The Administrator

miSoccer

Yet another soccer techie find this week just in time for the holiday season. The gift giving season is here and sometimes you run out of ideas, fear not...  Want to drown out some noise at the office, or get ready for the weekend? Spekal has a really beautifully designed soccer ball shaped i-Pod dock with all the options (click here for full details).

Today is just a light post before the break, so from The Administrator, Happy holidays. Thank you for your continued support, and don't ever hesitate to comment or send suggestions.

~Sam@bluesombrero.com       

It’s Never Too Late to Catch Up

Let’s play with a hypothetical situation today. What if your club’s sole focus for the past 15 years has been teaching, coaching, and mentoring? Basically worrying about what happens on the field. What if you haven’t given the light of day to the other aspects which make up today’s most successful clubs like marketing, registration solutions, or administration made easy through technology?

You might feel stuck, or like your standing at the bottom of a mountain. You have a great grass roots organization, but barring word of mouth, you probably lack a competitive edge. So what do you do if you decided to catch up…today? Below is a list of top things to consider if you find yourself in similar circumstances (source Seth Godin, tailored by us for you). The tips range from managerial to organizational all technologically focused.  

Use gmail to give every person in the organization their own email address (i.e sara@soccerclub.com).

List your locations and your people (with email addresses) and make it clear you want to hear from club members on your website.

Start an email newsletter using Mad Mimi or Mail Chimp. Give the responsibility for the newsletter's creation and performance to one person and offer them a bonus if they exceed metrics in sign ups and in reducing churn.

Start a book group for your top admins. Read a great online media book a week and discuss.

Offer a small bonus to anyone in the club who starts and runs a blog on any soccer related topic. Have that blog link to your club site, it will increase traffic.

Have the president post their (real) email address in all communication the club sends out, asking people to write to them with comments or questions.

Start a newsletter for your parents. Email them regular updates about what you're doing; what's working and what problems are going on internally that they might be able to help you with.

Get a white board and put it in the break room. On it, have someone update: how many people subscribe to the newsletter, how many people visit the website, twitter quotes, registration numbers for the season.

Don't have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.

Refuse to cede your work to consultants. If you're going to catch up, you must (all of you) get good at this, and you only accomplish that by doing it.

The problem is no longer budget. The problem is no longer access to tools. The problem is the will to get good at it.  

Getting on board with these simple tasks allows you to catch up down the road and be ready for the things you really want to accomplish in the future.

~Sam@bluesombrero.com  

2010 SPY Awards

Topdrawersoccer.com holds their prestigious Soccer Products of the Year (SPY) Awards at the end of each year and Blue Sombrero is up in two categories, Web and Software Services and Overall Soccer Product. The awards were designed for members of the soccer community to voice their opinions on their favorite soccer products, based on innovation, design, ease of use, and functionality.

Since Blue Sombrero makes this wonderful blog happen, we thought we’d give our readers a chance to vote. No worries if you haven’t worked with the product before, just don’t vote but if you do happen to interact with it, take a second and give us some love. Click here to voice your opinion. You can vote once a day in both categories until December 15th. It does not leave a lot of time so get to it.

Thanks to all that vote.

Power Tips for Empowering Your Club’s Facebook Page

We’re throwing out another call to arms to those social savvy administrators. By now you probably have a good set up as far as your club Facebook page is concerned. Pictures, videos, social interaction, and numerous updates… we all know about that, but what happens when your Facebook page peaks? That’s when you look and the mirror, dig deep, and see if you have what it takes to become a power user.

Below are six tips for the advanced user (source). The results from this type of customization are astonishing so hopefully many of you will adopt a few. You probably never thought your team page could looks so nice, but look at some of the examples below, all are attainable, if you embrace your power user status.

1) Create Customized Tabs. Advanced strategies requires advanced tech skills. If you know html and have a good graphic designer, then you can use the Static FBML App to create and completely customize Tabs on Facebook Pages. For example, the “Get Involved!” Tab on the Special Olympics of Northern California Facebook Page and the numerous customized Tabs on the Facebook Page of The Humane Society of the United States were created using the Static FBML App. If you don’t know html and want customized Tabs for your Facebook Page, then you have two options: 1) Pay for a service like Sprout.com or Involver.com. Neither publish their fees online for customized Tabs which usually means they are too expensive for most nonprofits. It doesn’t hurt to ask for a nonprofit discount though. Many of these new services want exposure and buzz. 2) Hire someone who knows html and Facebook.

2) Create a customized Tab for your default Landing Tab. When you click on Central Michigan University inside of Facebook it goes to a a customized Tab called Unleash the Power. First impressions are important on social media sites, and this page sends a clear message that CMU gets Facebook and is taking it seriously. Compared to other pages by universities of their size, they are definitely doing much better in terms of number of fans. My guess is that this strong first impression is making a significant difference in building their fan base.Greenpeace International has also set their default Landing Tab to a customized Tab called Take Action. Definitely a best practice, though the Tab could be improved by adding some images and possibly a video. It’s a good start.Once you have created a customized Tab for your default Landing Tab, simply go into “Settings” on your Facebook Page and under “Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else” select the Tab you want for your default Landing Tab in the pop-down menu.

3) Integrate Facebook “Share” buttons and/or Fan Box Widgets into your “Donate Now” Page(s) and online petitions. After someone makes a donation on your website or signs an online petition, how about asking them to “Share” with their friends on Facebook that they donated to your organization or signed your petition? At the very least, prompt donors and signatores to become fans. For example, after someone signs the online petition at  Forest Ethics’ Do Not Mail campaign, they are then prompted to become a fan of the campaign on Facebook: The campaign has almost 7,000 fans… a good indicator that this simple strategy works.

Nonprofits can add a fan box widget to the Web page that thanks online donors for their contribution. Another possible strategy is adding “Share” buttons to your “Thanks for Signing/Donating” pages. Ideally, the Share post should say something like “I just donated to [Organization Name]!” and then links to your organization’s Facebook Page. The donor gets thumbs up from friends, and your organization hopefully gets some new fans!

4) Incorporate your Facebook Page into your Thank You emails. Most nonprofits send immediate thank you emails to online donors and signatores of petitions. Make sure to add a simple “Become a fan of [Organization Name] on Facebook!”  into your email.

5) Incorporate your Facebook Page into your mobile campaigns. Ask your text alert subscribers to fan your Facebook Page, but make sure you link to the mobile version of your Facebook Page, such as: m.facebook.com/nonprofitorgs. Also, on your mobile website, make sure you link to the mobile version of your Facebook Page. See www.nonprofitorgs.mobi as an example. Most nonprofits haven’t even begun to think about mobile tech, but mobile Web usage is on track to hit 1 billion+ users in 2010.

6) Incorporate Facebook Connect into your organization’s blog. If your organization blogs via WordPress.org, there is a Facebook Connect Plugin for WordPress.org Blogs. Facebook Connect allows individuals to post blog comments via their Facebook login. For those with super duper tech skills, you can customize Facebook Connectin order to add it to your website or blog, where useful. I do not know of any nonprofit currently using Facebook Connect, but Mashable has compiled a list of 10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect. Ironically, in 2010 your going to see MySpace on that list. They are fully integrating Facebook Connect into their website which is great news for those nonprofits utilizing MySpace. 

~Sam@bluesombrero.com

Poverty Leagues

Game On and International Alliance For Youth Sports have partnered to organize youth soccer leagues for poor teens around the globe. IAYS helps youths from 12-19 years old develop community in poverty-stricken areas while Game On encourages life skills through positive competition.

It’s a marriage of two organizations with a very common goal, the betterment of youth citizens world-wide. In  a nutshell, Game On provides the structure to rehabilitate these youths through youth soccer, while AIYS develops self esteem, leadership, and a community. The catalyst for this achievement becomes the love of the sport. More developed area teens are lucky to take part in such healthy social and physical interaction, so the goal is to spread that growth to less fortunate.

In a state where many of these impoverished teens would drop out of school and take part in risky behavior, this program encourages teens to take part in a league where they obtain life skills they would miss otherwise. It’s amazing to see these types of organizations partner to create such positive environments. Find more information here.

~Sam@bluesombrero.com  

50 Social Media Tactics

You don’t have to look hard to find social media strategies almost anywhere in your town. Even local restaurants ask you to add them as a friend on Facebook. Hopefully you’ve caught your club up with the rest of the world and are doing the same with social media.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself, well if the market is saturated with social media outlets, why bother… nobody is going to listen. That’s when we get creative and make certain we are utilizing every aspect of our social media strategy.

Flip through the slideshow below presented at 2009’s Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits. While the info isn’t specifically tailored to youth soccer administration, it is still extremely valuable.

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

View more presentations from Chad Norman.

~Sam@bluesombrero.com

5 Steps to Creating Your Club’s Own iPhone App

It seems like iPhone owners define themselves these days by what apps they have. It’s not like they actually designed them themselves, but for reasons unknown it creates a sense of ownership and is very addicting. Admittedly they’re some great ones out, but also some useless ones.

What better way to set your club apart from the rest of the crowd and give your members that sense of pride with their very own app…and all for $25 a month. With around 50,000 apps and counting, it’s finally time one was available to those of us who aren’t tech wizards but are interested in creating one. Thanks to Sweb Apps for doing just this. From now till December 31st they are waiving all setup fees. Besides the monthly hosting fee jumping on this now is a no-brainer.

Step 1. Introductory video here to get the feel of what your new app will do.

Step 2. Create an account and classify your app. Don’t add the buttons yet, we’ll be doing that later. You will be asked to upload your club’s logo for the app’s avatar. The dimensions are 512 x 512 pixels in .JPEG format. Have a good name in mind because you’ll do that during this step as well.

Step 3. Log back in and build your app. Pick the buttons you want by adding links, RSS feeds, or getting advanced. If you want to modify the look of your buttons, you can design them yourself in whichever editor you prefer, but they must be 108 x 83 pixels in .PNG format.

Step 4. Create a custom background with Sweb or have the administrator in your office who deals with marketing and design do so. If it’s an original, the image has to be 320 x 480 pixels in .PNG format.

Step 5. Purchase App Tracker for $10 to track the activity your new tool gets. The information can be useful in modifying your creation and seeing how your users interact.

All that’s left is deciding what information you want to put online. Link to your website for updates, link to online soccer games, link to your social network, the possibilities are endless, just cater them to your audience. Send us the name of your app when you’re done so we can check it out. (source) 

And if Sweb App doesn't offer you enough, try this list of iPhone app makers (link).

~Sam@bluesombrero.com    

Diski Dancing

No not disco dancing...but Diski. In the latest viral video contest, South Africa's Tourism Board is offering a free trip to the World Cup if you tape yourself Diski dancing. The free trip would include your entire team, coach, and one parent of each team member. Thanks to USYS for the tip off. We suggest you start practicing, and no need to warn anyone in the office what you're doing, they'll figure it out. See other entries here. Good luck.

~Sam@bluesombrero.com