College Sports Information Directors of America

Montana State assistant SID Chris Syme, a frequent contributor to CoSIDA.com, writes a relevant and informative blog on athletic PR/communications and social media trends entitled "New Adventures of an Old SID."

Here, in a recent blog entry, she writes on the importance of having a social media strategy- even if you are a one-person office. Why? The medium is so vast and you just cannot try and reach everyone with their varying interests - so strategy can help you keep focused. Although it is hard to measure ROI (return on investment) with social media, you can measure website and blog readership.

Syme will present at the 2010 CoSIDA Convention during the July 7th "Digital Summit Day." She will serve on a Social Networking Panel along with Malcolm Moran, former award-winning reporter and the Penn State Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society; Andres Acosta, David Perry & Associates Social Media Director, and Pam Truswell, founder of "Actionscape" online sports social media.

read online: Are You One of the Successful 35%?

An interesting piece of research emerged last week in a report from R2integrated. I saw the research referenced on Social Media Examiner--a great site for social media news. The research concluded that only a small amount of marketers are seeing a measurable increase in sales due to social media.

According to the study, "65% of respondents said that their companies have not increased revenue or profited using social media." When asked what their biggest challenge was, 36% responded that lack of valid metrics and data to develop ROI was to blame.

So what are the successful ones doing differently? They were twice as likely to have a social media strategy and twice as likely to have a dedicated person managing the media. They also were more likely to say that social media was valuable to their company and not many believed that time invested was pointless.

The reason I think this is interesting is that it validates a piece of best practice that experts have been clamoring about for a while--you need to have a plan before you jump in, and you should have someone responsible for management. How does that relate to those of us who are one-man communications shops?

Somebody asked me this week if it is necessary to have a social media policy/strategy if you are the only one in the department using it. An emphatic yes. It won't be long and you'll have a coach or two that want to use social media to brand their programs, no matter how small you are. Better to get out ahead of the rush and have your purpose defined and guidelines in order. Besides, I want to be one of the 35% that say social media has a measurable impact on our bottom line, whether it's ticket sales or fan conversions. Defining a plan and setting up some measuring devices will drastically increase the chances that social media will have a positive, measurable effect.

Do you think it's necessary to have a strategy/policy if you are a one-man shop?

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