Saturday, July 19, 2014

How a Racing Team (Hendrick Motorsports) Manages Multiple Sets of Social Data in One Place

Racing changed when data analysis and computerized diagnosis allowed teams to identify issues and opportunities before spending countless hours pulling apart the entire engine.
Not ones to shy away from a successful tactic, the leaders at NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports are applying a similar thought process to their digital campaigns – and using Simply Measured to do it.

Their Challenge

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Too Many Moving Pieces: Hendrick Motorsports has 30 corporate partners and four Sprint Cup teams, each with social programs and strategies that the 10-time series champions support and help execute.
“With 30 corporate partners and four Sprint Cup teams, our biggest challenge is maintaining balance,” says Patrick Perkins, vice president of marketing for Hendrick Motorsports. “Supporting their digital efforts is extremely important, so we have to be strategic in both when and where we push out the content.”
With so many teams and partners, Perkins’ team at Hendrick Motorsports struggled to gain real insight.
“We had an array of methods and services, which made it a challenge to provide context and truly gain an understanding of the numbers we were seeing,” says Perkins.
How does a company like Hendrick Motorsports bring multiple sources into one place?

Their Answer

By using Simply Measured, Perkins’ team has been able to ease the burden of “too much data,” put context around the numbers on their screen, and use them to make real decisions.
Hendrick Motorsports now manages data for 80 profiles and more than 50 keywords, hashtags and terms, all in one place with Simply Measured.
Bringing this data together allows Hendrick Motorsports to get a complete snapshot of what their audience, drivers, teams and partners are talking about. With this data all in one place, the team is able to parse out real insight from across all of these conversations.
This data-driven decision making is how Hendrick Motorsports has developed some of the most successful and recognized social programs in NASCAR.
“We invested in research, which guided our development of robust digital and social strategies,” says Perkins. “We asked our fans what they want – and that feedback set our direction.”
This research and new grasp on their partner and team activity across multiple channels has paid off.
“We’re committed to our digital program,” says Perkins. “We brought video production in-house and invested in a production studio and editing suite; we launched our Digital Dashboard social media command center; we’ve added staff dedicated to digital; and we’ve partnered with Simply Measured for accurate analytics.”

#DashChat

Dale
The #DashChat Q&A sessions have become a staple of Hendrick Motorsports’ engagement strategy. Run out of the new Digital Dashboard (pictured here during a Dale Earnhardt Jr. #DashChat session) the campaigns provide a value for the Hendrick Motorsports team in a number of ways.
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The Hendrick Motorsports audience becomes engaged and invested in the narratives of their favorite drivers and team members, interacting with them in real time.

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The questions and comments of their audience provide Perkins and his team with valuable insight into their fans’ interests and attitudes; insight that they can use to inform future digital initiatives.
“We utilize a lot of interactive events, like #DashChat, to connect with our community,” says Perkins. “Having a two-way conversation and offering engaging content allows us to build fan loyalty and ultimately provide more value to our partners.”
Simply Measured allows Hendrick Motorsports to track these campaigns across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, all in one report that they can then present to sponsors and partners without digging through Excel to compile multiple data sources.
“This is now a vital part of our business,” says Perkins. “Our goal is to be just as competitive in this space as we are on the racetrack. To do that, we need to make informed decisions.”

On The Racetrack

The Hendrick Motorsports social team may not spend race days behind the wheel, but they’re certainly focused – providing resources, updates and engagement for their fans across their networks.
“Our strategy is to make sure fans feel like they’re a part of the team and have access to behind-the-scenes content that can only come from us,” says Perkins. “You won’t find it by visiting other outlets. Our followers are more informed. They’re truly insiders.”
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This strategy has paid off. During the four August race weekends, Hendrick Motorsports saw more than three times their average Twitter mentions, @replies, favorites and retweets. At Pocono Raceway, they saw a 700 percent increase in Twitter engagement.
With the Simply Measured Complete Social Snapshot, Hendrick Motorsports is able to see the total conversation and gauge which networks they should be focusing on.
“We have to be thoughtful about how our resources are allocated, so we try to focus on the platforms where we see significant value for our partners and our team,” says Perkins. “We want to be where our fans are truly engaged with us.”
With the help of their Simply Measured data, one of the platforms that Perkins’ team found value was Instagram. The team has seen more than 70 percent engagement on some of their posts.
Having a better understanding of fan activity and engagement around Instagram has given Hendrick Motorsports the supporting data to justify a migration of more resources to the photo-sharing network.

Why Does Simply Measured Work for Hendrick Motorsports?

With Simply Measured, Hendrick Motorsports has been able to bring all of their properties, partner accounts, and tracked terms under one roof. The centralization and easy reporting has helped them to easily identify trends, develop content, and build impactful programs to benefit the fans, partners and the team.

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