That was a long title for a short story, but;

Take your new marketing plan old school. Publish a telephone number you can get for free from Google Voice and mail confirmation postcards with the team login ID when the team applies, with a hand-written note with a reminder to check into the website often for news and the schedule.

You may also want to change the outgoing voice message to keep up with the most frequently asked question and when to expect the schedule on your website.

“Thank you for calling the Awesome Soccer Invitational.We know you are excited to come play with us and we’re excited to have you! We hope to have the schedule published by Month-Day, so be sure to bookmark our website at https://awesome[dot]tourneycentral[dot]com. Thank you for calling and please double check our website under FAQs to see if we have answered your question. If not, please leave a message, speaking your TeamID clearly and slowly so we can help you quickly.”

I guarantee, you will stand out in a packed soccer tournament market.

Thanks to the Grand Rapids Invitational Tournament to letting me borrow their logo for our sample postcard above. The telephone is an old-fashioned rotary dial landline that used to take forever to call all the teams on.

So, you think you want to run a soccer tournament.

Why?

It’s not a flippant question, but one that needs to be answered before you do one more thing on your event. If your answer is “because everyone else is doing it,” stop, click away and pursue other hobbies. Without a clear purpose for your event, you will fail.

Ok, now that we have all the hobbyists and dreamers out of the room, let’s get down to the serous business of putting together and running a successful soccer tournament event.

The first thing you should know and never forget is a very controversial position. You must remember this always and never be swayed from this one simple, but hard to defend fact. If you lose this focus, you will fail.

Ready?

A soccer tournament is not about soccer competition; it is an entertainment event centered around soccer.


Teams and clubs play soccer in their leagues and schools. Their league standings determine how successfully they will be ranked, whether or not they will advance within their state cups, etc. Sure, there are a few soccer tournaments that are about soccer and rankings and points, but they are run by the US Soccer organizations, not by clubs. Your soccer tournament event is not one of them and won’t be. Points don’t matter.

Have you been scared off yet?

Good. Let’s keep going.

Now that we have accepted a soccer tournament is an event, let’s back up to our first question; why are you producing a soccer tournament?

Now that we have established that your soccer tournament is an event, your why should be aligned with event production thinking. Some reasons for holding an event are:

• A fundraiser for our club, league, community or cause.
• To promote the club brand within the larger soccer community.
• To provide a fun, family-friendly event that promotes the local community.
• To provide a pre or post-season event for teams to prepare for an upcoming season or wind down from a season.
• To provide a venue where higher caliber teams can compete to prepare for tournament play in their state cups.
• To provide a venue where less competitive teams can compete in a soccer tournament format.

Each of these is a good reason to produce a soccer tournament.

Your reason may even be several of these intertwined. The important part is that you understand why you are producing your event and who your ideal guest teams are. It will drive everything you do.

But don’t be inflexible. Things change. Your club mission may change; the soccer marketplace may change, your community might change. Change is good, but purposeful change is better. Always, remember that your soccer tournament is an event, though.

One more important point to remember:
A soccer tournament is a business.

While you may be holding it to raise money for your club, need volunteers to help run it and your mission may be to advance the sport of soccer in your community, it is a business. Venders and suppliers of goods and services need to be paid. Contracts need to be signed, you need insurance and teams need customer service. Someone in your organization will be held responsible for commitments and this should not be taken lightly.

Marketing your event will be hard work. A couple decades ago, you could call a few coaches, get some teams together for a weekend and run a pretty good tournament event. Today, your competition is sophisticated. They have been marketing themselves offline and online for longer. They have traction and a long tail. Moreover, they have built trust within the soccer community. Marketing will be your biggest challenge and is no longer something you can do on a few nights and Sunday afternoon. Thanks to the internet, your soccer tournament is now a 365/24/7 event that never sleeps and never takes a winter break.

Your competition may not even be another soccer tournament. Attending a soccer tournament usually absorbs a family’s time for an entire weekend. Your competition may be other sports, festivals or simply “do nothing” time. If there is enough push from the parents, a coach will not sign up her team regardless of how great your event is. Always size up your competition, both inside and outside of soccer.

Ok. I think we’re ready to get started.

Congratulations on your soccer tournament. We wish you many years of success.

PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Blackwell, 2019 DaytonStrong 3v3, Dayton, Ohio

It only takes one player with courage to make a difference and affect change.

It only takes one player to stand up and do the right thing. I’m not talking about the first one to do something, like insisting on wearing a mask at all times — even on the pitch — during a pandemic. That player was born with courage; she is always going to do the right thing no matter what. To attempt to coach this quality out of her is pointless.

I’m talking about the second player to support her. I’m talking about the second player to stand up, face her and put on a mask.

Being that second takes an incredible amount of courage.

Soccer is a team sport and requires all its team members to pull together in the same direction. Inevitably, the question of dissent creeps into this argument by way of questioning a player’s “coachability.” Is a player who defiantly takes a stand “coachable?” Surely not, most coaches would say.

But they would be wrong. When a player takes a stand that is the moral and ethical thing to do, one that is supported by science and data, what right does the coach have to suppress that?

She doesn’t. In fact, she has a duty to stand up and be that third person to support her player.

A great coach draws good qualities out from her players, supports and nurtures them. A great coach recognizes that she is not the true leader of her team, but the players who are instilled with bravery and fearlessness, who charge onto a pitch that contains the unknown and untested — armed only with the confidence in their convictions and skills — are the true leaders.

Treasure those players. Support them and they will support each other.

Have the courage to be that third.

There’s a global pandemic raging right now. Take care of yourself and others as you seek to safely play this game we all love. Wear a mask, wash your hands often, practice safe distance by playing the ball and not the player. Be safe and we will all get through this together. The game will go on; make sure you are a part of it.

Nobody knows what soccer tournament play will look like post-pandemic, but the soccer community does agree on one thing; there will be soccer tournaments. It remains to be seen how much less contact the “non-contact” sport will become.

Regardless, it will be interesting.

Tournament directors will have to think deeper about how they want to manage their fields, what social distancing means, and how much health-related behavior compliance they can require. In some states, there will be laws and executive orders to aid the directors, whereas some states will bend more toward individual liberties. The rift will be felt most when teams from less complaint states will cross into those with stricter safety guidelines.

In any respect, a solid #COVID-19 policy should be crafted now, teams applying into your tournament event should be required to sign (explicitly or via the application TOS) and a plan for execution and enforcement drawn up now, before the fall season gets busy.

Our recommendations are:

1. Keep it simple. Then simplify it even more.
2. Use as little technology* as possible to communicate and execute the plan on-site.
3. Sanitize everything. Be visible, show your guest teams that you take this seriously and in return, you expect them to take it seriously.
4. Use signage, big signs with as few words as possible. Be specific, direct, don’t worry about being
   “nice.”
5. Use physical barriers, ground markings, etc to calculate distancing for the participants. ENFORCE THEM WITH ZERO TOLERANCE! There is a lawn company locally that advertises on TV.. their tag line is “if you give a weed an inch, they will take a yard.” Don’t give up one inch of your six feet distancing.

Here are some signage ideas:

• Face masks are required for all players and attendees. Players ONLY may remove mask while on the pitch, but mask must remain on while on the sidelines.
• Parents and fans are encouraged to remain in their cars during games.
• Spectators MUST remain 6 ft apart while on the touchline and may NOT extend past the box.
• Wash your hands.
• Don’t touch your face.
• Move quickly between games but maintain social distance.
• ABSOLUTELY NOBODY EXCEPT TOURNAMENT STAFF IS ALLOWED IN THE HQ TENT or within 30 ft from the front or any other opening.

On another note, when teams come out for Fall tournaments, they may not be in the best shape for competition. Even if individual players have kept up their fitness and ball skills, they will have lost a bit of team play. It will take them a bit to find their rhythm.

Should you include your COVID-19 policy in your official rules? YES, we think so!

Be patient. Be safe.

*Sounds weird coming from a technology company, right? But as we’ve been all taking a break, we’ve been watching a lot of soccer tech companies making a lot of noise about how they will be solving the social distancing issues that are inherent in soccer tournaments. This is great stuff, I suppose, if compliance were 100%, but every tournament director knows that a plan only sounds great — until that whistle blows. Then, it’s organized chaos. Keep it super simple; don’t tech the crap out of something that a good sign, field markings and rope can solve.

The coronavirus pandemic is rapidly evolving and will affect soccer leagues and tournaments. Right now, it’s not a question of if, but when and how much.

While each tournament needs to determine the best path going forward, in some instances these decisions may be made for you, as in Ohio and Michigan recently.

While we know you have a lot of questions regarding your website, rest assured firstly, TourneyCentral isn’t going anywhere. While this sudden downturn will be uncomfortable, we are sufficiently capitalized and staffed to weather this. We are both in this together and together, we will also get through this.

Please take the time to review your own contingency plans should the dates of containment be pushed back. Communicate clearly and concisely with your guest teams. Your TourneyCentral website is equipped with communication tools to help you manage this task efficiently. Be sure your Frequently Asked Questions are updated and current.

We’ll make it through. Stay calm, wash your hands often, don’t touch your face and practice social distancing. (WHO Website for COVID-19 info)

G.

Now may be a good time to review our cancelation policy. As always, please advise us as early as possible if you will be forced to cancel. As always if needed, we will work with you as best we can.

As a soccer tournament director, you should be crafting a plan to address the coronavirus for your event.

A soccer tournament hosts a lot of people in a concentrated area. As a tournament organizer, you need to be prepared with a written statement, a strategy and a training session for all volunteers. Hopefully, this post will help you formulate that plan, assuage anxiety within your staff and with the teams you are hosting.

You should not panic, but you should be cautious, vigilant and prepared.

Firstly, keep yourself informed. Misinformation is not helpful for you or your hosted teams. The best organization for information is the World Health Organization. In the United States, the prevailing authority for the coronavirus is the local health officials, so make sure you are in direct contact with the municipalities where your tournament is being played.

DISCLAIMER: We are not medical experts and this post is not medical advice.

Ok, that said, and following the advice of the medical professionals at the WHO and your local health departments, here are some soccer tournament-specific tips we think will help everyone attending your event.

Tournament Staff:

• Firstly, respect the wishes of your guest teams. If they wish to withdraw amidst fears of the coronavirus, respect that. Have a plan in place, whether that is event insurance or a refund.
• Stock Lysol or similar disinfectant that is specific for a coronavirus.
• Map out all the public areas like restrooms, porta-lets and concession areas. Create a plan to methodically disinfect all these areas. Assign volunteers to disinfect these areas throughout the tournament. Post a sign-off sheet in plain view of the participants with dates and times the area was last disinfected to assure them you are taking necessary steps to ensure their safety.
• Include a statement in your liability release that indemnifies your event. (consult your legal counsel on this one, please)
• Ask your local health department if they have a brochure you can hand out or post to your forms area on your website for the coaches and parents.
• Wash your own hands frequently. Make sure all your volunteers do the same. You may want to do this in plain site of the participants to set an example and also assure them you are protecting them.
• Make sure your vendors are aware and ask them for their coronavirus prevention plans, especially any food vendors. This is no time to be shy; ask them directly. Make sure they stick to the plan they say they will abide by. Again, be direct.
• Post signs in every restroom areas — above the sinks, on the front and back of each door, in each stall, on the porta-let doors, on the concession stand areas — reminding participants to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds. Provide soap that is listed as killing a coronavirus and make sure you never run out.
• Keep the restroom areas clean and make sure any used hand towels are contained entirely in trash cans. Don’t allow them to overflow.
• Encourage all participants to make your soccer tournament a “no touching” event. Eliminate handshaking as much as possible. Ask teams to air-touch hands, fist-bump or elbow touch at the start and end of the games. Also, encourage parent to NOT make a tunnel for the players to run through.
• Spray the game ball with disinfectant before and after every game.

Coaches:

• Respect the parents’ wishes! If they don’t want their kid to play in the event, don’t force it or punish them. You are responsible for the team, but the parents are responsible for their kid’s overall health.
• Respect the coronavirus policy of the tournament. Make sure your parents are also respectful of the policy, regardless of their personal opinions.
• Encourage your players to keep the soccer ball at their feet at all times. A cool unintended consequence of this is they get more touches and develop more ball control skills.
• Identify and eliminate times when players will touch.
• Encourage players to cough into their elbows or upper arms. Don’t play players who are sick.
• Practice precautions yourself and be a good example to your players.

I’m sure there are a few more tips that you can think of, but the important take-away is to be prepared, be vigilant but not panicked. Above all, do not spread misinformation or allow it to be spread. Be clear, concise and visible about your coronavirus policy.

Soccer is a team sport and we are all in this together. Let’s do all we can to make your soccer tournament a safe event.

*That graphic at the top of this post is just me saying, “Hey Siri, set a timer for 20 seconds” before I start washing my hands. I’m told singing two verses of ‘Happy Birthday’ is also about 20 seconds long.

UPDATE: Thank you for your support of the Dayton Community as we continue to repair the damage caused by the Memorial Day tornados. Through your generosity, we were able to raise $2,957.00 for the Miami Valley Community Action Partnership. The funds will be used primarily to help displaced residents find and secure housing.

There is still a lot of work to be done and your generous contribution will help organizations on the ground continue to do their work.

* * *
On Memorial Day, 15 tornados touched down in the Dayton, Ohio area, the largest ones hitting Trotwood, Brookville, Riverside and Old North Dayton. They were rated EF4, with winds up to 170 mph.  

Many lost their homes; many more were displaced without power, food, water or shelter. Thanks to local groups on the ground, a lot of the initial cleanup has been addressed, but the hard work of rebuilding lives still needs to be done. In the coming months, the tornado survivors will need not only their physical needs met, but their mental well-being cared for. 

We believe that sports help heal. It is in that spirit that we are reaching out to the soccer community and asking us to come together to help provide a fun day of play and entertainment, food and laughter.

We are organizing a fun 3v3 soccer tournament event to help raise funds that will continue the relief efforts. The games will be 25 minutes each, with 12 minute halves, played on three small-sided fields. Team divisions will be separated by age. All teams are co-ed, youth and adult (parents, fans, coaches, referees) We are limiting the number of teams to 36 due to the number of available fields, so apply early! www.daytonstrongcup.com

We are not asking for team fees to compete, but rather donations for what you feel you can give (suggested fees are $50.00 per team.) We are also accepting sponsorships for individuals and organizations who would like to help but can’t form a team. For those players who have lost everything, we only ask that you have a good time. (checks accepted on Saturday, credit cards will also be accepted)

In addition, June 20th is Warrior Soccer Club night at the Crew Stadium in Columbus. We have purchased four tickets to the Columbus Crew vs Montreal Impact match at 7:30pm. Each player on a competing team is eligible to win. Players who are able to travel to the game can place their name in a hat and the winning names will be drawn prior to the 1:00pm game.

The Dayton, Ohio area is home to TourneyCentral and the soccer and business community here has been very good to us the past twenty years. For us here at TourneyCentral, this is very personal. We hope to raise funds to help, but more importantly, we hope to raise spirits.

We hope that by bringing the community together, we reaffirm to each other that we are all in this together; that what affects you, affects me. We hope you meet others throughout the day and take the time to share in each other’s story.

Gerard and Chris

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Chris Bess, Event Director
mighty.pixel@gmail.com

REGISTER A TEAM:
To register a team, apply at www.daytonstrongcup.com

DATE/TIMES: 
July 20, 2019. Games start at 8am and are scheduled through 2pm (finish up at about 2:30pm)

LOCATION:
Warrior Soccer Complex
4110 Fishburg Road Dayton OH 45424

SOCIAL HASHTAG: 
#DaytonStrongCup  Use it widely across all your social channels. Photos will also be taken throughout the event and posted.

TSHIRTS:
Event tshirts are pre-order only for participating teams on www.daytonstrongcup.com $15/per

COST:
Donation requested, suggested minimum; $50/team

FUNDS RAISED:
Funds raised will be donated to the Miami Valley Community Action Partnership

Soccer tournaments are going mobile. Parents and coaches are able to get scores and standings on their phones in real time from the fields to their phones rapidly, post photos and videos from the touchlines. Everything is wonderful!

Eh, maybe.

While the number of teams, parents and fans checking for scores at the sites have remained relatively stable, the way we use the internet has changed. Every tablet and phone is competing with every other tablet and phone for a channel from the cell tower. More streaming services are available, more real-time social media features, larger files and less low-data like checking websites and apps is being done. It’s the equivalent of a Walmart on Black Friday where they only have a few televisions and hundreds of customers busting down the doors to get in. Every wireless device that is being used at the fields is competing with your HQ team for wireless internet access.

Bored siblings are playing internet games on their iPads on the touchline. Parents are streaming the latest episode of After Life as they wait for the referee to blow the whistle to start the game. The cell tower infrastructure at the parks that was designed for casual weather checks and texting for a few dozen people while feeding the ducks or strolling around the lake now has to accommodate a few hundred or thousand parents, players and their fans, all looking down at their screens. It also needs to provide the tournament staff access to their website admin modules.

While wireless providers are promising unlimited data plans, they have generally not upgraded cell tower access on their public park locations. Moreover, “value” providers like Boost Mobile and some pre-paid plans are allowed by law to access the cell towers as a common carrier, while not contributing into upgrade costs. It’s like a soccer tournament adding three more fields, 20 more teams and not planning for extra port-a-johns. Things are gonna get a bit messy and long lines will form.

How cell towers work
This is very simplified because the real technical stuff is quite complicated. But for our purposes here, this will provide a basic understanding so you can make logistical decisions.
While it may appear that cell service is freely available to anyone who wants to grab a signal out of the air, the technical reality is far from that myth. A cell tower — while an amazing bit of technology — is a hardware device that has hardware limitations.

Again, not comprehensive, but essentially each cell tower has a limited number of channel pairs, one for incoming and one for outgoing. You need both for internet data and voice to work otherwise, your cell phone would just be a megaphone. If the tower has a free pair, it links up with your device and you can make a call, visit a website, etc. If there are no free pairs at the one tower, your device goes looking for another. In sparsely populated areas like suburban parks, there may only be one the services miles. In normal day-to-day life, that may be more than enough to service the park. If there are no channel pairs, you get a spinning icon as your device waits for one to open up.

The exact number of channels available depends on the technology the cell tower uses (LTE, 4G, 3G, 2G… 5G coming) and wireless providers upgrade these on a schedule that is basically dictated by prevailing laws, community tax-base, market value… whatever it is, but suffice to say that if you are an affluent market and your local government is active and strong, you’ll get better service. Fair? Probably not, but reality.

With some exceptions, the type of communication that gets through, in order of priority are: 911 calls, SMS/text, voice and finally, data. By law, 911 calls will (should?) always get through and the tower will bump off traffic to connect. (As an aside, you should always equip field marshals and your emergency staff with radios. Do not rely on cell phones.)

Again, this is by no means a comprehensive technical description of how cell towers works, but the important thing to remember is cell towers have a limited number of channel pairs. And every kid you see playing an internet-based game on their iPad or every parent live-streaming Netflix or doing a FBLive of their kids game, they are basically holding a channel pair hostage. When these fill up, the only thing that will knock them off is a 911 call. With no channel pairs left, even your tournament HQ will not be able to log in and update scores, even as the servers hosting your website are sitting with dedicated resources.

But I have five bars!
That means little other than your device has the potential for a strong signal. If there are no data channel pairs left because several hundred parents are all video-streaming their kids to Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Snapchat or TikTok they are hogging the channel pair you need to update scores. First on gets the channel pair. Unlike regular HTTP web traffic which is a quick millisecond on and off, these live-streaming apps must keep a constant connection. The “bars” you see on your phone are basically Apple, Android-manufacturers and cell service providers’ marketing gimmicks for users to believe it is not their phones or data providers that are the problem; it must be the website servers. It is not.

But I can Google and go to Amazon
Yup. Remember the Net Neutrality fight in 2017? The larger providers are paying the data providers for priority access. As important as your soccer tournament is to you is as unimportant as it is to them. While I have no hard data on it, I suspect that if a user hits Google or Amazon.com, some random parent three fields over will get knocked off their cell tower signal. Since we have all been conditioned to accept cell signals are spotty, nobody will figure that out.

But I logged into the website at home and still could not get through
Possible. Are you using the same device as you used in the field? Your OS may still be cached, trying to use the same path to get to the website. Log out, clear your temp files, refresh your DHCP lease and then log in. Some OSs are so sticky that you may need to restart the device, reconnect to your WiFi and log in again. Also, if your home is close to the fields and you are trying to use your wireless device, you may be trying the same cell tower the rest of the parents are. Make sure you are connecting using a cable or DSL modem.

What we do at Tourneycentral
We’re always revamping our code to be as skinny as possible, to make as few calls as possible to the database and serve up as few graphics on a page load as we can. The days before the tournament weekend, we ramp up server resources like RAM and CPUs to handle the increased load. We monitor server traffic and balance the load, especially on Sunday mornings when there is an increased interest in the final pool play scores. We watch the scores coming in and make sure that team are advanced quickly and that anyone who wants to get a score can get a score. (If we don’t see scores, we’ll probably be calling you….) We especially watch for bots scraping everything or hackers attempting a DDoS attacks and rabidly block these IP addresses at the firewall.

In short, we don’t clock out on Friday night and check back in on Monday. We’re watching everything from dashboards and terminal windows throughout the tournament weekend.

Our advice
Your soccer tournament is an event, like Lollapalooza, Bonoroo, Coachella… maybe not as big, but like these festivals, part of the planning now includes ubiquitous internet access. Your attendees expect it and you need it to administer your event. You can’t ignore it, just like you can’t ignore planning your port-a-johns. Internet is not some magic that gets pulled out of the air; it is a series of hardware and software bits that have limits.

Even if you have your own wireless device or use your cell phone as a hotspot, you are still relying on the cell towers hundreds/thousands are using to get a signal out to your website admin. You want to remove that bottleneck.

Get a dedicated DSL or cable router access from your local provider for the HQ tent. If you create a WiFi zone for your staff from this connection, make sure it is password-protected and not shared with anyone except your scorekeepers. You need a path into your admin area. It is worth the extra money.

Position the scorekeeper off-site, in a facility with a hard wired router that is not part of the same wireless cell tower that is being inundated by traffic at the site. Usually voice and text messages can get through, even as the data channels are being bombarded by traffic. This could be a volunteer or tournament staff member sitting in their home, on their own internet network. Call in the scores.

Lastly, if you can, make a deal with your local wireless provider to get a C.O.W (Cell On Wheels) unit positioned at the park to handle the increased load. These are a bit expensive, several thousand dollars for one unit for one weekend and should be planned well in advance of your event. You may be able to strike an in-kind deal with a local provider. If you get a C.O.W, make sure that your provider limits it to your TourneyCentral website (we can help with IP addresses if needed.) Every other bit of traffic like to Facebook or Twitter can be handled by the cell tower infrastructure.

And follow up with your local government officials, let them know your tournament is a vital part of their community and contributes to the economic impact for local businesses using your Tournament PulsePoint™ Show them that internet at the parks is not just something “nice to have,” but a critical measure in ensuring your tournament — and their community — remains a desirable place to spend a weekend.

This pin is my most valued treasure from the United Soccer Coaches Convention, held in Chicago this past weekend (January 10-13) and they were just giving them away!

It strikes me that what one person sees as a cheap trinket, others see as valuable artifacts, validation of an experience. Trophies and medals at tournaments should be seen from the other side, as how the teams see yours.

It’s not about the SIZE of the trophy or medal, but the experience it represents. These pins probably cost pennies, but this one here for me — it’s priceless and irreplaceable.

TourneyCentral will be at the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Chicago, booth #829

We will have gifts! Stop by and say hi.

So you want a tournament app. Here’s what you need to know.

Maybe you want a tournament app for your soccer tournament. Here’s what we learned about event apps by using the 2018 United Soccer Coaches Convention app.

If you attended the convention, did you know the #PHIL18 had an app? Did you use it? If you did, we’d really like to know how. (find Gerard McLean on the app PHL18 and ping me. I’ll even send you a free thing. Don’t try to get the free thing without sending me a message on the app… that would be cheating. Also, my supply is really limited, so only the first five or so.)

We used the app; in fact, we gamified it a bit (just a little; keep reading to see why we didn’t go all out.) But by doing so, we also learned a bit about how a captive audience uses event apps and how you can use what we learned with your own soccer tournament event app.

But first, read our position on making a soccer tournament app. Here and here. (If you remain unpersuaded, here.)

Here are the quick take-aways:

1. Photo postings are hot
2. Photos with dogs and soccer balls are even hotter!
3. Postings with promises of free cookies will lead to meeting interesting people
4. Before your event, there will be a ton of engagement
5. Nobody likes a team that runs up the score
6. Don’t let your host teams hog the spotlight
7. Boring stories are… well, boring
8. After the event, (and during the event, too!) nobody cares about your app

More detail about each one (and how we know them to be true)

Photo postings are hot
Maybe it was because postings with photos got more points or maybe we are now firmly in the Instagram age where people feel more comfortable, but posting with photos and short captions got the mosts likes and responses. Disclaimer: See boring stories below, though. Not all photos are created equal.

Photos with dogs and soccer balls are even hotter!
Evidence…

The main takeaway here is that your photos don’t need to be at or of the event you are attending, but they do need to be connected somehow with the experience. Branch out a little, include a personal detail and how what you are experiencing at the event is linked to you. For me, it was my dog, Charlie and his favorite soccer ball…. or what used to be a soccer ball.

Postings with promises of free cookies will lead to meeting interesting people
Seriously, do I even have to say it? People who were at the show and saw our posting in real time showed up; we had cookies and we chatted. No agenda, just sharing free cookies. The cookies did not last long.

If this photo made you hungry and you need to tear the pantry apart looking for cookies, we can pause… hurry back.

It is not about the cookies as much as it is about doing something a bit different than what everyone else was doing. Everyone else was posting up photos of their Philly cheesesteak or their crew in front of the booth. When I think of Philly, I think Sarcone’s Bakery and their cookies by the pound that I buy way too much of. I also had no agenda; I was not using the cookies to hook you into a conversation at my booth. I just wanted to share the cookies.

Before your event, there will be a ton of engagement
The before crowd is excited to attend the event. When there are not thousands of people all either vying for your attention or aggressively avoiding you, it’s easy to engage on the app at a comfortable pace. People registered, booked a hotel, saw themselves at the conference and “Oooooooooo, they have an app!” They downloaded it, put in a few photos and say something like, “Looking forward to attending/exhibiting/whatever at the conference in Philly #PHL18” They make a few friends on the app who are also excited to be at the conference and stuff their timelines with photos and updates.

Then the conference starts and crickets. The real work of attending workshops, manning the booth, collecting leads, following up, doing lunch, attending award shows and finally crashing exhausted on the hotel bed, get up, do it again tomorrow….. while they may update their own Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn,* posting to the conference app falls off the to-do list.

*These people with other social media accounts are micro-influencers. While they may not share their experiences with you on your app, they are saying something on their own channels to their own audience. If you can get them to use your hashtag in their accounts, call that a win.

Nobody likes a team that runs up the score
Everybody at a soccer tournament has played against that one team at some point. They run up the score, cheering themselves on about what a great job they are doing, oblivious to the humiliation they are causing the other team as well as the branding they get as poor sports. While they see themselves as successful, the other team (and anyone else serious about soccer) looks at the scores and sees a bad winner instead of a strong scoring team.

The same thing applies to the leaderboard or timeline of an event app. There will always be that one person or company that runs up the score by posting non-stop about everything. They believe that life (or sales if they are a vendor) is a numbers games and the more they post, the more they will be seen and remembered.

And they are right, we do remember them, but not in a good way. We see them as annoying jerks who have highjacked our timelines, gamified the leaderboard and forgot that “winning” at a conference wasn’t about the numbers… it was about the people, the engagement. Same, too, with a soccer tournament. Sure, you need to win the games to win a trophy, but winning by crushing everyone just because you can is really not a win; it’s just getting a trophy. It makes you a bad guest.

Don’t let your host teams hog the spotlight
I call this “The Privilege of the Ruling Class” because the insiders use their leverage to get free stuff. We’ve all seen this at events where the players of the host teams march past the concessions line into the HQ tent for snacks and food or the head coach of a host team hangs out in the HQ tent with their players. Maybe they get free rides to their games on a golf cart instead of walking. Maybe they get better seeding than your team.

You know how that feels, especially when you know they are competing for the same trophy as you are. And you paid to be there; they most likely didn’t. It just creates bad feelings all around, like your team has to try twice as hard to just compete.

I was legitimately sharing photos and commenting on postings throughout the day, knowing full well that the #PHL18 convention staff would be logging on in the mornings and evening, commenting and posting, bumping me down on the leaderboard and running up the score. They had the advantage; they were that host team. If I was not engaging as a social experiment, I would have been demoralized. Now, I just have data.

Boring stories are… well, boring
Posting a photo or a company pitch is not a story. Your entire crew standing in front of your booth is not a story. A photo of your Philly cheesesteak when you are in Philadelphia is not a story. A story about a convention being held in a convention center is not a story. These are boring, boring, boring.

Instead, tell us how you arrived at the convention. Give us a story about the quest you embarked upon to procure a special cheesesteak at an out-of-the-way joint you got a hot tip about. Or maybe you ate lunch at a hole-in-the-wall place that had really good Italian food. Who are you? Why are you here? Tell a story in pictures and captions with a beginning, middle and end (or a middle, beginning and end OR even start at the end, go back to the beginning and fill in the middle)

After the event, nobody cares about your app
Maybe “nobody” is a little harsh, but it’s so close to true that we can assume it to be true. So should you. A soccer event has what we have termed, a 90 minute attention span. So do conferences. So do most events.

Our advice:

You should put more energy into your social media platforms, converting micro-influencers to engage with their own content within their own platforms, rather than trying to capture them onto your tournament app platform.

People want your soccer tournament to fit into their lives, not your event into theirs. They already have micro-networks of their own with their friends, family and teammates. They will not share your photo with their networks, nor will they allow you to inject into theirs… unless they give you permission.

They may download your tournament app, they may not, but you will expend a lot of marketing energy trying to get them to. Even if you get a majority of folks to download your tournament app, unless you get 100% of the attendees, you will not reach them on the app without also reaching them on your website (which is also mobile) You are just causing more work for yourself when you need less to be doing during the tournament.

Permission comes in the form of a hashtag, a photo or video share, a mention, a location tag. And it is really hard to get. Like, insanely hard. Be grateful for every single one, even if the numbers are low. For each “share,” remember there are dozens — if not hundreds — of “views” behind it.

Don’t be grabby or needy with attention.

Bottom line, you are now late to the mobile app game. Everyone attending your event already has the top mobile apps downloaded to their phones; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn…maybe SnapChat, though that has fallen off the radar of late. Your website loads just fine, your site is mobile and they can get scores and standings on their phones already without an app. The photo they care about are photos they take themselves or get on their friends’ Facebook and Instagram timelines or through iMessage (really, the soccer market is 87% iPhone.)

Learn to work with where your audience is instead of trying to drag them off to another platform you wish they had. While it may be your most enthusiast users will download your app, they will be a small minority of your total audience. Speak to them but don’t lose sight of the larger picture.

Learn from our attendance at the United Soccer Coaches Conference. Or, better yet, come out to the one in 2019 in Chicago!

See you there. We’ll probably search for you on their app.