Let me start by saying I love the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I want that place to make it. Let me also admit I have let my membership slip since Buck O'Neil died. It's kind of like 18th and Vine disappeared from my radar for a while...and I feel bad about that. But some of the blame falls on them for their internet strategy, or lack of it.
I don't want to get into all the junk and politics going on around the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. You can read about it here and here if you need to catch up. I'll just set this up like this: I pitched Bob Kendrick about 7 or 8 years ago while I was at MoonWire. They said they did not have the budget to do the things that needed to be done to establish a real online presence. A couple weeks ago, after reading more about the problems they were having I emailed Bob just to tell him I hoped things picked up and how surprised I was that they still had no real online presence, especially when it comes to a social media: no Facebook, no Twitter, no blog. A whole generation uses the web through those channels, and the NLBM was not visible anywhere. They have basically closed the blinds on today's internet user. Bob emailed back that he agreed, and he hoped they would be able to get some budget increases so they could get involved on those things. There it is again. Budget.
I don't post this to pick on Bob Kendrick. From what I understand, Bob is dealing with a lot of crap down there right now. And the times I have met him I have really liked him. A lot. And again, I'm not in the loop over there to see what they are really working on. I'm just going with how it looks from the outside. His thoughts about creating an online presence are common with a lot of people and businesses. They don't really understand today's social web. It is so different than it was even 7 to 8 years ago when Bob and I first met. I know with Buck O'Neil gone, it has gotten harder for the NLBM to get attention and spread the word. Buck was a social giant. They need to find a way to start talking to people without Buck. No better place to do that than online. And it doesn't take stacks of money anymore.
Being successful online these days has less to do with budget and a lot to do with passion for your message. Especially for something like the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I'm hard pressed to come up with another group that would be as exciting to build an online community around than the NLBM. And it would cost very little to get going. It should be every social marketer's dream to pitch them ideas. It's got to be the easiest job in town to get immediate results from. My head is spinning with ideas.
Here's one...
Live Tweet history. Baseball season is starting in a couple weeks. Live tweet some historical Negro League games. Act is if they are happening right now. If a game was played on May 1st 1925, then on May 1st 2009 tweet the game as if it happening right then. Give me the pitching match up, standings prior to the game. Tweet the first pitch. Then from there sometimes you might tweet crucial at bats pitch by pitch, other times you might just tweet once for a whole inning if they were up and down in order with nothing exciting. You know how the game ends. You know where the drama is and what at bats prove crucial to the outcome. You could tell an amazing story doing this.
The best would be if you could do a season. Pick one game a week or a couple from the same season and let us follow that season from beginning to end reliving (most of us living for the first time) the season. The problem would be, do we have enough records and score cards to tweet 2 important games a week for a whole season? I don't know the answer to that. But I imagine there is enough to get started.
I think you could get a lot of buzz by using the shiniest new internet darling, Twitter, to bring history alive. And this takes little money. It just takes the passion to want to tell people about it.
How about this...
Give me some short video tours of some of the exhibits, given by some ball players and post them to a facebook page. I'm just talking about 3 minute videos by someone like Joe Carter (he's in town). Have him show us a piece in a current exhibit and maybe give a little background. A teaser to the full exhibit. Put out at least 2 a week. Or go after current ball payers that are in town to play the Royals and have them come over and do a short tour on an exhibit. This does not take a budget - this just takes some passion.
There are so many possibilities to use social media to spread the word.
The NLBM has the unbelievable responsibility of teaching us about an important part of our country's history. They hold a lot of that history behind their walls. Unfortunately - instead of spreading the word, they are locking it up in a web site from the nineties and acting like the reason they can't tell anyone about it is because of money. That's silly.
It doesn't take money. With all the tools available to the internet marketer today, it takes passion. I hope all that passion over there did not die with Buck O'Neil.
Being successful online these days has less to do with budget and a lot to do with passion for your message. Especially for something like the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I'm hard pressed to come up with another group that would be as exciting to build an online community around than the NLBM. And it would cost very little to get going. It should be every social marketer's dream to pitch them ideas. It's got to be the easiest job in town to get immediate results from. My head is spinning with ideas.
Here's one...
Live Tweet history. Baseball season is starting in a couple weeks. Live tweet some historical Negro League games. Act is if they are happening right now. If a game was played on May 1st 1925, then on May 1st 2009 tweet the game as if it happening right then. Give me the pitching match up, standings prior to the game. Tweet the first pitch. Then from there sometimes you might tweet crucial at bats pitch by pitch, other times you might just tweet once for a whole inning if they were up and down in order with nothing exciting. You know how the game ends. You know where the drama is and what at bats prove crucial to the outcome. You could tell an amazing story doing this.
The best would be if you could do a season. Pick one game a week or a couple from the same season and let us follow that season from beginning to end reliving (most of us living for the first time) the season. The problem would be, do we have enough records and score cards to tweet 2 important games a week for a whole season? I don't know the answer to that. But I imagine there is enough to get started.
I think you could get a lot of buzz by using the shiniest new internet darling, Twitter, to bring history alive. And this takes little money. It just takes the passion to want to tell people about it.
How about this...
Give me some short video tours of some of the exhibits, given by some ball players and post them to a facebook page. I'm just talking about 3 minute videos by someone like Joe Carter (he's in town). Have him show us a piece in a current exhibit and maybe give a little background. A teaser to the full exhibit. Put out at least 2 a week. Or go after current ball payers that are in town to play the Royals and have them come over and do a short tour on an exhibit. This does not take a budget - this just takes some passion.
There are so many possibilities to use social media to spread the word.
The NLBM has the unbelievable responsibility of teaching us about an important part of our country's history. They hold a lot of that history behind their walls. Unfortunately - instead of spreading the word, they are locking it up in a web site from the nineties and acting like the reason they can't tell anyone about it is because of money. That's silly.
It doesn't take money. With all the tools available to the internet marketer today, it takes passion. I hope all that passion over there did not die with Buck O'Neil.
