The Chicago Fire achieved their first win of the season under new coach Veljko Paunovic. As a fan I was extremely excited to see the club making major changes in leadership and I can’t wait to see where these will lead the team in the following months and years. However I didn’t enjoy MLS Week #5 from the stands this time.
This year I took a leap with Experience Institute, a new post-graduate school that believes in the power of self-designing educational paths and learning by doing. As I keep exploring the intersection between Marketing and Soccer I am learning about Community Building, Storytelling, Design Thinking, Self-Awareness and Business Operations.
As part of my first term in the program, I made my way into Chicago Social Media Week to get the scoop on Content Marketing and Digital Marketing in Sports. Here I had the honor of meeting Scott Hammer, Director of Digital Marketing for the Chicago Fire Soccer Club. We kept in touch in the subsequent months, and he invited me to shadow him during match day activities.
Here are some things I learned:
- Knowing how your fans feel soccer and support the team helps in the creative process of developing appealing visual content.
- Pre-planning allows for agility and clarity in content marketing and real time digital storytelling.
- Include fans that couldn’t come to the game to keep the community close and engaged with the club. Create content with them in mind as well.
- Celebrate the fans that made it to the stadium even under extreme weather conditions. Soccer is about passions and emotions, manage the game experience to enhance these emotions.
- You don’t have to be a photographer, graphic designer, artist, videographer, or news journalist to create attractive and fun content.
Big thank you to Scott Hammer for the invitation, Experience Institute for helping me to explore my passions and Gilt Edge Soccer Marketing for supporting me along the way.
Categories: Editorial, Major League Soccer, Social Media