A Sense Of Wonder

This week a reader of this blog from Qatar emailed me to share a story on the ESPN website about the use of social media by the New York Jets professional football team.  Jim said the article "certainly resonates with the message you've been espousing". 

Please excuse me for a moment as I shake my head in amazement.  I'm still an Old Dog with a sense of wonder when I ponder the impact of social media and the reality of how commonplace it is to be able to share ideas and information from the other side of our planet. 

A situation comes to mind about a college student from our church earlier this year:  While studying abroad through Geneva College, she communicated by Facebook about her escape from Egypt when the government there was collapsing.  If one recalls the broader circumstances surrounding this college student at that time, is there any denying that social media contributed heavily to the abrupt change of the Egyptian government?

Closer to home, I could make a strong case for the use of social media contributing heavily to the election of our current President of the United States (which I did, in fact, do last March in a post at my old blog address: "Does President Obama Owe His Place In History To Social Media?").  The influence of utilizing social media can be staggering.   

Back to Jim's email about the New York Jets

According to the ESPN article that Jim shared, three or four years ago, the Jets website was in the bottom quartile of the teams in the National Football League.  The Jet's executive vice president, Matt Higgins, hired social media consultant Gary Vaynerchuk and implemented a successful social media strategy.  Today, the team is in the top quartile of the league, and Higgins believes that social media has been significantly responsible for growing the fan base during those couple of years.  The Jets have become a league leader in social media.

In a business environment where NFL teams sometimes hover around $1Billion in value, do you have any idea how much social media has increased the value of the New York Jets professional football team?  I remember, as a kid, when Joe Namath signed a contract for $400,000 to quarterback the New York Jets (a huge sum at that time).  I also remember how the Namath-led Jets shocked the sports world by defeating the mighty Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl.  Social media consultant Gary Vaynerchuk would be underpaid if he received the amount of Namath's contract for his contribution to increasing the value of today's Jets. 

How about you?  Sure, I understand that, unless your last name is Rooney, your business probably isn't worth a billion dollars.  But you can surely increase the value of your small business by learning a few New Tricks and implementing a successful social media strategy over the next few years.  Come on Old Dog, if the crummy New York Jets can do it, just imagine what you can do in Steelers country?  

Thanks for sharing 144 seconds of your day,
Smitty