the fan-engagement part of Crowdfunding is really nice”
BS: “Caterham were attempting to phoenix the team. Soccer teams have phoenixed themselves i.e. when they get too far into debt; basically the fans buy by all the shares and form a new team under a different name. It’s the same team but it is owned by the fans for a few years till management can buy shares back. I think that's what Finbarr was attempting to do but he executed it with a remarkable lack of finesse”
Q3: We've had Facebook, and now motorsports is heavily represented on Twitter. What other social media trends should we look out for?
DC: “A lot of celebrities are latching on to Instagram - it works really well, they can speak directly to their followers and it has more rich media than Twitter because you have to have an image attached to each post or share, and it supports video as well.
With Twitter you only have to put your 140 characters and that's it. So I think Instagram is a really good option and as Bridget mentioned earlier, Tumblr has a ton of traffic, it ranks very high on the Alexa ratings and especially because it is easier to support on links and it is good for SEO when you're trying to tie your website to it or your Facebook page.
I'm not really sure about Snapchat; though I know for example some American sports (NBA, NFL) are doing very well with it but it’s not really applicable to my client-demographic: i.e. those looking for a suite in Monaco/Austin/Mexico or helicopter rides to races, so I can't really say whether F1 can use it effectively but I would be interested to hear if anyone has an opinion on how F1 could use Snapchat”
Moderator: "Isn’t it bad enough that we haven’t succeeded in monetising Twitter, how do you monetise Snapchat?!
RZ: "I can answer the question. Snapchat is interesting because of the age group it tends to grab. Twitter has been bleeding people; it hasn’t been gaining new users quickly enough for a while now- same thing with Facebook. Young people aren’t signing up to Twitter first, they are going to Snapchat. I have a friend based in Los Angeles who designs adverts for Snapchat.
Snapchat adverts are less than a year old, so still pretty new but several of the American brands are starting to use it. With regards to how Formula 1 would use Snapchat; it would function similarly to Twitter; so your in-house team comes up with a campaign and then pushes it to users on Snapchat.
True, the amount of time you see content on Snapchat is very limited, but that’s part of the allure. Anyway, I think it's more about: you say a brand name enough times and you get brand recognition; just like Infiniti did with Red Bull. Six weeks from now, when you go to the grocery store you might buy a Mars bar when you would not normally buy one, so it's a long game in general brand awareness – much more powerful than Click here, Buy now. You should log on to Snapchat and see what it's all about!”
DR: (In terms of social media trends) “To echo what Danielle was saying, I was reading an article a year ago that said the demographics of typical user on Twitter is around 30 to 45 years old. And that 85% of F1 fans on Twitter are between the ages of 30 – 45.
That goes along with what Bernie has been saying so there’s a danger that we are missing out on other social media. Tumblr has been a huge distraction for me which is why I have been away from Twitter for a while – there’s a huge amount of F1 content on there.
Something else I’d like to see is FOM identifying which part of races will go viral7 and use apps like Vine, YouTube or Vimeo to post that content and circumnavigate people who record the action on their phones and post it online which then get taken down by FOM. It’s an easy way to say “Hey we are listening to you and we know what you want” rather than taking down videos and fans will stop seeing them as the Wicked Witch of the West”.
F1/FOM has started posting videos on the F1 app too. I know we are paying for the app already but they need to start paying more attention to what people are using (be it Tumblr or Vine) and make sure they post snippets of content on there. The other thing I have an issue with is how long it takes to post the content online: so they post a clip online and but it’s not really what fans are asking for. They could put together a 60-minute package with different camera angles from what we saw on the FOM feed, have it online within a week, and behind a paywall so you're buying the content as you would do on iTunes or on Google Play. I'd like to see that”
BS: “Just a note on the demographics, I often feel old on Tumblr – it seems populated by 16 year olds. That is the right target demographic to reach out to the next generation. And Tumblr is a pretty safe space for young social media users – there is no trolling and hate, at least I haven't witnessed it going on any one’s accounts. By the way, I have seen Lotus on Pinterest
though I tend to see Pinterest as the “mum-network…..”
RZ: “It is the highest women-heavy network that exists, for sure” DR: “No wonder there are no F1 fans on there” BS: “There are a few F1 fans on there – and there are also a lot of Doctor Who fans but Doctor Who fans outnumber F1 fans” .
RZ: “What about social TV – is this even on the radar?
RZ: “What about social TV – is this even on the radar?