Just a website? Where's the rest of your digital presence?

It's business start-up 101.  Get a business name, phone number, email address, domain name, website, business cards, store front sign and a store hours sign for the front window.  For many business owners, that list is very much their business plan too.  I've seen many hockey businesses operate this way and struggle to stay in business.

For some of them, the website is something that they get to later with little regard as to what they want it to do and how much it will cost.  Others spend too much time and money on their web presence and still don't end up with the intended result or functionality.  In either case and somewhere in between, business owners are ignoring digital presence beyond websites.

Consider that 'www dot access to information' was commercialized over 20 years ago and could only be viewed through desktop computers using keystrokes.  Today, access can be achieved through sound, voice, camera and proximity using mobile devices.

Let's face it, the only people or things visiting your website is the older tech generation, search engines,  hackers and the younger tech generation only because you have no other digital presence.  And since you're stuck here, you look to SEO, sharing links and using Google Adwords as channels to get people and bots to find your brand.  Boring!

Digital Presence Essentials:

1.  Website

• Make it mobile friendly. A Responsive Web Design (RWD) will give users a better viewing experience with your brand.  The site formats nicely to any device (computer or mobile).
• Free designs usually end up costing you because you try to stretch their capabilities beyond what they are intended to do.  You pay the provider to try to fix things and end up with a mess that has to be recreated from scratch.

2.  Social Media

• Social media platforms have done a great job with their mobile apps.  They quickly realized that their users access their service on mobile devices more than desktops (aka websites).  You need to be there and be active.  

3.  Mobile App

• 80% of a smartphone user's time is spent with apps.  The other 20%?  You guessed it.  Trying to navigate through clumsy websites with their mobile browser.
• Apps are not replications of your website.  They provide a meaningful service to your customers (or things that websites can't do).  The investment in your own app will put you miles ahead of your competitors' website only digital presence.

4.  Advertising

• Back to social media for a second.  Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin have robust advertising platforms.  You can spend as little as $6 per month to promote your business, a product or promotion.  The analytic reports will help you with targeting and your budgets.  Again, most of the ads are consumed on the mobile apps of these social media companies.
• Apple has just opened it's iAd Workbench to anyone with an Apple ID.  In the early days of iAd, you needed a $1 million dollar ad budget to reach a market on Apple's mobile devices.  That amount was reduced and eventually any developer could promote their apps.   Today, you can advertise apps, music, books and most products and services.  Ads appear on apps that are using the iAd network.  You have control over targeting the ads by geography and interest categories and budgets.  Other platforms include Admob by Google and the Hockey Science & Technology ad network.

5.  Email

• Use a professional grade service like Constant Contact to set up your mailing list and create decent newsletters.  Email marketing is really good for reaching your customers and giving them the opportunity to share your news with others via social media or email forwarding.

6.  QR Codes

• People really don't have the time to type your website address or contact information.  QR codes can be used on printed material to scan with a camera and a QR reader enabled app.  The information is saved to the device to be used later.  Code generating apps can be downloaded and are inexpensive.

7.  iBeacon

• iBeacon is a trade mark of Apple.  It's an indoor positioning system to that allows a bluetooth transmitting device to communicate with iBeacon enabled apps on mobile devices.  You would use this in a retail store to alert and provide details of products in your store as a shopper roams around.  It's a sales assistant.

If you need help with your digital presence, please contact Hockey Science & Technology.

Stick Business is for Player Performance Professionals who want to discover new information, products and services to develop and operate their business.  Stick Business is published by Hockey Science & Technology.

Connect with Stick Business on Linkedin, Twitter and StickBusiness.net

Ignite your social presence or be left behind.

2% of the accounts that you follow on Twitter become inactive each month.  Our research looked at 10 accounts and found on average that 2% of the accounts they followed were inactive over 90 days.  Meaning, those accounts had not posted a tweet in that period.

Why is this important to you?

1. Your message is going out to people or companies that you follow who have become unsocial.
2. Twitter limits the number of accounts that you can follow at 2,000 unless you have a high ratio of followers.  You need to clean out the inactive accounts and replace them with live accounts.  With organic growth, many of those accounts will follow you back.  Over time, you will break through the follow limit.

Are you one of those inactive accounts?  You have either gone out of business or don't know the full potential of social media.

1. Social media is an excellent customer service tool.  Customers no longer just use email to ask questions, complain or compliment.  Messaging through Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin is a business tool you should have.
2. Your customers or fans will remove you from their following list because you have become unsocial.

Your competition is using social media.  Many customers would rather engage with a brand through social media than a static website.  Smart businesses are using the advertising platforms on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin to reach a market sometimes 100x greater than the number of fans they have on their social media accounts.

There are companies that can help you with your social media management.  We have published our own guides to help businesses get the most out of Linkedin and Twitter.

Article sponsored by Hockey Science & Technology's retail solutions.

Stick Business is for Player Performance Professionals who want to discover new information, products and services to develop and operate their business.  Stick Business is published by Hockey Science & Technology.

Connect with Stick Business on Linkedin, Twitter and StickBusiness.net

Website reliance will kill your sports business.

Websites were commercialized over 20 years ago. They are still a multi-keystroke commodity that rely on search engines to be discovered.  There's more SEO companies on every "internet" street corner than there are Starbucks.  There's a technology shift in play as one generation of 'surfers' continue to search while the younger generation finds and connects with brands.

If your website exists to mainly provide product details and static information, how many clicks and keystrokes does it take just to find your phone number, address or email address? Now add more keystrokes just to make a connection by phone or email. By comparison, your phone number in your own mobile app will take about 2-3 taps to locate and connect with you.

If your business is solely digitally present on a website, it's like saying 8 track and fax machines are still effective means of playing music and sending documents. That same generation of users has now gone mobile for content, services, music and file sharing. 

Does your advertising and brochures only include yourcompany.com?  That's another indicator that you are behind on digital marketing.  Access to information through 'www' is slowly winding down.  Digital leaders are using touch, visual sensing, audio sensing and proximity sensing as ways for their market to access information via mobile apps. 

The illustration below shows how you can effectively communicate with your customers and your market beyond a website.  Notice how social media networks are at the hub of all the other media.

Stick Business is for Player Performance Professionals who want to discover new information, products and services to develop and operate their business.  Stick Business is published by Hockey Science & Technology.

Connect with Stick Business on Linkedin and Twitter.

Facebook turns 10

Facebook may not be your choice for personal social media but it does serve as an excellent media for business.  With Facebook Pages, you can post original content such as new products, user guides, training videos, offers, pictures and events.  You can share content from your customers or sports sources.  It's good for customer service where a large demographic does not use email to reach your business.

Through paid advertising you can reach a market larger than the size of your friends or likes.  Your page insights will tell you about which type of posts have the most engagement, the gender and age mix of your fans, the best time of day to post and more.

Look for more about Facebook for business in our first magazine issue of Stick Business coming soon.

Post by Facebook.

Stick Business is for Player Performance Professionals involved in sports with sticks who want to discover new information about developing and operating their business.  Stick Business is published by Hockey Science & Technology.

Connect with Stick Business on Linkedin and Twitter.

How to Linkedin for Hockey

Stick Business: How to LinkedIn for Hockey

Many hockey businesses, teams, charities, associations and leagues are missing out on marketing and customer service opportunities by not getting the most of what LinkedIn has to offer. Read this guide to improve your LinkedIn business profile.

How to Twitter for Hockey.

Stick Business: How to Twitter for Hockey

A guide for hockey companies on some best practices when using Twitter.Learn how to set up your profile, who you should follow and what you should tweet about.Discover tools to maximize your Twitter presence.

SILVER STICK FINALS - High profile tournament weak on digital presence

To win the Silver Stick has eluded many teams and many players over their years of playing minor hockey.  Just getting to the Finals is a feat on its own as teams need to win a regional qualifying Silver Stick tournament to get there.  Minor hockey teams will travel hours away from their hometown to participate in a qualifier…or two.  Players shed tears when they get eliminated.

The tournament prides itself on "Citizenship and International Goodwill through Hockey".  It has roots dating back to 1958 with the original Silver Stick residing in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Newmarket, Ontario has been the host town of the Silver Stick Minor Finals for the past 28 years.  Teams from across Ontario and the United States converge in this hockey town hub.  Home to Jet Ice, The Heritage Stick Co, the Hurricanes Jr. A team,  local hockey retailers and skill development training centres, many OHL draft picks, NCAA scholars and renowned Connor McDavid.  The tournament website and program does not make it clear where the teams come from though.  Is that Rochester NY or MI?  Is that Birmingham AL or MI?  Kind of difficult for the citizens to engage the guests without knowing where they are from.

With the games being played at several venues across town, parents taxiing their other children to their own organized activities and fans spread between work hours and commuting, game scores and highlights were difficult to obtain.

The organizers did not update the website regularly with scores nor did they show what teams will be playing in the championship games.  The championship team names with scores were updated a day later.  Even going to the site now, you would not be able to easily identify the champion as the games are not labelled championship final, semi or quarter final.   The site powered by Pointstreak lacked an RSS feed.  Represented hockey associations, accredited media and even the tournament could not automatically post scores on their social networks without this vital website feature.

The tournaments use of Twitter for the second year in a row was an epic failure.  Many game scores took hours to post, some posts omitted the division and only provided the team name with score, the Minor Peewee AA final was posted as the A final and the Minor Peewee A final did not get posted.  Tournament sponsors had little exposure in the posts over the four days.

The games lacked that buzz that you could even generate at house league games.  There was no music during stoppages in play and public address announcements about sponsors or vendors selling their wares was absent.

Digital media is an integral part in the daily life of a hockey parent, player, coach and fan.  They are spending more time on their mobile device than desktops and even television.  That's why digital presence is important to a brand's success.

Here's how you can use digital media to update coaches, engage the fans, promote your sponsors and raise the image of your tournament.

1. Post game scores on your website within 15 minutes of the game completion.
2. Provide an RSS feed on your website to link to your Twitter account and other social media automation apps. 
3. Mention your sponsors in several social media posts throughout the duration of the tournament.
4. Students need volunteer hours.  Approach local high schools for students to be tournament ambassadors by taking pictures and video or posting real time scoring updates.  Automate the process with wi-fi enabled devices to post onto mobile first apps Instagram or Vine.  Use Dropbox or iCloud Photo Sharing to allow each student to send pictures to a common folder for a central co-ordinator to post onto social media.
5. Watermark your images for sharing with your own tournament logo and sponsors logo.
6. Use hashtags to allow others to easily find updates and shared content.
7. Use the Arena PA app to play music, announce scoring and penalties and play sponsors' recorded audio ads over the arena sound system.
8. Profile the tournament and provide short bios on participating teams in a Podcast.
9. Publish a digital version of your program because the one given out to players is still at the bottom of their hockey bag.

The history, value, meaning and trivia in your tournament can be hidden or become lost through traditional communication.  Put some lustre on your tournament.

#HockeyDayInCanada - social media marketing

Today is Hockey Day In Canada hosted and sponsored by CBC's Hockey Night in Canada and Scotiabank.

This is a good day if you are a maker of hockey products, a hockey retailer or a hockey skills trainer.  Social media is buzzing with people and businesses involved in hockey today.  Take advantage of this to find new business and build relationships with your customers.

1.  Promote the coverage on your social media accounts:  http://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/hockey/hockeydayincanada/

2. Engage your Twitter followers and Facebook friends by asking them what they are doing to celebrate this day.
3. Use these hashtags in your posts:  #HockeyDay, #HockeyDayInCanada or #HDIC
4. Follow users who use those hashtags.
5. Like, Share, Favourite or Re-Tweet some of the posts that you see on your own timeline or in search results.


Tweets about "#HockeyDayInCanada"

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