Teams active in social media build a strategic advantage

If you could predict tomorrow, would you act differently today? Think about it. If you knew with certainty that a particular stock was going to triple over the next year, would you invest immediately? Or would you hesitate?

These questions came to me recently as I read “The Future of the Social Web,” a blog post by Jeremiah Owyang, formerly of Forrester Research. Owyang observes that social media has been
slow to gain momentum, but has increased dramatically in recent years and Owyang sees it continuing along a “hockey-[stick]” growth rate.

“Innovation is matching adoption,” he says, “and it’s going to happen very rapidly in the next few years.”

Show me the money

Owyang’s observation may sound obvious. Anyone with a pulse can see that social media is hot and getting hotter. But Owyang goes on to share what Forrester’s research has revealed: Within the next 12 months, we will enter into what he calls the “Era of Social Commerce,” in which online communities will define the future of products and services. If this is true, then social media will be linked to marketing ROI, and it will therefore begin to command more and more attention from the brands that sponsor sports.

Are sports teams prepared for a world in which sponsors care about social media?

Continue reading at Sports Business Journal