Sports Authority was looking to establish an integrated social media presence to develop customer relationships and provide expertise. They overhauled their social channels and developed a content strategy around sports and promotions. Targeted campaigns on Facebook and Twitter helped grow their audience significantly and test effective strategies. This allowed Sports Authority to engage customers, provide service, share coupons, and track offline store visits, improving their business.

1. Developing Sports Authority’s Social “Playbook”An Affinitive Case Study

2. OverviewSports Authority is one of the largest sporting goods retailers in the United States, operating over 460 stores in 45 states.Faced with a previously disjointed online/offline experience and some customer service sensitivities to overcome, Sports Authority waslooking to establish an integrated social media presence to develop 1-to-1 relationships with their customers while providing product “authority” and customer service in ways they’d never done before.

3. Establishing a “Social Footprint”The first task at hand was evaluating Sports Authority’s existing social marketing initiatives, then overhauling and bringing up to date their key social touchpoints (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube).A content and engagement strategy built around holidays, sports seasons and other promotions/traditional campaigns was developed.

4. Audience DevelopmentWith their social touchpoints in place, the next objective was to quickly kickstart the growth of Sports Authority’s audience and generate maximum awareness around their planned social marketing efforts:Targeted Social Ad Campaigns

5. Daily Twitter Giveaways

6. Seasonal/specific sport-themed sweepstakes

7. “Fan and Win” Facebook sweepstakes

8. Influencer identification and outreachThe “Wii Authority”To capitalize on the Black Friday/“Cyber Monday” shopping rush, Affinitive developed a “Wii Authority” microsite to promote Sports Authority’s exclusive arrangement as the only sporting goods retailer to carry the Wii Fit. In addition to providing product information, an interactive store locator and exclusive content, the microsite integrated a consumer promotion where people could enter each day to win one of 30 Wii Fit systems and virally share/promote.

9. “12 Days of SA” ContestAdditionally, for the holiday season, a “12 Days of SA” contest was launched that bridged consumers between Facebook and Twitter. Each day, a new prize would be announced on Facebook, and for a chance to win, consumers needed to follow @SportsAuthority on Twitter and retweet the daily contest tweet (using the hashtag #12DaysOfSA).

10. “Like and Win” Facebook SweepstakesAffinitive developed a Facebook sweepstakes platform that has allowed Sports Authority to run more than a dozen different sweepstakes to date, built around different sports themes (World Cup Soccer, Father’s Day/golf, Lacrosse, etc.).In order to enter the sweepstakes, consumers must first become a “Fan” of (aka “Like”) Sports Authority’s Facebook page, which “unlocks” the sweepstakes entry form.Additionally, Sports Authority benefits from significant opt-ins for future communications and the ability to link promotional consumer data with their internal CRM system.

11. Targeted Facebook Ad CampaignsBy creating a series of highly targeted ads (by demographics, schools, interests, etc.) and A/B ad unit testing, Sports Authority was able to quickly grow their audience, and with several campaigns worth of data could then accurately predict future fan acquisition and CPL (cost per “Like”) rates.

12. “Paid” Media Amplifies “Earned”The targeted Facebook ad campaigns quickly built a massive, relevant audience. A well-executed content strategy was then needed to engage them:Daily updates topping 100k impressions per post

13. 100 comments/likes per post

14. Ongoing customer service and post moderation

15. Geo-targeted updates to create higher coupon and promo conversion rateDriving Clicks to BricksBy creating distinct coupon codes, both online and in-store redemption can be tracked and segmented via Facebook vs. Twitter-specific coupons.

16. Customer Service 2.0Customer service issues can be properly routed and escalated, in real-time and in a public way that allows happy customers to share their satisfaction and, in turn, become evangelists.

17. Location, Location, Location!As the mainstream consumer adoption of Location-Based Services (LBS) continues to grow, Sports Authority is developing strategies to deliver geo-targeted promotions and reward their most loyal customers (those who most frequently visit their stores).

18. Results*184,000+ Facebook Fans (5,000% growth) (#1 Sporting Goods Retailer on Facebook!)4,000+ Twitter Followers (520% growth)

19. 10,000,000+ Facebook Impressions

20. 5,000,000+ Twitter Impressions

21. Thousands of consumer database opt-ins

22. Thousands of coupons shared/redeemed (online/in-store)

23. “Social Referrals” key traffic driver to SportsAuthority.com

24. Customer service/call center savings* Through June 2010

25. Thanks!New York (Headquarters):135 West 26th Street8th FloorNew York, NY 10001p: (212) 684-9100California:612 Howard StreetSuite 100San Francisco, CA 94105p: (415) 278-9700www.beaffinitive.com