Don't let the title of this post fool you, because the night I'm referring to was, in fact, a fine-weathered evening, where I was lucky enough to shadow the Melbourne Storm's Digital Media Manager, Daniel Pinne.
One of the Storm's forays forward in a see-sawing first half at AAMI Park vs. South Sydney
Thanks to the work that Sean has put in with the Storm and their social media endeavours, I got invited along to the Storm's home-opener at AAMI Park on Sunday night against another Sports Geek client, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. As I strive to gain employment in a similar role that Daniel has at the Storm, my goal for the night was just to watch Daniel closely to see how he manages the Storm's presence on social media on game day, how he interacts with the digital community, and what are the best practices to undertake in the fast-paced environment of professional sport. Straight away, I was impressed.
Daniel had everything covered from the moment I arrived until well after the match had finished. From filming segments on Storm members filing into the stadium, to taking snapshots for the Facebook page and live-tweeting the game, the action was non-stop. It became evident to me early on that, to be a successful digital media manager for a professional sporting club, one has to have great time management skills, a passion for the game, passion for social media and some imagination to boot.
One of the interesting moments for the night was seeing how the Facebook and Twitter updates were handled differently, with best practice for Facebook being three posts, published before the game, at half time and finally, at the final whistle, while the Twitter updates were more spontaneous and corresponded to the action of the game.
Once the game was over, the action moved from the press box to the conference room, where the Digital Media Manager's job still was
Best word to describe Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy; fierce!
not over, with the team press conference still needing to be filmed. Being my first time in a press conference, I was definitely more than a little nervous, even turning my phone off to stop any interruptions (even though I knew I had it on silent, I was being overly cautious!). As a keen sports fan and occasional sports writer myself, it was great to see the kind of effort and level of professionalism associated with press conferences.
So, what did I actually do, you ask? Well, other than watching Daniel's every move and trying to glean as much knowledge from him that I could, I was tasked with taking some team shots from the Storm boys running out of the change room and onto the field, as well as some game-time shots to be used for the Facebook account, which was a great way to learn what works, what doesn't, and also, staying out of rugby league players' way when they are running onto the pitch!
As a final note, I'd like to thank both Daniel and, of course, Sean, for inviting me along to what was an excellent night, both on the field with the Storm getting the result, and me personally, as I build toward beginning my career.