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Future of Sports Blogging? LAS Co-Founder Has Some Thoughts

Editor’s note: Post written by an LAS co-founder for his day job at Carrot Creative, which isn’t really a job as much as it is fun. If you’re a blogger, this will appeal to you. If you’re a laxer, bear with us.

“Within every despondant nine-to-fiver, there may be a Superblogger waiting to burst forth.” Basketbawful

Last weekend I had the opportunity to represent Carrot Creative at the BLOGS WITH BALLS 1.0, the first ever sports blogger and new media gathering in NYC. Hosted by the guys at HHR Media Group and sponsored by Yard Barker, SI.com, SB Nation and others, this was truly a ground-breaking event. It’s not everyday you get the guys from Deadspin, Kissing Suzy Kolber and FreeDarko on the same stage as members of the MSM (Mainstream Media) in front of a big, unique audience. And not everyone in attendance was a big time internet blogger; There were people who get 2 visits a day and others who average hundreds of thousands.

Not only was this event groundbreaking, it was also glass-breaking. When Guinness starts getting served at noon during a sports blogging conference, you can only expect that things will get a little lively. It was a long day of listening and people were eager to chat and meet each other. You would start to hear the chatter as soon as a few attendees lost interest in a panel. For instance, during the Leveraging Social Media panel there was mainly only talk about Facebook and Twitter followers, and people got talkative because they got tired of hearing about that. Thinking about this led me to finally realize that bloggers want to be ahead of the game. Most of them are already on Twitter and Facebook – they’re on top of all that buzz. They want to know what they need to do next and how they can improve it.

During the conference, I started writing notes about my thoughts on the future of sports blogging and how social features have the potential to drastically improve the visitor’s experience. My main thoughts are listed below.

Social Media
There are a ton of ways you can leverage social media to increase traffic to your blog and gain awareness. For starters, every blog should use these: Facebook Fanpage, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube channel, Tumblr site, Delicious, Digg, Disqus, BallHype and FanFeedr. Fanfeedr offers personalized real-time sports aggregation and it launched in public beta yesterday. If you run a niche sports blog, it could be the perfect way to stay on top of your team, region or league. All the tools I’ve listed are absolutely free, easy to use and they will allow you to have a presence in multiple communities. There is no reason your blog shouldn’t have just as much personality as the writer behind it… just look at HHReynolds and LaxAllStars (disclaimer: I’m a co-founder).

Player & Team Accessibility
Players and teams are going to become much more accessible to the average sports blogger. With more and more big names embracing social media, there is no better time to start planning a strategy for getting your foot in the door. People get jobs through Twitter, so why not try snagging an interview or a press pass? Whether it’s a blogger or journalist, a good writer deserves a press pass.

Real World Networking
Three words: BLOGS WITH BALLS. Don Povia and Chris Lucas from HHR Media Group are onto something big here. BwB facilitated great discussions and networking, and more of these types of events will surface. There’s no doubt that sports bloggers who attended the event came away recognizing the value in what they can learn from meeting with others who are in similar shoes. Tweetups, meetups, BwBups… A community of sports bloggers can and will unite.

Panelists at BwB went home with a personalized bottle of Jose Cuervo. Mr. Blue Sky wishes he had one too.

Outreach
As one panelist mentioned at BwB, it’s important to keep a good list of your contacts. The truth is for every article there is a good reason to reach out. When it comes to players, teams, brands, or any blog post’s subject you can always find someone important to share the link with.

Niche Dominance
At BwB, there was a guy representing a Cricket blog. During Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote, Gary asked the guy what he wrote about and people chuckled at his reply. No one there was an avid cricket fan, but there is an audience out there just waiting for the best Cricket blog on the planet. Sport-specific advertisers, time on site, influence and trust – there is huge potential in catering to a specific sports niche. Banner ads and full-out site sponsorships are going to become easier to sell because advertisers are going realize the value in keeping their brand in front of eyeballs for a long period of time. Time on site will become a huge factor in ad rates and so will the ability to influence purchase decisions.

Community Building
With new media rapidly evolving and the demand for real-time access to information increasing, it is important to keep friends close. Bloggers should have a group of people they can reach out to immediately if something big happens. Ranging from friends and family to avid commentors to contacts made via Twitter, it is important to reach out and include them when exciting things are happening. Building a community of core people who visit the blog everyday will allow you to easily collect feedback, solicit ideas, and ask for input. This is crucial. After all, these are the people worth writing for.

Click here for the rest of this post on the Carrot Blog.