(this is a re-post from my Posterous blog)
A month or two ago www.pga.com showed the world just how effectively social media can be integrated with your value offerings.
First some context, at the recent PGA Championship, people were on the edge of their seats as they watched Tiger Woods and Y.E. Yang battle it out for the coveted trophy (surprisingly, Yang won eventually!) – however a huge contingent was following the action online.
Where PGA.com came to the party, the provided their visitors with:
Live online video streaming (not just ‘highlight’ clips, LIVE streaming of the entire play-off)
Shot for shot commentary and related news updates relevant to event
However where PGA.com really came to the party was giving users the ability to chat live, as event were unfolding, on PGA.com via their favourite social networking tools – Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (MySpace? This still relevant?
).
So, how it worked, basically you logged in through PGA.com using your preferred social networking profile and then posted your status updates or tweets on an aggregated page. Simple and easy to use (screenshot below).
From a user’s point of view, you can imagine the appeal – you’re into what’s happening between Tiger and Yang and can now interact with the event in any number of ways – watch on TV, watch online, connect with other fans, share your thoughts with your friends/followers. Just many touch points, all adding to your golfing experience.
But, the real kick of it, the ROI for PGA.com:
Online advertising – needless to say, the streaming and live chat platforms had its own sponsors and advertising on its pages
TV commercials – live streaming didn’t cut commercials, so if you were watching, commercials were no different then watching it on TV
Database – you had to be part of PGA.com’s community, this provided them with loads of demographical info on its viewers
Viral – User updates were pollinated across their specific social networking profile i.e. if you tweeted on PGA.com, your Twitter followers was able to see it
Measurable – what duration a person was logged on to PGA.com, how many updates they posted, how much was viewed, how many clicks etc etc
In the not too distant future, I imagine PGA.com or any other socially integrated site out there would be able to profile you (based on your social networking information) and then show advertising/promotions that is most suited to your profile.
For example, in a previous status update you mentioned you and the wife are house hunting and you both are sooo excited. So, you’ve used your social networking profile to login to a specific site and presto!, you see an advertisement: ‘Properties for Sale in (insert your region)”… talk about targeted advertising.
This is where the world is heading.
All very exciting and well done to PGA.com for adding to golf fans golfing experience.
As a side note, getting users to log in to your site via their social networking profiles is a trend that uber-analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, refers to as The Era of Social Colonization – as Jeremiah puts it:
“Gone are the days of isolated websites – all becoming part of a greater, integrated social web; web technologies will focus on making web users online identities central and portable i.e. visitors to your site will bring their identities with them”
I did a more detailed write-up of Jeremiah’s analysis on my blog LouisJvR.com if you’re interested > The Future of the Social Web – Take it Seriously
(thanks to http://socialnomics.net for inspiring this post (here)!)
A month or two ago www.pga.com showed the world just how effectively social media can be integrated with your value offerings.
First some context, at the recent PGA Championship, people were on the edge of their seats as they watched Tiger Woods and Y.E. Yang battle it out for the coveted trophy (surprisingly, Yang won eventually!) – however a huge contingent was following the action online. Read Further
