As the social media trend continues to pull everyone into it more and more companies are beginning to rely on socail media as a buisness tool. This trend of marking does not exclude the sports world. With big-time pro sporting events coming up in Charlotte, sports leaders are relying more heavily than ever on social media to ramp up buzz and sell tickets.



From basketball to NASCAR to hockey, local sports organizations in recent weeks have used ticket incentives and other giveaways to rack up thousands of new online fans and followers. But the soaring totals raise the same questions many observers ask when it comes to businesses using Facebook and Twitter as marketing tools. How exactly do you calculate the return on investment? And are these really devoted fans who will spend money over the long haul, or will they fade away like the Twitter ticket specials and Facebook giveaways that brought them? "It's still a new area," said Eric Boggs, founder and CEO of Argyle Social, a social media consulting firm in Durham. "The social Web has been around a long time, but businesses are just now beginning to use it" for marketing.

The Charlotte Bobcats, who played their first home playoff game this weekend, got an indication of the power of social media when they let their Facebook fans and Twitter followers buy tickets to tonight's game before the general public.




Within a week, the team added about 3,000 Facebook fans and about 1,000 Twitter followers. Team officials couldn't immediately calculate how many of those new followers bought tickets, but Bobcats President Fred Whitfield said he feels certain the social media exposure helped accelerate sales.

The team sold 13,000 advance tickets for today's playoff game against the Orlando Magic - nearly 4,000 more than ticket totals for the last home playoff game the Charlotte Hornets played in 2002, long before Facebook and Twitter became popular. Whitfield plans to repeat the advance ticket offer on social media for the Bobcats' second home playoff game.

"We see social media becoming a really effective marketing tool," he said. "The whole social media platform gives us the opportunity to really connect with the consumers who are most interested in us."

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