Managing a big social media campaign or event is very similar to preparing and managing a sport team. In my experience in sports and professional communication, it is impressive to notice how many similarities come up within these two different playing fields. I disagree with this article and here is why.
Whether you will be curating national elections, the Eurovision song contest or the next World Cup, you need to prepare well in advance. Whether you are managing a team or a community, you can never consider your job as “done.” A community is never done. It is built, maintained and bred. Exactly like a sports team that finishes a league then starts another one and so on and so forth.
The “pre-season” is all about training and getting ready, getting fit and understanding your goals and potentials. No matter what, the better prepared you are, the better your performance is going to be. Even if things take an unexpected turn, your preparation will make a difference in how you play the game. You can either train for your success or complain for your failure. That’s all up to you as a coach or as a communication manager.
The tough part of analyzing your goals is to understand where you need to stop dreaming. Don’t take this as an obstacle but take it as realistic management. Any team knows at the start of a season whether they are fighting for the title or to avoid relegation. Understanding that, means understanding your budget, your means, your players, your competition. This “reality check” is necessary to help you better manage your resources: Are you prone to attack or to defend? Are you stronger on visual content and SEO or rather copyright and public relations? Understand your strengths and weaknesses objectively and use them to make the best our of your long-term goals.
A common mistake I see an sports at an amateur level is to start a league without proper athletic preparation. The same things applies to campaigners who focus too much on the first quarter of activity and end up with no content after a few months. Nothing kills your community more than scattered content. No preparation is equal to branding suicide.
Things are not always as planned. That’s why campaign management is pretty much like a game or a race. There are things you can control (your training, your sleep, your nutrition, your tactics) and other you can’t (your competitors, the weather, the judges or referees). Having said that, don’t be afraid to fail. You can make mistakes in monitoring, reporting and assessing your strategy.
The important thing for your sustainable institutional communication is not to ever make mistakes, it’s impossible. It is about how you react when things don’t go the way you expected. Your ability to get hit and keep moving forward. We can all make mistakes but it is through such acknowledgement that we can work together and build a more solid and effective communication strategy as campaigners.
Reporting is not the end of your task. It’s actually the beginning of your next goal. The insight you have got about your physical performance and the performance of your team is the starting point of your next competition, not the end of your current effort. Reporting and making a reality check on where you are physically is the only way to improve ahead of your next challenges. The same way, when you run a communication project, it is essential to keep learning about the influencers in your topic, about the demographics of your conversations and about the actual reach and impact of your work. At times, it is better ti take a step back and see things from a distance instead of keep going an narrowing our prospects. This will help you refine your strategy for next big things to come.
Network creation should be one of your goals. A network where you, as an institution or a business, are identified as a reliable and important source of information and expertise is a an expression of success. This type of image and brand takes years sometimes but the benefit of maintaining a solid positive aura, whether you are a captain, a coach or communication expert, are greater than you may think. In the era of continuous digitization of relationships and interactions, it is the hand shake, the speech or the informal coffee that make a difference in brand building. Hardly you will be seen as a mentor if lacking this very specific, and ever more important skill.
Photos credits
Olympic weights © markomarko40 – Fotolia
Rugby,Placcaggio © massimhokuto – Fotolia
groupe au rugby © ALAIN VERMEULEN – Fotolia
The strategy of football © rafikovayana – Fotolia