When then-Facebook (now Meta) decided to buy its first Super Bowl advertisement over 4 1⁄2 years ago, the Silicon Valley giant decided to spend their money not on Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse, AR Smart Glasses or even AI. The largest social media network in the world instead opted to launch a campaign around Facebook Groups and building communities within the social network. The “More Together” campaign was designed to “celebrate the connections and stories of people using the social network’s groups feature.” The challenge in launching a campaign about coming together only six weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world is something that couldn’t have been predicted. However, the decision to lean into community building by Facebook is something that requires more study. Facebook’s decision to purchase :60 seconds of advertising during the most expensive inventory the world has ever created demonstrates what they were thinking–and reveals what is now more clear: something was wrong and they needed to reconnect with their communities again.

Social media managers on platforms like Facebook, Instagram (also part of Meta) and others have long been charged with the challenge of building communities for the brands and properties they represent. These beloved ‘admins’ find touchpoints with their audience by celebrating the moments of connection with their fans. Whether it's a July 4th post or a brand victory, the admins bring the community together and make them feel connected to the people and brands they follow. During my career in the sports and technology industry, I’ve had the fortune of working with a number of brilliant social media strategists who ran accounts for teams and properties. The recurring characteristic in these leaders was a relentless pursuit of what was best for their existing fans–and finding more of them. This challenge required a balance of engaging content and new acquisition strategies. With this direct connection to a fan-driven community came a great deal of responsibility to represent the voice of the brand properly. Revenue-focused executives astutely and quickly realized the power of the channels and squeezed revenue where they could (one exec I worked with called it ‘ROI juice’). The high-speed collision of two desires: revenue generation and content curation led to internal friction and a confused brand voice for many properties. It also led to overworked social media managers and heavy turnover in the roles. 

As social media managers turned over in their roles, additional storm clouds appeared on the horizon in the form of competition. Beginning in 2014, the cost of reaching audiences with paid media on Facebook/Meta essentially doubled, with CPMs globally averaging around $4.40 a decade ago (and now hovering around $7.19). The increased pressure to squeeze more of that “ROI juice” out of the platform led to more advertising and more advertisers on the various platforms. Despite this saturation, organizations to this day are still hoping for the ROI returns of yesteryear and are willing to post ticket promotions relentlessly on the same channels the admins had long been charged with building organically. It’s important to recognize that not all sports teams, properties and brands are created equal. Make no mistake: there are wonderfully creative and content-driven communities being run by supremely-talented individuals still. The pressure on them for performance hasn’t abated.

So where does the Super Bowl ad come in?

In late 2019 Facebook tapped Wieden + Kennedy, one of the largest independently-owned advertising agencies in the world to help them with Facebook Groups. Calls were made to Chris Rock, Sylvester Stallone and others to help tell a wonderful story of groups coming together and communicating via Facebook Groups. Rock and Stallone helped bring groups like the “Rock Buggies Facebook Group,” the “Amateur Experimental Rocketry Facebook Group,” the “Alcatraz Triathletes Facebook Group” and more to life as new spaces to connect with your tribe. Facebook saw that if these groups self-identified and created their own private spaces, the community building executed by the admins wouldn’t be corrupted by the rising cost of doing business. Nearly 5 years later, Facebook Groups is still bringing together communities. “Building a group means always having somewhere to turn to with people who understand what you're going through,” said Emmy McCarthy of Amsterdam Mamas, a Facebook Group advertised by the company on their website. But while the intent and presence of Facebook Groups persists, the challenges that Facebook was hoping to address for larger organizations like sports teams remains–how do you build community in a fractured landscape? How does a social media admin connect with and build their audience?

They look elsewhere. 

First, they look to start new “official” brand channels on emerging platforms like TikTok and Discord to incubate new spaces for fans to connect. Unfortunately the jury is still out on their efficacy. In one recent project I was a part of, a large professional sports league leaned into the Discord platform as a potential home for safe conversations with customers on the largely-unmonitored channel. The hope for both Discord and the league was that a ‘monitored’ environment using AI might help drive safe conversation. It’s unclear if success lies in this space, but AI’s limitations have been well documented in its ability to drive safe fan engagement. Additionally, the recent announcement of paid advertising on the Discord platform portends another situation where brands will be forced to contend with advertising stimuli disrupting their community building.

So then where is the sports marketer supposed to go for this deep connection to authentic audiences? 

Enter an unlikely participant in the conversation: SMS messaging. 

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SMS Marketing for Sports

Five years ago, the aptly-named Community launched in the SMS messaging space looking to build–communities–with this (and other) problem sets in mind. Over 8 billion messages exchanged later, Community has unlocked an elusive space for brands and properties–a home for their most valued customers on arguably the most valuable channel–texting. Some of the largest and most trusted names in sports, media, entertainment and music have followed. 

The way Community has built this authentic and premium connection for properties was by building trust between customers and brands by using the preferences, selections and self-identified desires of the end user. Community saw and understood that meaningful connections create and drive healthy relationships and that could be extended to brands, properties and teams. The connection that Community drives has restored that relationship between admins and fans and the results are staggering. The performance has meant not only a restoration of a community-oriented channel for admins free of advertising pressures, but it has also unlocked a key demo for growth: young people. SMS and messaging is the preferred method of the elusive 18-34 year-old demographic and the traditionally-younger admins that run accounts understand this power. 

While the future of the social media spaces that have long been home to community building remain saturated with sales messaging and transactional communication, SMS and messaging offers a new opportunity for growth. With this valuable and trusted channel comes a great responsibility to do more together as the Facebook Groups advertisement suggested 5 years ago. Hopefully Chris Rock and Sylvester Stallone are available for another advertisement soon. 

Matthew Perl spent 15 years in the sports industry at stops with ESPN, the NFL, the Oakland A’s and more. He currently is an adjunct professor of marketing at St Mary’s College (CA) and consults for technology companies. 

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