It’s almost as cool as real gold. Get your free 2015 challenge coin by visiting our booth at the NSCAA.
Booth 307 — sharing with Premier Athletic Advertising — so check out their calendar of tournaments for your team while you are there.
And ask about TourneyCentral, of course. They use our software for many of their soccer tournament events.
See you at the NSCAA next weekend.
Every so often, we get approached by a tournament who wants to have teams sign up to get scores as text messages on their phones. While tournaments have the ability to send text messages out to teams using the Team Apps Module, that feature is rapidly deteriorating.
Here’s why.
Texting (SMS) using a web browser is just really an email trick, one that the cell phone companies would really we rather not do and are making it more difficult with each passing year. In order for texting by the web to work, we need not only the cell phone number but the provider. This is something the team provides upon application if they want to get text messages from the tournament.
Therein lies the rub. Brands have misused trust so much that nobody wants them to be part of their inner text messaging circle. Or — more accurately — to NOT text them. For better or worse, your soccer tournament is seen as a brand.
But this is TourneyCentral so we have a solution, one that is more in-line with where texting is going long-term.
By this time next year, texting will be dead and messaging will have taken its place. It’s a subtle distinction but messaging allows the user to control the messages locally and not rely on a service to “take them off the list.” When the user no longer wants to hear from you, *poof* you’re gone.
One popular messaging service is Twitter. Twitter is versatile enough so that even teams who don’t want to sign up for the service can still get “text” messages from you.
Our advice: The first step is to set up a twitter account for your tournament. People with twitter accounts can follow and get either notifications or text messages when you tweet. People without twitter and don’t want twitter can text to 40404 and put FOLLOW yourevent in the message. (UNFOLLOW yourevent when they want you to go away)
When you update your scores, there is a Tweet button on your confirmation screen. You have to be signed in and this will compose a tweet that you can then send to anyone following you, with a link to your mobile web app.
– Market your twitter follow (or 40404) to the teams.
– Tweet your scores as they are updated
– Tweet anything like DEALS or weather
– If you want to get gutsy, tweet photos using your phone (or Vine)
Check out our blog in more depth. We’re all over social media for soccer tournaments. Here and here for some specific ideas.
Readers of the touchline are quite familiar with our advocacy of using social media for soccer tournaments. I love the electric energy that comes with our events pushing the social media envelope, and @NASABuckeyeCup and @StrawberrySoccr are killing it!
Buckeye Cup
Along with updating scores on twitter as they were updated on the website, the Buckeye Cup also promoted their vendors on site. Take a minute to scroll through their twitter timeline, but the coolest thing I woke up to on Sunday morning was a pancake vendor. A pancake vendor!
All you can "catch" pancakes for only $5! You've never seen anything like this…flying pancakes! pic.twitter.com/06A9oCfVaM
— NASA News (@NASABuckeyeCup) May 4, 2014
The Buckeye Cup also linked its twitter account to its Facebook page so updates to twitter were also posted there, giving participants a choice on how to follow the real-time action.
Strawberry Soccer Invitational
I have to admit, when I first saw this technique, I was very impressed at the ingenuity. The hack was so clever that I had to go poking around to see how Dave pulled this off. We’ll probably even build in support for the javascript so it doesn’t have to load for each post.
When the Strawberry posts a Facebook post, they grab the code to share it and post as a news story on their front page. That way, they can share the photos and post in many venues and they cycle in and out based on the dates of the news story.
Here is what a sample looks like on the front page. You can check out the entire front page on the Strawberry Soccer website.
These are just some social media examples for soccer tournaments that we hope will spark your imagination. We can’t wait to be surprised by what else you will do with your event.
A picture is worth a thousand words. That statement is at the core of what Instagram is. Instagram is one of the quickest ways to share a photo or moment across multiple social media platforms.
It’s easy too. For the most part you take a picture, add a caption, then share.
this guide will step your through using Instagram for soccer tournaments. Currently Instagram can only be setup through your mobile device, which is ok because you use your photo to upload photos into your profile.
Step one: Download Instagram to your phone from either iTunes or Android store
Step two:
Here is where you have a choice. You have the option of signing up with your tournament’s Facebook page, or with email. (I suggest using a tournament gmail.com that you have set up instead of clicking the sign up with Facebook button. It is easier to know where your gmail is reaching out to and how things are connected instead of using a secondary social media tool to connect to a third-party app.)
Step three: Enter a user name and password. I would suggest using the same handle as your Twitter account to keep a sense of continuity throughout your social media presence. (If you chose sign up with Facebook account, this is where you will enter you Facebook user name and password.) When you press next, it will ask for your full name and mobile number, both of which are optional. These might make sense for a single person wanting all of their friends to find them according to their phone number, but it really doesn’t make sense for a tournament.
Step four:
Editing your profile. This is a standard short profile. I suggest using the same content from your Twitter profile for Instagram. Once you have finished your profile, you are almost ready for some awesome Instagramming.
Last step: Here is where Instagram becomes important. It can post to your Twitter and Facebook automatically. In your Settings > Share Settings you will find the ability to link to Facebook and Twitter. Just click on each and it directs you to a page that will ask you to connect the two services. Click ok and every time you take an image, you will be able to click on which services you would like to share the image with. The image also saves to your mobile device.
Instagram is really that simple. There are a few key things to remember about sharing photos on Instagram:
Always use a caption to describe what is happening. You aren’t there to be “artsy”, you are there to build content and experience about your tournament.
Hashtags are important. They are the easiest way for people searching topics to find your photos. #soccer #soccertournament and #yourtournamentname are always good hashtags. If you are featuring your sponsor, you may want to use #sponsorname as well. Try to limit the number of #hashtags to two.
You can have more than one person in the organization signed into to your account at a time, but remember the internet moves very quickly. Always know that you can trust the people connected to your social media accounts. Make sure they verify the accounts they are connected to before sharing content.
What to photograph
Moments. Any moment can make a great photograph. A coach thinking about the next play. A player eating pizza at your registration. A volunteer helping a coach. A referee assignor assigning games. Your scheduler updating scores.
When choosing what the photograph, try to capture the spirit of your event. Showing people having fun doing the most mundane things can give your event a sense of whimsy. Or, if your event is more competitive, show the struggle of putting together the perfect schedule, the perfect event.
Don’t forget your sponsors. If you have sponsors at the field, make sure you take lots of photos with their logo shown in the background. Encourage your guest or host teams to photograph themselves at the sponsors place of business. It may be a small gesture, but your eagerness to capture them in your official “record” of photos could mean the difference between a “yes” or a “no” for a sponsorship next year.
Be creative and have fun with photos. But also have a policy and release for kids, especially those under 13. Know the laws and err on the side of caution*.
*This is not legal advice. You should consult your legal counsel.
Partnering with a non-profit organization is a great way to connect with your community. However it can get challenging.
When working with a non-profit, know what will truly help their cause. Listen carefully, as most will not assert themselves aggressively. For example, collecting canned goods for a food pantry might seem to be helpful, but finding transportation and distribution for the goods could become more of a hassle (and more costly!) than a cash donation to the organization. Most non-profit organizations could use donations more efficiently than the tangible items that are donated at the fields.
While it is up to you to determine how best to partner with a non-profit, once you have crafted a relationship, TourneyCentral has a lot of tools to help you push your message out. (An example of these features can be seen on the MASC tournament site. They partnered with the Butler County Special Olympics for their 2014 event. Check out what the MASC is doing!)
Our advice:
1. Use DEALS. You can add to five non-profit, community-based organizations like Special Olympics, parks dept, museums, etc., that do not involve ad placement or in-kind donations free of charge. They would appear under the DEALS and in the sponsors just as your paid placement woudld. You can rank them so that they always appear at the top of the list.
This includes as much content as they want to provide, including a deal, link to their donation page, a flyer (downloadable pdf), a video, twitter, and facebook.
2. Include news stories on the front page. Our latest software update allows you to make one story sticky, i.e., always appear at the top. The news story can include photos and a video as well.
3. Use the broadcast tool to send out a special email to the teams that only include the charity..this can be a rich HTML email (we can help with that…)
4. Use your twitter, facebook, vine, Instagram and Google Plus accounts. Promote, promote, promote. Be generous.(Start here if you are new to social media.)
Regardless of how your program shapes up, do something cool enough for us to write about (like the MASC) and keep us in the loop. We love bragging about our TourneyCentral soccer tournament events.
Advice on this article offered by Scott Sliver. Scott Sliver (Sly-ver) is Executive Director of The Hope Foundation of Greater Dayton. On twitter, he is @hope4dayton or @scottsliver and by email scott@hope4dayton.com.