Talk with ‘LA Dodgers’ PR Director Joe Jareck – CommsCon 20th March, 2014
The Commscon Conference held at Dolton House in Elizabeth Street, Sydney yesterday was the first I have attended and only the 2nd Focal Attractions (publishers of Mumbrella etc) had organised for our industry. I came away thinking it was a great hub of creative minds, passionate communicators and provided me with a good sense of what was important in the PR industry today. It’s great to keep current at these type of events Once the #commscon twitter topics touched on everything ‘from a room of great hair and dress’ to ‘isn’t it gin o’clock time?’, what featured was nuggets of information and tips from some of the great PR pro’s in the industry.
I was quite inspired by Joe Jareck , PR Director of the LA Dodgers Baseball team! How I would love to work with a huge sporting team like that. The colour, activity, events and stories that come out of managing a team of that calibre and popularity would have it challenges but also its huge rewards.
Some of the moments include being there at the right time for a ‘hero’ twitter photo which generated thousands of re-tweets and comments from LA Dodgers fans and literally crashed their twitter feed – the image involved a koala and a team hero (Vin Skully) whilst visiting Australia this week. See how the US media are also following the Dodgers on their trip down under.
Social media is an avenue that is working wonders in generating excitement, ticket sales and genuine connection with their fans. Major league players are also involved in connecting with their fans through this medium by re-tweeting their comments and posting news and notes about season games. It was interesting they had a social media policy which did not allow junior league players to engage on twitter, but when they got to major league the policy relaxed. However Joe mentioned there have been a range of ?questionable moments about content being displayed on facebook and twitter accounts by players. It requires ongoing communication about the type of content that may or may not be suitable.
Key message from the talk – Direct engagement with fans was the priority for the LA Dodgers. By developing their own news and social media platforms this was the best way to communicate with fans , allowing greater engagement with them. Joe mentioned that Twitter was useful for news and facebook was used for activation.
This was a theme running through the #Commscon day, which I will touch on with ongoing posts. Read some of my #commscon twitter feeds from the day.
