Next week sees the start of Social Media Week (23rd – 27th Sept), a global event that runs across multiple cities including London.  It’s an event that I’ve been involved with in different ways these past few years, including hosting one back in 2011 alongside Maz Nadjm and Sophie Brendel.  Bringing to together the likes of Jake Humphrey (now BT Sport), Jeanette Kwakye (Team GB athlete), Chelsea, Arsenal and BBC’s Test Match Special.  And this year I’ll be speaking at an event next Thursday afternoon (see bottom of this post).

This year there are a multitude of events being put on by agencies and brands to choose from.  They cover ever possible angle in which social media has an affect, from fashion to customer service, from big data to cookery.  It’s all there.

But we’re interested in those that concentrate on the sports industry, and this year there are a few (no UKSN ones though, these are running in October – see our events page).  So to guide you through these events I’ve put together all the info and links you’ll need to get  by.  There are still spaces on a couple of them, so act fast and you can still grab a spot.  And even if they are full, you can follow the action via the official hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, etc.

FeverPitch: Social Media and the Sports Fan

(EVENT FULL)

Hashtag: #smwfeverpitch

76 Portland Plaxe, W1B 1NT

Monday 23^rd, 6pm – 8.30pm

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Pitch, the sports communications agency, are hosting an event that explores the relationship between social media and the sports fan via a panel debate. The high-profile panel will help discuss the dynamic and evolving relationship between social media and sports fans, with particular topics and attention on the following 3 areas: 1) How has the power of the fan altered since the introduction of social media, and what does this mean for clubs and players 2) How can clubs direct fan power, and influence the direction of conversation and sentiment? 3) How are different sports, and clubs, ‘getting it right’. What can we learn from them?

Game, Set and Tweet!

(EVENT FULL)

Hashtag: #smwwimbledon

76 Upper Ground South Bank

ABOUT THIS EVENT

The Wimbledon Championships have always been one of the great social events of the British summer calendar, especially for those people lucky enough to visit leafy SW19. Increasingly though, the pervasive use of the Internet and smart-devices has made Wimbledon a global social phenomenon, as millions of fans post social media snippets and images across Twitter, Facebook, news sites, blogs and video sites.

Join the technology team behind the 2013 Championships to learn how they analysed 6.6 million tweets to uncover where the global conversation was greatest and what was being said, which players have the greatest global reach and influence, and how players were perceived throughout the tournament. The session will be particularly relevant to data visualisation fans, and to those interested in how the global nature of Twitter can relate to events with a specific location – in this case an iconic sporting event.

The session will be presented by Chris Thomas, IBM’s Solution Architect for the social media analysis system used at Wimbledon 2013. Chris has worked extensively with public sector clients to develop analytics solutions around social media, streaming data, identity management and unstructured data in general.

Sport and Social: Incredible Loyalty, Incredible ROI

(SPACES AVAILABLE)

http://m.socialmediaweek.org/imps/smw/event.html?event_id=108031&rnd=268008

Hashtag: #smwsport

Business & Entrepreneurship Hub Bloomberg London

City Gate House, 39-45 Finsbury Sq, London

3pm – 5pm

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Sport generates passion like almost nothing else in modern life – and that passion comes to life on social media. People across the world flock to see the triumphs and trials, the human stories that are told through sport – and sports clubs, athletes, governing bodies, broadcasters and fans are rapidly accelerating their use of social media to experience great events. Over 40% of all tweets are sent about sport and football players have some of the largest facebook followings. This year has seen the #RISE of England cricket’s social media through the Ashes, and then there was the incredible swell of online activity that happened around the Olympics. More recently, another Premier League season has kicked off with a flurry of transfers – but it’s not just the cash that transfers, this session will reveal the social media impact on players and clubs.

Is the ability to influence your sporting community and the wider media landscape through social media is a blessing or a curse? Is there risk for of raising your head above the parapet? Do the haters make it hateful or exciting?

What do sports and their participants want out of social media? Reach? Retention? Revenue?

And what about all the participation in sport that goes on every day but isn’t professional – is there more return to be had on the social media investment of all those runners, cyclists, swimmers, golfers… ? And how on earth do you measure engagement anyway, when all the platforms’ analytics are black boxes. This panel conversation will deal with all these issues and more. Seven League will be unveiling some exclusive research carried out over the 2013 summer of sport and a select panel of top-flight sports people will be debating the issues and giving their insight. We look forward to seeing you there and handling your questions.

Moderator: Richard Ayers, CEO, Seven League

The Aqueduct Live Fifa Tournament 2013

(SPACES AVAILABLE)

http://m.socialmediaweek.org/imps/smw/event.html?event_id=84931&rnd=2610904

Hashtag: #smwfifa

Aqueduct, 10 Lindsey St

7pm – 10pm

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Aqueduct, together with LiveWire Sport are organising, hosting and live blogging a Fifa2013 football tournament, bringing fans of football and live sporting events into one room for an evening of football, content and fan engagement. We are organising a 16 person tournament using the latest Fifa game from EA Sports. During the preliminary rounds we will have staff from LiveWire Sport providing live event blogging using Liveplayer – the groundbreaking match coverage platform developed by us and used by BT Sport and Manchester City FC among others – to demonstrate the latest and upcoming features and insights into the world of augmented event coverage.

During these early rounds, guests will be invited online to interact with the commentary team, fans watching around the world and with other guests. They will also be able to vote for prizes using interactive polling features. The guests and those online will gain valuable insight into the potential for leveraging effective content in a live experience. Guests can sign up to attend the event in person (contact us if you fancy playing in the tournament!) but can also register to attend the event online through the Liveplayer platform and live video stream. We have close partnerships and ties with Opta sports, Manchester City FC, BT Sport, the RFU, the FA and the Premier League and would be inviting representatives of these brands to participate in the tournament and to sponsor prizes (non cash value) for the winners and losers.

Sports Data for Social Marketing

(SPACES AVAILABLE)

http://m.socialmediaweek.org/imps/smw/event.html?event_id=107317&rnd=2235993

Hashtag: #smwBSports

Business & Entrepreneurship Hub Bloomberg London

City Gate House, 39-45 Finsbury Sq, London

ABOUT THIS EVENT

BSports, Bloomberg’s sub-division focusing on sports analytics, will host a panel event exploring the use of sports data for social and digital marketing. The panel will discuss the opportunities available to companies in using sports data to leverage a global sporting audience. Key discussion points will include:

•  How performance data & social media can be used to capitalise on the popular culture of sport – Development of technology & use of data in broadcasts. – Sports numbers as a universal language
•  The benefits associated with providing free data for sports fans via digital – The evolving relationship between sports fans and performance statistics & data – Objective analysis as a vital ingredient in the subjective debates of fans
• How companies with no link to sports become active in this area – Sponsorship opportunities & case studies we can learn from
•  The risks involved in using sports data analytics in social media – Accuracy, context and consistency

This session will be chaired by Bill Squadron, President of Bloomberg Sports.

Speakers: – Bill Squadron (President, Bloomberg Sports) – Richard Ayers (Head of Digital, Man City FC & Founder of SevenLeague) – David Orman (Ex Commercial Director at QPR & now heavily involved in social media) – Simon Banoub (Marketing Director, Opta) – David Gibbs (Director of Digital Media, SkySports) – Abigail Sawyer (Group Digital Manager, The Jockey Club)

And finally one that I’ll be speaking at, though it’s not sports related.  The event is full but should be an interesting one with some great speakers and there will be plenty of action on Twitter during the course of it I’m sure.

Social media: what does the future hold?

(EVENT FULL)

Hashtag: #smwyomego

Jewel Piccadilly, 4-6 Glasshouse St

ABOUT THIS EVENT

Social media is everywhere.  Whether we are connecting with colleagues on Linkedin to boost our professional reputation, or battling amongst friends to become the mayor of our favourite bar on Foursquare, social media is influencing every aspect of our lives.   We are seeing mass adoption, ubiquitous technology and considerable investment into social sites. These key factors are now converging, forcing changes that results in social media consistently evolving and becoming more ingrained into our everyday lives. Could these changes lead us to a point where social sites cease to become a place on the internet and start becoming the internet itself?  What a prediction! What do the key thinkers in the marketing industry predict for the future of social media? We invite key thought leaders along to discuss how social media has impacted on their personal or professional lives – and to predict how social media, and their experience of it, might change further in the future, Pecha Kucha style. PechaKucha is a presentation methodology in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each, so each presentation doesn’t last longer than 6 minutes and 40 seconds – short and snappy! This event will be of interest to delegates keen to hear thoughts from industry professionals on the future of social media.

Speakers: Dan McLaren (UKSN), Jake Sargent (Pitch PR), Michael Agnew (Future Foundation), Windahl Finnigan (IBM), Dr Julian Ney (Disruptive Insight), Stuart Mitchell (Vodafone), Joel Windels (Brandwatch), Neil Major (Yomego).