Thanks to Alistair Hogg from the International Cricket Council in Dubai for doing an awesome job in answering all the questions in Sports Geek Nation AMA.

Full Transcript available in the Sports Geek Nation Member's Area.

Here's the highlight question from the Sports Geek Nation AMA with Alistair Hogg.

About Alistair Hogg

Alistair Hogg is a communications professional who is passionate about digital media. His decade of experience spans from various sports and clubs in Australia before heading to Dubai to be the Digital Content Manager of the International Cricket Council. The ICC is the global governing body for cricket and Alistair is the one responsible for its digital content and social media production and distribution as well as overseeing the content operations for world events including the Cricket World Cup.

Connect with Alistair Hogg on LinkedIn,Twitter @alistairjhogg or @AlistairICC and Slack @alistairjhogg

Find out more about International Cricket Council at http://www.icc-cricket.com

Q&A Highlight

Andrew Walton Question

Alistair HoggThanks @andrewwaltonx. Talking about Instagram specifically, we are placing an increased emphasis on Stories. Not only does it allow you to provide a ‘blow-by-blow' account of a sporting event without spamming a conventional social feed, but it facilitates engagement with polls, questions, interactivity and the ‘swipe up' traffic it can drive back to a website is incredible. I'm not a fan of click bait whatsoever, but there's only so much you can explain on a Story slide, so having the ability to link someone back to an article, or a match centre for full coverage, or a video is fantastic.

I also like the fact that an IG Story can be ‘imperfect' with images snapped on the go, annotated and unfiltered, unlike your traditional IG feed which was typically a show reel of high quality content (although that's certainly not to say that there's no place for this on the Story). In many cases, you'll see a team or league post a really slick, gorgeously designed templated graphic to promote a game, then the next screen will be a vertical snap outside the arena with a location tag.

One of the things we occasionally find challenging in an ICC event context is simultaneous/overlapping games. At some events, we've had as many as four games being played at once in different parts of a country, which can make a timeline or story look jumpy if you try to cover everything, so we scale back a little on days like that and only provide the key updates. Thankfully next year's Cricket World Cup only has six days where the second innings of a day game overlaps with the first innings of the night game.

The exciting (and challenging) think about this part of the sports industry is that we never know what's coming next, so need to remain open minded and agile to pivot and adapt strategy when required.

And just on the above, I also think it's worth mentioning Twitter. Lately there's been a lot of talk about the changing algorithm which has resulted in a more curated, less chronological feed. Users will have their own opinion on how this alters their experience, but for any brand that uses Twitter to cover or follow a LIVE event, this certainly bears consideration into how the platform is used within your game-day/event strategy.

More Sports Geek Nation AMA Questions you missed

  • What is it like working in Dubai? What is the sports business scene like there?
  • How do you deal with the fact that cricket is mostly a “commonwealth” sports and it is not as global as football?
  • How can you compare working with Cricket & Super Rugby?
  • What cool new technology you’re seeing incorporated into the cricket fan journey?
  • How many people work with you in the Comms area of ICC?
  • What was your biggest social/digital lesson working at Sydney Airport?
  • How do you approach ICC digital marketing in the emerging markets, those below the top tier?

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