The Strategy of Super Bowl’s Social Media Command Center

Home The Strategy of Super Bowl’s Social Media Command Center

Last year I wrote a large article about Social Media Command Centers or Listening Centers. Somehow a center like that seems to be the holy grail for any Social Media Manager. So David Armano pushed the alarm button last week with this article. I totally agree with him on that. But based on a thorough strategy a Social Media Command Center can deliver huge added value. For example during the Super Bowl 2012.

For the first time in history there’s a Social Media Command Center for the Super Bowl. Digital agency Raidious manages the center with 50 persons monitoring the Social Media 15 hours a day. The team answers questions about parking, local events, and shares relevant information during the event.

With 150.0000+ visitors there’s enough online buzz generated. In 2011 the last minutes of the Super Bowl resulted in 4.064 tweets per second. That record will probably be broken this year. To manage the amount of buzz the command center focuses on the buzz in a 50 mile radius around Indianapolis based on geo-location.

Priorities
The priorities of the command center are:

  1. Safety: respond first to any safety-oriented issue / crisis
  2. Super Service: respond to any negative dialog related to the city or event, & help people have a great experience!
  3. Coverage: know what’s happening when and where, capture it and publish it
  4. Amplification: find positive dialog, or positive consumer content, and amplify it

Taulbee Jackson [@taulbee] CEO of Raidious and manager of the command center explained the goal of the center in the Social Pros Podcast yesterday:

”(..) In terms of what we’re hoping to accomplish here, we’re here in Indiana and it’s all about Hoosier hospitality. That’s one of the things that we were tasked with. The mission of the committee is to make sure that everyone has a great visitor experience when they come here to the Super Bowl. It’s not a typical marketing-focused approach like you might see from other social media campaigns. It’s more about safety and service and coverage, and letting people know what’s happening where and amplifying positive dialogue, and things along those lines.”

The Social Media Command Center exchanges information with the command center responsible for the logistics and the command center of Homeland Security, NSA, FBI, CIA who are also involved in this event. Based on the priorities the Social Media Command Center will also play a role in case of emergencies by sharing important information.

Super Bowl Social Media Command Center

Image via AroundIndy.com

Facilities of the Command Center

  • 2,800 sq ft. facility seats up to 35
  • Upgraded to redundant fibre internet access (20 up / 20 down)
  • iPad controlled integrated A/V system
  • 9-screen monitor wall (over 100 sq feet)
  • (12) 27†iMac Touch Down stations
  • (6) Producer stations
  • Conference Room, Reception Area, Coffee + Drinks
  • Game-Planning Station
  • Approximately 300 sq ft of whiteboard space

Tools that are used are Social Hub of Awareness Networks, Geckoboard to display several data feeds and Social Mention for sentimentanalyses, a realtime Q&A database of ChaCha, Basecamp for projectmanagement, Google chat for communication and Google Apps for realtime document collaboration.

A good example of a command center that’s build on a strategy offering added value. Students of the Ball State’s Center for Media Design will analyze the center’s strengths and weaknesses in the next two weeks. Looking forward to these results.