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Best and worst use of Social Media by teams

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Normandy

Aug 16, 2011
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There are countless threads about teams and riders, I thought it might be useful to discuss the best and worst use of social media at the tour/ most contrived PR setup etc.

With the Tour just about to start the PR machines will be working flat out to give us the corporate view of the teams, with carefully selected human interest stories about the teams ‘chosen’ riders. Riders will be writing bland PR approved tweets congratulating/thanking teammates, telling us they have arrived at hotels, ate, slept, did their ablutions etc

I was prompted to start this thread after BMC did not allow Gilbert to congratulate his fellow countryman Boonen by name when he won the Belgium championships. Why? Do they think cycling fans are stupid? Any bets on how long it will be before we get gooey pictures of Evan’s little boy and Cav’s baby?

Hopefully @thejensie is still as blunt and as un-PC as ever in his broken English. Let’s hope he is not restrained by his team.
 
The_Z_man

The_Z_man

Jul 10, 2009
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I'm a fan of BMC and Garmin-Sharp on Facebook (I don't do Twitter). They both are pretty aggressive with it, and it works well. I get very up to date info, and great pix and videos.
 
El Pistolero

El Pistolero

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Libertine Seguros said:
Movistar and OPQS are the best.
Click to expand...

Take a look at GreendEdge's youtube channel. It's pretty darn good. I don't pay much attention to Movistar, all I know is they have a good twitter account to inform us about all kinds of races. What else do they do?
 
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Gloin22

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Libertine Seguros said:
Movistar and OPQS are the best.
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Sky ? ;)

http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,25885_7821256,00.html

http://www.facebook.com/TeamSky

Special Tour Podcast- http://www.teamsky.com/article/0,27290,25884_7841019,00.html

Sky Live Ticker, very active Twitter

And as only team I've seen at Tour - they give away lots of goodies and jerseys at the finishes and starts of the Tour. They actually engage with people, unlike other teams at Tour

Few even could go into their bus :D
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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Gloin22 said:
And as only team I've seen at Tour - they give away lots of goodies and jerseys at the finishes and starts of the Tour. They actually engage with people, unlike other teams at Tour

Few even could go into their bus :D
Click to expand...

That's taking us out of the realm of social media though.

At the Vuelta last year they were the last bus to turn up in Bilbao, and they wouldn't let anybody near the thing. Some teams you could just go up and chat to, others you couldn't. Euskaltel may or may not have been friendly, but with the whole first-time-the-Vuelta's-been-in-País-Vasco-since-the-70s thing going on they were just inundated. Movistar were fairly stoic, though Pablo Lastras was happy to chat with anybody around. BMC were OK, as were Cofidis. Astana were a bit defensive, while Quick Step would go and grab any rider you asked for for a chat. Sky were just surly and unfriendly.

I'm sure race situations and fan situations affect it. At last year's Tour Sky were probably pretty relaxed, especially after Wiggins crashed out, with little pressure and Boasson Hagen fulfilling all the remaining goals. At the Vuelta, however, they were front and centre in the race, the pressure was on, they'd just lost what was probably the last chance (the stage into Bilbao), and fans had been pretty vitriolic towards Froome and Wiggins at times during the race (especially in Cantabria, in front of Cobo's home fans), so I can understand why they'd be more reluctant to engage in that situation.
 
ElChingon

ElChingon

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RadioShack. They've gotten the most headlines without a win or fewest wins, no PR BS and they still get the headlines. Sure you might say for the wrong reasons but they are still up there in headline count which puts their name up on the marque which is what the sponsors pay for, and most don't read past the headlines so they could care less if its a positive or negative story as long as their name is up near the top in BOLD, which it has been for most of the season so far. Not saying I like RadioShack only that they've accomplished their marketing/advertising minus a decent Social Media outlet, heck I don't even know if they do have one as why go there when its already in the regular stories to read so one less click to view what's going on.
 
ElChingon

ElChingon

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Agree Movistar and GreenEDGE have pretty good Social Media avenues which you must go to. GreenEDGE also has the most cussing bleeps of the two :D, shows who real their clips are.
 
Tigerion

Tigerion

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The most contrived one we haven't seen yet, it will be the team that hasn't done anything on social media to date and then come out with a massive push during the tour.
I really enjoy the OGE ones, the backstage pass that focuses on the team rather than just the riders. I found the backstage pass with the soigneur really interesting and amusing.
I think they go a bit too far with the bike riders can't cook stuff, but if some people enjoy that sort of thing then go for it.

I haven't really followed any of the other teams offical channels, but I do like some of the stuff the individual post like Robbie Hunter, Geriant Thomas Dave Zabriski. And Jens and Canc of course.
 
BeachBum

BeachBum

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Teams: OPQS, Garmin, Sky--> they are all good

Riders: Jens and Spartacus are the best, Zabriskie sometimes gets a good one (he tweeted about how happy he is that he has race #69 in the TdF)

Managers: Vaughters and Pat Lefevere. @PatLefevere is not afraid to show what he is thinking. "are we proud today ?? yes we are !!! that's the way I like it." --> after the nat'l champs weekend. And then this one from the TdSuisse: "hop hop guys, go for it today#tourdesuisse, ‪#ZLMtour‬. 20 days without victory..... don't like it "
 
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Normandy

Aug 16, 2011
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Libertine Seguros said:
Movistar and OPQS are the best.
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Agree with you on those two. I get the impression that whoever writes their websites enjoys cycling.

Worst in my opinion are BMC, Sky and Garmin. Their are more about the corporate image than riders and cycling information. Content is boring and predictable.

Garmin used to be good in the days of the Millar diaries (pre 2010) but they disappear to be replaced by PR pap. Millar is one of the better twitterers but I prefer his diaries - more than 142 characters. As for worst twitterer. How can someone in his position spend so much time on twitter. Discusssing management decisions/selection in public is unfair on the riders. Does he ever do any work that a team boss should do.?
 
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williamp78

Nov 14, 2011
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RedheadDane said:
Yeah... such as mooning random people. Last time I checked that was something drunk teenagers did... :p:rolleyes:
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There's a really funny story in david millars book; on the last day of le tour the garmin team all wore their TT suits for the sprint train for farrar on the champs ellyses. Except DZ needed a toilet break on the way to paris; not really possible to relieve oneself at the roadside with a skin suit on so millar describes DZ leaping off his bike and sprinting into a cafe to use the loo!

The only thing that could make it funnier was if he was wearing his captain america suit! Sadly he wasn't the RR champ at the time
 
RedheadDane

RedheadDane

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williamp78 said:
There's a really funny story in david millars book; on the last day of le tour the garmin team all wore their TT suits for the sprint train for farrar on the champs ellyses. Except DZ needed a toilet break on the way to paris; not really possible to relieve oneself at the roadside with a skin suit on so millar describes DZ leaping off his bike and sprinting into a cafe to use the loo!

The only thing that could make it funnier was if he was wearing his captain america suit! Sadly he wasn't the RR champ at the time
Click to expand...

LoL! :D That must've been quite a sight!
(Eeeh... he's never been the RR champ as far as I know...)

---

As for the team's use of Social Media... I actually follow all the WT teams on Facebook but I can't really say which I think are best. I can't really understand what some of the teams write, but I suppose people who speaks said languages does.

Mainly though I prefer teams and riders who don't take things too seriously.
 
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Normandy

Aug 16, 2011
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Gibert's Tweets make interesting reading. I have never heard him speak English, but he seems to have a good grasp of the language in his tweets. :confused:

Is this the real Gilbert?
 
HL2037

HL2037

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Jens Voight twittering about every cup of coffee he drinks is getting a bit annoying. I get that it is supposed to be cute and endearing. It just isn't.

On the other side "Goodnight my twitter friends" from Ivan Basso melts my heart.
 
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