking over the space afterwards."?
The team ??which includes about 50 people, led by?Raidious' staff of 16 and students and journalism/telecommunications students from Ball State University, Butler University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis?? will work in the command center 15 hours a day. (Not all at once!)
One team will focus on social media management and moderation, while the other (most likely the students) will work?on content development for posts on all the events and activities that surround the game, as well as things to do in Indianapolis since a big part of the team's mandate will be promoting the city to newcomers. "It's?Hoosier hopsitality for the 21st century," Jackson said.
Given that the two league championship teams are from New York and New England, it's a good bet there will be first-timers in the zone. While most visitors are expected to arrive in the city next Wednesday or Thursday (Feb. 1 and Feb. 2), the social media command center will swing into high gear starting this week.
As we've already seen, sports fans are some of the most rabid in social media posts, with record-setting tweets about Tim Tebow?(9,420 tweets per second), as well as the 7,196 tweets per second during the Women's World Cup final between the U.S. and Japan last summer. And have you ever looked at your Facebook on football Sundays, much less the playoffs? It's one sure way to see who's a fan, and how intense they are about it. (On my Facebook, the Bears, Ravens, Raiders and Niners fans are definitely the most vocal.)
In fact, every time the Super Bowl comes around, it's a proven magnet for the millions who are active on Facebook, Twitter and now, Google+. In 2011, the only Facebook status update topic in the world, amongst 800 million users?that bested the Packers winning Super Bowl 45 was the death of Osama bin Laden.?
For those who will be in Indy, there will be plenty to write home about, but they'll also be in company with the millions glued to their sets that Sunday watching with them. ?
The Super Bowl social media command center will concentrate on key word-based monitoring, but because they're geo-targeting the Indianapolis/Indiana area and those coming to town for the game, they won't be as overwhelmed as they would be if they tried to deal with all the online traffic the event generates.
"One of the reasons we've staffed it the way we have, and put in all this technology, is to deal with the high levels of volume, even limiting that to the Indianapolis, Indiana area," Jackson said.
Safety is another priority, using Twitter to get any emergency instructions and information out quickly if necessary.?
From the main Super Bowl XLVI site, fans can access the social media command center's activity through its management of the Super Bowl Facebook page, Flickr and Twitter accounts and the site's blog.
More stories:
Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.
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