On episode #12 of Sports Geek Q&A episode Sean Callanan answers the following questions:

  • How do you split time between podcasting, Sports Geek & esports? Matt over coffee
  • Will social comments be eventually turned off? Tim Baker – Adelaide United
  • What are your top measures of success for a digital marketing campaign and why? Doug Mann – VRC
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This question came from Matt, a friend of mine. we are having coffees as an in real life question. and he asked me. How do I split my time between podcasting, Sports Geek and esports with Gravitas my League of Legends team? It's a good question. It's a question I've been asked in, in real life a lot over the last 12 months. I'll answer it in two parts. It has changed, over the past 12 to 18 months. So if you had been listening to podcasts, you know, I now own in League of Legends team, Gravitas. we secure the rights to that in November, 2018. and to be honest, 2019, a lot of 2019 was, was a lot of esports. Starting an esports team from scratch with a really small team is really hard. So 2019, a lot of time was spent in the operation side of the esports business, in helping the league align its digital strategy, in wrangling players from an esports point of view, producing content for the team, to helping negotiate team agreements with the league. so there was a lot of things being done in the space on the sports side of the business, as well as having to educate. I feel like an entire market and agencies about what opportunities exist in any sports. as a result, Sports Geek as a, as a business and from a consulting point of view and, and client work and project work probably suffered. It probably suffered mainly because I wasn't doing business development and reaching out and talking to people and finding how we could help. And then podcasting is the piece that's just left in between. Podcasting always finds the gap to be done. And so I was pretty pleased over the last 12 months, two years, to be getting pretty consistent in the, in the podcasting space. I'm really thankful for having a, I'm a trustee podcast editor in James and the workflow that we've got around, producing the podcast on a weekly basis. I'll probably spend one to two hours a week. on the podcast, whether either in interviews or in sections like this where I'm doing intros and outros and Q and A episodes. so it's not a full time gig, but there is a lot of managing of, booking interviews and those kinds of things that, that needs to happen but I've tried, I've really got it down to a bit of a fine art hopefully keeping it to two to three hours a week. so that's been, was probably last. That was probably last year. If I had answered that question last year. Matt, this year, or probably from about September onwards, sort of felt that I've got a, we've got a good grasp of the systems and operations around Gravitas and what needs to happen. and I started putting more effort into, into the sportsgeek side of the business. As well as a business, which meant more, more, more meetings and coffees and catching up with people and finding out what problems exist. And funnily enough, a lot of the problems that exist, haven't changed. And people wanting to understand how they, value their assets, improve what they're doing in the content space, cheeks in the seats. It's still an issue. help helping commercial folk better understand how they value digital and how they pitch digital. so probably 75% of my time, in 2020 and it's a, and it's probably a, it's probably something I want to maintain, will be on Sports Geek work and Sports Geek business and Sports Geek media efforts and then 25% of my time on. On a sports of an output, build out most of the systems around what needs to happen from a Gravitas point of view. with, with the support that I have from Faun, who, who drives things operationally for, for SG Esports and, and works at some of these sports projects. and Calvin and Leonard, who are the coaching team, are doing a good job managing what is a lot wider roster. So. That's the long answer of how I split my time and it has changed. It keeps changing. A clients keep moving to the front of the queue, which is good. because they, enable me to do what I'm able to do and, and give me the opportunity to work on projects , like Gravitas. So that's sort of how I split my time. I'm not podcasting all the time. For those of you who are listening, thinking, that's what I'm doing all the time. and I'm not, doing esports all the time. but I probably was last year, so, open, definitely open for business. It might've seemed like I wasn't last year. but definitely up for business. Looking forward to working with more sports geek podcast listeners in 2020.

Transcriptions done by robots in Descript app (they are getting better but not yet perfect)

Question two comes from Tim Baker from Adelaide United. he's, I'm going to give the short version of the question and then I'm going to read exactly what he's saying. short version question will social comments be eventually turned off. Hi Sean, I'm going be cheeky or, and ask a two parter. I love the restrict comment and restrict account option on Instagram. I think it's a great way to curb bullying and abuse and outright miss God arrange on social media. Do you think this will eventually make its way to Facebook and we could. And could we see Twitter finally employing something like this secondary to this, do you think, do you see a future with Facebook comments are turned off and were given the option as all of these actions have becoming two things. sh*t posting and putdowns and attempt to get laugh reacts and confirmation bias or straight up arguments and rage, love the long form. Show and love the Q and A's, particularly the bite size nature of them. Team. Thank you very much, team. Appreciate the message. No problems with the two parter. I do think we will see further restrictions on comment. ability, like you said, it's already available in an Instagram. Facebook does have the ability to turn, turn comments off and restrict comments, and we are also seeing Twitter. but, having the feature to now, How restrict replies or restrict views of replies. if he gets a bit out of hand on a reply, unfortunately that's sort of the world we live in. there will be people that want to have their say and, and get their 15 seconds of fame on someone else's, on someone else's post. it does make it tough because I do think there is a lot of good in those comments. and there is some value in, in tearing down the trolls. I did see the AFL doing that a little bit on posts when they announced some content for the AFLW and, and they went in and defended, defended. AFLW, which I rightly should. I do like the idea of developing your own digital cheer squad. And I still hold hopes for our society that, fans overall will rally and the goodness will be out to be showing through. But unfortunately, the internet, leans a little bit darker. but I don't think you should stop in amplifying, the good in the world and also amplifying the people who do do good in your fan base. so I think things like top fans that Facebook has and those kinds of things are probably leading to a point where. you have to be a top fan to be able to comment, or you are only top pans to be commenting, that kind of thing. And some sort of social currency on, on good behavior. Twitch has something similar in, you know, only allowing certain followers to, to follow in auto moderation and those kinds of things. I'd much rather, you know, we solve it ourselves then leave it to the algorithms. But, Yeah, one of the ways is to, is just to be broadcast. And I think it would be sad if we turned off all commenting because then social media wouldn't be, social media would be broadcast media. And we'll be back to, you know, a square with vision, talking a bit more, which is what the TV has been for for many, many years. So hopefully we can amplify and encourage the best of us. You know, and I'm going, it's going to be a glass half full, I hope for humanity.

Transcriptions done by robots in Descript app (they are getting better but not yet perfect)

Question three, comes from Doug Mann from the VRC who asked, what are your top measures of success for a digital marketing campaign and why? thank you very much, Doug. It's a good question. It's a very open question. it's a question you can always answer with a question. and I'm going to answer it with a question. it all comes down to what are your goals? What do you want out of the digital marketing campaign? I think if I'm looking specifically at some of the, I guess campaign objectives at say, Facebook offers, I would definitely lean to ones lean towards ones that generate a result. for you or in your efforts? so I always lean towards if I want ticket sales, I want web conversions and I want to be able to track that web conversion all the way through to, to sale. I want to see how much it costs me to sell a ticket, and then find out what I'm comfortable with in selling a ticket or a membership. You know, if I'm selling a $500 membership, am I happy to spend $20 to get that $500? Damn right I am. but I can only do that with a web conversion. if do I want to, grow an audience? you know, do I want to deepen engagement with an audience? then I would look at things like, post engagement, those kinds of, opportunities. The other ones, you know, , if you want to get more people watching your video or would you use video views? It, most of them are straight forward. Some of the ones I definitely steer clear of, and Facebook keeps pushing and I think it is the, The GoTo move for, for potentially PR firms that, that are pushing social edge is, is brand awareness and reach. I think they are the most useless, digital campaign objectives, that are available. just saying, Hey, do I want to impress my client with big numbers? I'll look 40,000 people saw it. Which is a faithfully assignment as well. You might as well go buy a bus ad, which can be very on a, on the only appropriate route and those kinds of things. but it's the opposite of what digital offers, digital offers, ability to track and have, you know, KPIs measured. so for mine, if it's ticketing. And it's the cheeks in the seats type of thing. It's, it's definitely conversions. And, and finding out the number, the dollar numbers is absolutely important. but if it's, if I am looking for an audience to be engaged, then I would be looking at post engagement or video views. that kind of thing. Cause then I can go back and say, here's how many people engage with this post. Or here's how many people engaged with this, this campaign. And then on the video side, I can actually go back and say, this is how many people saw 10 seconds, 75% of the video.

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