Twitter is a service that you can use to fire out quick updates or messages to your followers. This makes it a great tool for youth soccer tournaments and tournament directors because they can immediately announce game scores, special promotions or upcoming events on their smart phones, computers or via text messaging.
Here’s how to set up your Twitter soccer tournament account:
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Facebook is becoming the de facto place to organize event information and share content within a circle of friends. While it will never rival the specialization of a soccer tournament website like TourneyCentral for registration, scheduling and scores, it makes sense that your soccer tournament is available on Facebook for your teams and their fans to find and connect up with you there if that is more convenient for them. It is an additional marketing channel you should not ignore.
However, you should always make sure the hub of your event is your tournament website. You publish content to your Facebook page in order to draw fans to your tournament site to support your sponsors, advertisers and centralize your communications to the teams to avoid confusion.
This post will walk you step-by-step through setting up a Facebook Fan Page to reach soccer coaches and teams to get them interested and keep them engaged in your youth soccer tournament.
Here’s how to set up your Facebook Fan Page:
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Social media is a huge cloud of things like blogging, tweets, likes and status updates so it is easy to become overwhelmed and do nothing.
But you need to roll up your sleeves get in there. We’ll help you along the way with this “social media for soccer tournaments” series.*
Social media is becoming integrated into the online experience for most people, so if you have not learned to navigate these waters, you may be risking the reach of your tournament. Social media channels can help you reach coaches and teams where they live and help you keep them updated and interested in your event.
Do not assume Facebook and Twitter are for kids. The largest and fastest growing demographic for Facebook and Twitter is age 35-55. That means a player’s mom, dad or coach is more likely to “like” you on Facebook or “follow” you on Twitter. While most kids over 13 yrs old will have a Facebook account, they connect with their friends, not with brands. If they happen to take a cool photo at your tournament, they may or may not post it. But if they do post it, they will post on their profile, not your tournament page. It’s nothing personal; just how kids use Facebook. Their parents on the other hand, may be more likely to interact on your Facebook page.
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Soccer tournament directors are aware of the ways that tournaments reward teams who place in their event. This is a story of one recent tournament where one small detail really damaged the reputation of an otherwise fine event.
A team of U13 boys played very well in a third-place game and beat a team they had lost to quite soundly the week before. The tournament was giving out water bottles as a third-place trophy.
It was not long after the presentation that one of the boys walked up to his coach and said, “Hey coach, look at this.” On the water bottle, the words, “BELIEVE, ACHEIVE,” appeared wrapped around the tournament logo.
Only the the word “ACHIEVE” is spelled incorrectly.
While the coach was proud that his players had paid attention to their spelling lessons in school, he was amazed and embarrassed for the tournament organizers. It was all anybody could talk about.
A few weeks later, the tournament sent t-shirts to the boys as a replacement.
Our Advice: Work with a trusted vendor. Somewhere along the line, a busy tournament volunteer rubber-stamped the artwork for the water bottle without taking a real look at it. Bad enough, but a true vendor partner would have questioned the artwork regardless of the approval signature. The mistake was more costly than just the price of the water bottle and the replacement t-shirts. It became the stamp of the tournament.
The vendor should have picked up the phone.
The vendor should have picked up the phone.
The photograph above was taken at the Hershey Soccer Club meeting on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.
This donation was a result of the 2010 Hershey Invitational Charity Soccer Tournament played on June 19-20, 2010. The tournament raised $16,000 for the Special Olympics Area M and also $16,000 for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps. The Hershey Invitational is organized and run by Kicks 4 Kids Charity Soccer Tournaments. To date, Kicks 4 Kids has raised $177,618 for organizations that serve disadvantaged youth.
The 2011 Hershey Invitational will be played on the weekend of June 18-19, and will benefit the Special Olympics Area M and Ronald McDonald House of Hershey. The tournament is expected to host 230 teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.
There will be a special place in heaven for youth soccer tournament directors. These largely volunteer people give countless hours of their free time to help raise funds for their club and give kids a chance to play competitive soccer. They have to convince teams to play, armies of volunteers to work and sponsors to participate. There is no doubt that, at least on some level, tournament directors love the game of soccer.
But running a successful tournament needs more than just enthusiasm and “want to”. It requires the ability to remove yourself from the emotions and personalities and make real business decisions. Teams that sign up to play and the fans that follow them are real customers. Sponsors that support your event, even the ones who do it for good will purposes, are real business partners.
Our Advice: It’s time to realize that you are not in the Soccer Business. You are in the Event Management Business that happens to feature a youth soccer tournament. Highly successful events take a good hard look at every aspect of their event and make educated business decisions on what they should do, and what they should not. Those who leave things to chance, well, they leave things to chance. Being a volunteer does not mean you have to be an amateur.
Newsflash: the NCAA Basketball Tournament starts this week. March Madness has become a stamp on the brains of the American public. Millions of people are busy filling out their brackets for their office pools and the bracket sheet will be their best friend for the next three weeks. On first glance, youth soccer tournaments don’t have much in common with this huge event. But if you look closer, there is much that soccer tournament directors can learn.
March Madness is all about Bracketology. The NCAA found magic in a bottle with their tournament bracket sheet, and has it the front and center of everything they do. The fact is that due to the over-exposure on TV and loss of talent to the NBA, interest in the college basketball season has waned. But the interest in March Madness has never been higher, because it goes beyond hard core sports fans. It all works because the NCAA figured out what it does well and spends all of its time talking about it.
Our Advice: Figure out what your youth soccer tournament does well and what you want to be known for. If it’s about your schedule, make it about your schedule. If it’s about your facilities, make it about the facilities. If it’s about the food, make it about the food. By focusing on your strengths and sharing them with your guests, you create an atmosphere that people want to be part of. The feeling that your tournament is “The place to be” starts with you, infects your volunteers and reflects on teams, sponsors, parents, grandparents and fans. Your own Mini-Madness will have them showing up and coming back year after year.
I was poking around the other day, checking out popular soccer tournament calendars and I clicked on the one that is usually listed in the number one spot on a Google search for Soccer Tournaments. This came up and was there for several days.
In the world of on-line soccer tournament management systems, you get what you pay for. There are services available for tournament directors that come at no cost. One of the most common goals of any youth soccer tournament is to make as much money as possible for the host club. This tempts some to use free services or to depend on a guy in the club who can, “do websites.”
Peak times, like Sunday afternoons, are when you find out that cheap and free are really damaging and costly. That’s when everybody, including the guy in the club who is now watching his kids play, wants up-to-date scores and schedules. You may have saved a few bucks or reduced your entry fee, but the cost to your image and your tournament’s legacy can be devastating.
Our Advice: A website is no longer just “something over there for the tech guys.” It IS the event.
Work with a tournament web site host who has the bandwidth, the experience and the people who are willing to monitor your website for maximum performance, during the tournament, before and after. Your soccer tournament now is a 365 day a year, 24 hours a day, 7 day a week event. You want to work with someone who also understands that. Preferably someone you can email or call to solve problems as quickly as they arise.
Free and cheap rarely gets you that.
Simple, readable maps go a long way toward getting your teams where they need to go with a minimum of confusion. On a soccer tournament web site, a readable layout with clearly marked field numbers is a must.
The graphic below shows an example of an unfriendly versus friendly layout.
Web-Unfriendly
Web-Friendly
Most of the time, your maps will come from a parks department or a graphic designer who has designed them to be great for printing in a program, but almost entirely unreadable on a web site. Make sure to specify that you need the maps to work across ALL media — online and in print. If need be, be ready to re-work them with large field numbers however you can if your graphics people can’t. Even if that means white sticky dots and a Sharpie.
Keep your field maps simple and readable. Big field numbers first, secondary information only if there is room. You can always have more detailed maps posted at the fields.
If you are like me, you’re probably getting a bit tired of hearing from or about Charlie Sheen. But hear me out on this one little thing. I promise, there is a good take-away.
Last night, Charlie decided he was going to take his message directly to the people with a live show streamed onto the Internet. You can watch it if you have an hour to kill. I’ve included a screen shot below to illustrate everything that was wrong with the show.
The lighting was bad. The sound bounced hard all over the room. Nobody was mic-ed. The cameras were positioned too low, Charlie did not get proper cues on which camera was live so he was frequently looking into the wrong one. The background was busy. The titles at the bottom covered the action. There were too many “branding” phrases thrown out. I could go on and on. There were a lot of things wrong with the show technically as well as contextually.
There is a reason there is a long list of people who get credit at the end of TV shows. I’m not taking anything away from Charlie Sheen’s talent and he brings a lot to shows like Two and a Half Men and Spin City. But when celebrities begin to think that they alone are responsible for their own fame and attempt to produce their own content, the public quickly finds out how very wrong they are.
Our Advice: Your tournament is run by a team, not just the tournament director. Your event may very well have a talented, dedicated leader and a team that is willing to give them all the credit. That is a good thing. But once the tournament director starts believing his/her own press, your event is headed for trouble.
You could argue that Charlie’s show was “real” and “genuine” or that your tournament is “fun” and “like family.” You would be wrong. What you see as fun, loose and ‘like being with family,’ your paying teams see as messy, unorganized and apathetic. It takes a lot of work (and acting skill) to appear nonchalant. The character of Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men) can pull it off. Charlie Sheen? Not so much.
Recognize and appreciate your team and their skills in their specialized area, from your sales team to your scheduling team to your website crew. Never think yourself bigger than the sum of them.
They made you great. Never underestimate their power to unmake you. Or — just like Charlie Sheen is doing before our eyes — you unmaking yourself.
There is no getting around it, running a youth soccer tournament is a lot of work. Even the most organized tournament directors with the best clubs and best software tools take on a huge responsibility. In the end, the hard work is balanced out by the rewards of seeing kids enjoying the game and putting a nice amount of money in the club’s accounts and the local economy. Everybody wants to be considered successful. When it comes to success, an old saying comes to mind, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A well thought out and executed communication plan, starting at the time of registration and acceptance, can help save headaches later, when you should be concentrating on something else.
Never assume that coaches who are accepted into your soccer tournament automatically know what the next step is. It is as simple as this: tell them what to do and when to do it. Starting with your acceptance letter, include a timeline or checklist of any items that need to be completed prior to the tourney. Be clear about the dates and if there is any further information or payment needed. Make sure that you also comply by sticking to stated dates.
Anticipate questions and make sure that your tournament website includes the answers. Push as much of the information and communication needs onto your website as possible. It is helpful if your soccer tournament website is more than just a static recruiting tool. A complete, end-to-end soccer tournament management system, like those offered by TourneyCentral, is well worth the investment. Cheap and free systems always have limitations which are more costly in the end.
This may seem like a lot of upfront work, but you’ll be thankful as your tournament dates get closer. It brings to mind another old saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”
The Grand Rapids Crew Juniors 2nd Annual Crew Spring Classic soccer tournament will be held on April 15-17th, 2011 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The tournament is open to U08-U10, U11-U12, and U13 youth teams. Based on the success of last year’s first annual Crew Spring Classic, interest from youth soccer teams around the region is high and space is limited. Registration for the event closes on March 28, 2011.
The main site for the Crew Classic is the state-of-the-art MVP Fieldhouse. There is an additional site in Kentwood, only a ten-minute drive from the main site. Because weather is always a concern in April, all games will be played on turf to maintain field conditions and limit delays. Staying on the turf limits the number of openings so make sure to register soon and be as detailed as possible on your team application. Fees run between $475 and $525 per team.
Use Travelling Teams, the exclusive hotel partner for the Crew Spring Classic, to book your hotel rooms. Travelling Teams offers great rates at a variety of hotels all located near MVP. MVP is located on 28th Street in Grand Rapids, which offers many attractions, restaurants, and two malls to keep you entertained between games.
The Grand Rapids Crew Juniors are looking forward to hosting your team in 2011. Information on registration, travel, lodging, scheduling, scores and things to do when you are in town are included on the tournament website.
What will be your legacy as a soccer tournament? Why are you doing all this? Will players and their fans still talk about your event long after they have left town?
For many soccer tournaments, the immediate goal is to make money for the club or the league. That has to be done for the tournament to continue year after year. But beyond making money, think about how your event is leaving a legacy for each soccer player who participates, each coach who brings their team to play another and each parent who spends the weekend with their kid in the company of other kids and parents. Think about how your tournament shapes your community and contributes to its legacy.
Will your tournament be the subject of a story around the Thanksgiving table that starts out as, “Remember when we went to …” and ends with uncontrollable fits of laughter, followed by knowing glances and wistful sighs?
Our advice: Think about the intangibles about twice as much as you think about the operational parts of your tournament. These things include fair play, good referees, short lines at the concession stand, quality hotels, fun things to do between games, good communication with coaches, friendly field marshals and cheerful volunteers. Update scores as fast as you can. Make sure your maps are clear and correct. Never assume everyone knows what “you are here” means. And perform random acts of kindness, no matter how tired you are or how late it is.
Tell compelling, positive stories about your tournament and the players, coaches and families to anyone who will listen. Share them on your website or blog.
Stay humble and never forget the teams who are playing at your tournament are your guests who chose to come to your event among a large and growing market.
These are the things that create a soccer tournament legacy worth passing on.
This blog post is part of a blog-off series with a group of bloggers from different professions and world views, each exploring a theme from his/her world view. This was about “answering the question, “What is legacy?”” To explore how others handled the theme, check them out below. I will add links as they publish.
Most people would say that bringing hundreds of youth soccer teams and their families to your town for a weekend youth soccer tournament would be good for the local economy.
But how good is it?
Knowing the answer to that question could really make things easier for tournament directors who are trying to schedule fields, get sponsors and generally drum up support from the local business community.
Using an integrated, online solution for marketing, scheduling and managing your soccer tournament could provide some of the answers. One example is the Tournament PulsePoint™ tool standard with every TourneyCentral site.
The tool is available to TourneyCentral tournament directors as one of several administrative modules that take the mystery out of running a tournament. Tournament PulsePoint™ uses numbers from the U.S. Soccer Foundation Economic Impact model, economic impact from the National Association of Sport Commissions and marketing data from the U.S. Census Bureau to provide overall economic impact and other marketing data based on the numbers of teams in your tournament and where they come from.
All of the information can be seen on a dashboard style screen including a map with pin marks on the locations of the teams in your tourney.
Youth soccer tournaments mean business; big business for your organization and for hotels, stores and restaurants in your town. The tools are now available to help you manage and market your soccer tournament like the serious business that it is.
Most youth soccer tournaments are run by volunteers who generously dedicate huge chunks of their time, talent and sometimes even their own money because they love the game and love to see kids get a chance to compete on a high level. But a youth soccer tournament represents big business to the clubs that sponsor them and to the business community in host cities.
There is a new resource for directors of these events and all others who want to share their knowledge or perhaps pick up a thing or two. If you have not already done so, join the Soccer Tournaments Mean Business Group on LinkedIn and start to share thoughts and network with other like-minded, dedicated soccer folks.
Social media is picking up momentum as a means of communication for business professionals in all walks of life. LinkedIn is the recognized leader for people who would rather separate their business interests from their other social networking activity on Facebook and Twitter.
Sharing ideas and making contacts with tournament directors from around the world can put your event on the forefront of using the latest and best tools, software and procedures that will make your event more attractive to youth soccer teams and to the sponsors who want their name and business attached to a winner.
The group was started by TourneyCentral, a provider of integrated online solution for youth soccer tournaments, but is open to everyone in the youth soccer tournament world who wants to dial up the professionalism of their event.