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.
It appears FedEx is aware the NSCAA is going on this weekend.
They promoted this short Vine on twitter. You decide.
FROM: Coaches, TO: Refs. Ship it all using FedEx #OneRate, so you can see what's actually happening on the field! https://t.co/xgHzecr8Q1
— FedEx (@FedEx) January 18, 2014
Kinda clever of them.
TourneyCentral is pretty excited to be at the 2014 NSCAA again this year, housed in with the Premier Athletic Advertising folks and their family of tournaments in booth 839.
The show opens this evening, but here is a sneak peek at us getting things ready for you. Stop on by and say hi!
Editor’s note: Vine was killed off by Twitter in 2016. You may want to use Instagram Stories or Snapchat for short video clips instead. We updated The Game Through Glass for Instagram Stories.
Video is hot. Short video bursts are even hotter.
The new attention span for online video is anywhere from :06-:15 seconds thanks to Vine and Instagram. We’ll cover Instagram in the next article, but for now we’ll focus on Vine.
To use Vine, you will need a smartphone or a tablet with a camera and a twitter account. It is app-based so it resides mostly on your phone or tablet. You shoot, edit and post videos with your phone.
First, the technical stuff:
Step one: Sign up for a twitter account if you don’t already have one. It will make thing a lot easier. You should be using twitter anyway.
Step two: Go to the app store on your phone, (iPhone or Android) search for the Vine app and download it.
Step Three: Log into the Vine app with your twitter account.
When you first open the Vine app, it will ask you to log in using Twitter. Select your twitter account and you’ll open up to the main screen. The key icon you are looking for in the camera in the upper right corner. Press on this.
The app will then open to the shooting screen. You can toggle the front and back-facing cameras with the icon in the lower left, but until you get the hang of it, it’s best to just choose one or the other.
To shoot a video, just hold down on the screen. When you lift your finger, the camera will stop, then start again when you touch the screen. It is a bit tricky at first, but you’ll find as you get better at it, you can do all sorts of really cool stop-motion effects.
You can save clips for later, re-order them, etc. as you get better and want to push the app to its limits. the only thing that you can’t control right now is the sound, but Vine might fix that is a later release.
Once you are satisfied with your video, press on the forward arrow, fill out the caption, toggle to Twitter and post. (You can also post to Facebook, but since Facebook is not entirely secure on phones, we just re-post manually from our Twitter feed. The choice is yours.)
What to shoot with video
By far, the hardest part about using video for your soccer tournament is deciding what to shoot or what story to tell. You may think that :06 seconds is not a lot of time, but if you don’t plan your story, it can be an eternity to fill up. As an experiment, shoot a Vine just of you, staring silently into the front camera.
Kinda a long video, isn’t it?
Some ideas:
Once you start getting the ideas flowing, there will be no end to the number of stories you can tell, all at :06 seconds at a time.
Next up: Instagram
The first thing a good real estate agent will tell you to do when listing your house is to paint the front door so it stands out from the rest of the house. A visible, easy-to-find front door says, “Welcome, this is the way in.”
Your tournament website should do the same thing. Unfortunately, many soccer tournament sites are so intent on fancy design, featuring sponsors and whatever else that they forget to paint the front door. A team is left searching around, wondering “How the heck do I apply to this tournament? When is it? WHERE is it?”
I often wonder how many teams just give up and apply somewhere else.
From time to time, we get requests from a tournament director to “jazz up” the front door, to make their tournament look different from everyone else.
“Why,” we ask, “are your applications slowing down? Are teams finding it difficult to apply?”
“To the contrary,” they say. “Applications are consistently up year over year. Your software is easy to use and everyone knows how to apply, get schedules, maps and scores easily.
“So why are you asking us to obscure your front door?”
Our Advice: Simplify. Remember your mission of making it easier to get teams to find you, apply quickly and find game schedules and results easily. On every contact point on a TourneyCentral website, we post the where, when and how much right at the top of the page. The Apply menu option is always on the main menu of every page. Nothing is more than one click away.
Instead of focusing on the next whizz-bang whirly-gig thing to set your tournament apart, focus on your content. Make sure your news is up-to-date and timely. Make sure your schedules are correct and posted as quickly as possible. Update your scores as soon as your can after the game ends. Promote your sponsors and advertisers. Use your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) often and earnestly.
Each of the TourneyCentral tournaments has the same tools. What you do with yours is what will set you apart.
Offered without comment or endorsement except for the very last scene.
Many parents and players are using social media channels these days so why not make it easy for them to keep up with your tournament in real-time? It’s a quick and easy way to let teams and parents know standings, scores, photos, and possible schedule changes. Twitter is a great tool to keep everyone involved in your tournament all weekend long, even after the final games have been played.
The Thunder United Classic used twitter effectively this weekend, specifically doing these four things:
1. Tweeting photos in real time
Opening up the event, the Thunder United Classic hosted a skydiver carrying the American flag onto the fields. They tweeted a few pictures of his landing. Sunday before the finals, they tweeted out pictures of the trophies.
Team Fastrax from Start Skydiving drops in the American flag. pic.twitter.com/gswzEvYoZJ
— Thunder Fall Classic (@TUMFCClassic) August 24, 2013
2. Tweeting score updates as they occur
As new scores arrived, Thunder United Classic wasted no time in tweeting that they were available. They also gave the bracket information in the tweet so the teams knew exactly which ones were available.
Scores! BU09Gold BU10Gold BU15Silver GU09Silver GU13Silver http://t.co/nxfs7AkYEO
— Thunder Fall Classic (@TUMFCClassic) August 24, 2013
3. Tweeting sponsor and advertising deals
Thunder United Classic made sure that teams and parents knew about their sponsors by tweeting which ones were at the venue.
Need some breakfast or coffee? Bruegger's Bagels has coffee, muffins and bagels until 11 a.m.
— Thunder Fall Classic (@TUMFCClassic) August 24, 2013
4. Retweeting sponsor tweets
They showed support for their sponsors by retweeting and expanding their network reach to the desired audience.
At @TUMFCClassic all weekend, Lebanon Sports Complex on McClure Rd. Just look for The #BBQ Bus & the smoke! Let your stomach be your guide!
— Historic BBQ (@HistoricBBQ) August 23, 2013
Becoming real-time allows teams to tweet about how great the tournament went and they can even give your sponsors a shout-out. Encourage sponsors to also get in on the action by tweeting about specials and congratulating winning teams. By encouraging sponsors to use Twitter, it can boost the sponsors’ interaction with the teams and make your tournament even more personal and sponsors will be ecstatic to return the following year.
The last game on the last day of the tournament has just been played and you are tired. This has been the busiest year yet and you are ready to take a vacation, kick back and not think about your soccer tournament for several months, maybe longer.
You may want to re-think that strategy. For good or bad, because of the Internet, your soccer tournament is now a 365/24/7 event.
While it’s true that soccer tournaments are 90-minute attention span events, that doesn’t mean you can ignore your event for most of the year. The Internet never takes a break. It is easier to keep pushing off a little bit every week than to get going from a dead stop. Besides, you’ve worked hard to attract sponsors and advertisers to your tournament. It is easier to keep them year over year than by courting them anew every season.
Our Advice: There are a lot of small things you can do during your “off season” that will let your guest teams — and maybe more importantly your sponsors — know that you have not fallen into a deep slumber. Here are just a few to get started.
Do like The Junior Cup did recently and roll your event forward to the next year as quickly as you can. The tournament director realized how much work he had put into getting key sponsors and did not want to start from scratch for next year. I suspect he will do all of the stuff below to maintain the momentum.
Post up news to your front page, even if it is only a holiday wish. There are eleven US Federal holidays and even more non-official holidays. It shows the teams that visit that you are engaged. But be sure to have a short news items ready to publish the day after the holiday. Nothing says “tumbleweed and ghost town” faster than a Happy New Year message in mid-January.
Tweet. Be topical for your tournament or soccer. Or comment on the goings on in your town or something one of your sponsors is doing.
Do a Vine or Instagram video. A Vine is only :06 seconds worth of video, but you can say a lot in :06 seconds! Download the app and take a look around at what brands are doing. Be clever, be targeted, have fun. (Instagram is :15 seconds, but more time doesn’t mean less focus. Be engaging.) Then, do another, and another….
Post Facebook updates and photos regularly. Again, be interesting and try to avoid dry scheduling updates, questions and polls. Link to your sponsor pages and figure out how to draw them into your event more.
There are probably hundreds of other things you could be doing, all taking only a few minutes of time. Try them out; we’ll be watching for creative marketing.
It’s Father’s Day again and millions of soccer dads are gearing up to spend most of it at the soccer fields at a tournament somewhere. But before the magic day comes, there will be millions of soccer players coming off the fields, tired from playing two games. And they are stressed out because they still haven’t bought that perfect Father’s Day present.
If you are one of these soccer players, gather ’round; this article is for you.
As a soccer dad, I used to kinda dread Father’s Day. I always told my kids I needed nothing and really meant it. Nonetheless, we would almost always go out to a restaurant for dinner after a tournament — later if we won the final — with a bunch of other tired soccer dads who secretly just wanted to get home and nap.
So, kids, here are five free things you can give your soccer dad on Father’s Day that he will really like:
1. Be his Concession Gopher. Whatever your dad wants from the concession stand at the tournament, go get for him. No arguments, no “mom doesn’t want you eating that.” Really, just make it happen.
2. An early morning text saying “Happy Father’s Day. I love you.” If you can beat your siblings to it, all the better; you’ll be his favorite for the day (kidding…)
3. Staying quiet in the back seat even when he gets lost. Yes, he knows he is lost and you’ll be late and it is his fault, but not telling him will be a huge gift. Really.
4. Have fun on the field. Sure he’d like you to score and lead the team to victory, but he’d much rather you enjoyed your day at the tournament.
5. A hug before going to bed. You don’t even need to say anything.
Smartphones are now 53% of the cell phone market. Right now, 87% of all cell phones sold are smartphones. Within the next year, flip phones will be all but obsolete.
Apps and mini-web browsers with 4G or LTE are the de-facto standard of internet access at soccer fields. It is rare that at least half the touchline doesn’t have access to your tournament web site in real time.
And that means scores and standings in real time.
It used to to mean that for teams to get real-time access to scores, you would need to push them out via SMS. For that, you would need to set up an elaborate sign-up system, somehow verify the cell phone number (or not) and send out scores as they were updated. In short, the teams relied on push rather than pull to get the scores.
Not any more. Now, with smartphones equipped with web browsers, social media apps and web-apps, fans can get their own scores and standings anytime without waiting for tournaments to push them out.
Our Advice: Don’t set up an SMS service. Flip phones are the past. By the end of the holiday shopping season, anyone holding out on a smartphone for a good deal will find one, tilting the smartphone into the 70%+ market.
Fortunately, your TourneyCentral tournament site is already mobile-ready.
1. QR Code: Each site is equipped with a QR Code that smartphone users can scan with an app for DEALS, Scores and News. Even if the user does not have a scan app, they can just click on the QR Code to go right to the web-app page.
2. Twitter: Set up a twitter account. When you update scores, your confirmation screen will give you an option to tweet out which divisions were updated. The tweet will also contain a link to the web-app which the QR Code is attached. Your teams can follow your twitter account and turn on notifications at their phone, saving you the hassle of managing SMS lists.
Even if they don’t want to get a twitter account, they can just have SMS messages when you send a tweet by sending a text message to 40404 with the message FOLLOW TWITTERACCOUNT from their cell phone. When the tournament is over, they simply send another text message to 40404 with the message UNFOLLOW TWITTERACCOUNT to stop getting notifications.
3. Facebook: You can also post the scores updates to your Facebook page where friends will be then able to get updates if they friend/like you and have updates turned on in their notifications.
The good thing about using social media to manage your scores push is the user is controlling how they get scores notifications without you spending time (or money) managing SMS lists, whether they be automated or not. Many apps — like twitter and facebook — allow the user to control how they get notified, either through native alerts, SMS or email. And don’t worry about educating them on the app. If they get a smartphone and discover they can get notifications from you, they’ll figure it out quickly.
Just make sure you have your QR Code visible and you market your twitter handle and your facebook page. The content will do the rest.
As the mobile market matures, you can bet TourneyCentral will be there, adding features to your web-app as needed, far ahead of the next trend.
Working hard at the booth. Annalisa Van Houten tournament director of the
Novi Jaguar Invitational and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.
Thursday night, we ran into our good friends Bobby Kramig, head coach for the Championship
Miami RedHawks and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.
Elizabeth Weimer of Site Search and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.