Tag Archives: Soccer tournaments

Using Google Plus for your soccer tournament

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GooglePlus for Soccer Tournaments

The latest player in the suite of tools known as social media is Google Plus, or more commonly seen as G+ in buttons. While it can’t boast anywhere near the number of users Facebook and Twitter have, it has one advantage the others don’t — Google Search. However, it is growing fast.

Most Internet users start off a web session on google.com, whether or not they know the direct web address of the site they are looking for. Many simply type in keywords like “soccer tournaments in Ohio” or “soccer tournament software.” If these keywords are in your G+ posts, you have a greater chance of being found at or near the top of a search result.

Getting started is easy, but you need a Google Account. If you have a Gmail account, you are already there. Simply go to http://plus.google.com and set a profile for yourself.

Once you have a profile, you can then set up a Page for the soccer tournament. Underneath your name, you will see a page symbol. Click on that to “Manage your pages.” Create your soccer tournament page, upload your logo and start sharing. Be sure to add one more person as an administrator and secure the login/password as part of your tournament assets so that it can be seamlessly transferred to a new tournament director if need be later on.

The instructions for Google+ are sorta “discover as you go” but a good book to read is Google+ for Business by Chris Brogan.

Our Advice: Set up a Google Plus page for your soccer tournament. Repost your front page news, scores, sponsor offers and photos to your page. Don’t worry so much about interacting on your page as a social media channel just yet; that will probably come next year.

Be sure to include keywords in your post and photo captions as these keywords are pushed directly into the Google search engine. The sooner you start, the better head start you will have on all the other soccer tournaments who will discover and set up on Google Plus next year. Be first.

All TourneyCentral events support Google+ In your Admin>Web Site Maintenance Module>Variables you can add your G+ page to the social media sites on the left sidebar along with Twitter and Facebook. (See TheGameOfSoccer.com for a sample)

The TourneyCentral G+ page is here. We post photos, blog posts (including this one) as well as interesting photos fans may share.

This is part of a series on Social Media for Soccer Tournaments. We encourage you to read all the articles below.

Trust us. This stuff matters

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If you have spent any time online lately, you’ve probably noticed that there have been some issues of some companies and their privacy agreements. Google has come out with a new policy that combines ALL their properties under one agreement. That means if you have a YouTube account, a G+ page, a Gmail account, a Google Calendar, etc. all of this now is swept under one identity. And if you have multiple accounts, all of those accounts are tied together under you as one user.

More recently, some apps were caught uploading your entire phone book from your iPhone or Android smart phone — without telling you — when you installed their app. They apologize and claim to have removed all users’ data from their servers, but who really knows.

And of course, everyone’s favorite — Facebook — has a long history of deserving our mistrust with their ever-changing privacy policy and moving the settings around so we can’t find and change them easily.

Our Advice: It has taken a long time for people to trust the Internet. As the ability for services to sell services and goods erodes in the wake of alternative free services, there will always be a temptation to monetize customer data to advertisers and sponsors. In fact, you may have already been approached by sponsors asking for your list of teams, players and coaches.

The trust your teams gives you to keep their data away from marketers is not easily gained and can be lost in moments. Once you release data out, it can never be gotten back. Ever. You will be putting those coaches on mailing lists for years to come as the list get sold over and over and over.

At TourneyCentral, we won’t ever rent, sell, lend, lease or otherwise give out email addresses. In fact, every tournament we host agrees to that privacy policy as part of their use agreement.

Trust us. It’s not just something we say to get your business. It’s how we do business.

Behind the scenes. Content for social media

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Jim Long @newmediajim

That is my social media buddy Jim Long in the photo above. As a cameraman for NBC news in Washington DC who covers the White House, he has got to have one of the coolest jobs in the world. He also goes on press junkets all over the world covering the First Lady, Hillary Clinton and others.

And he is very active on social media.

One of the things I love about Jim is all the “behind the scenes” photos he shares on Twitter and Google+. One of his recent photo galleries can be found here. Almost every morning, he “greets” me by posting a photo of the sunrise over the White House or a Foursquare check-in at his favorite coffee place or just a quip about life in general. It almost always makes me smile and makes me feel like I am standing right there with him.
Continue reading →

Our TourneyCentral video

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Grandma and grandpa want to see their grandson Billy play in his first away soccer tournament. How will they find the right field and times Billy plays?

Fortunately, Billy's coach applied to a TourneyCentral soccer tournament so finding all this information was easy.
Billy's grandma went to the website, clicked on Schedules, found Billy's team name and got his schedule in seconds.

Our second video.. released July 30, 2012

Marcy has just been named her club's soccer tournament director. She searches for the best solution to help her manage all the tasks that go along with hosting a soccer tournament.