In-race Social Media Interaction

Every year I look forward to watching the four restrictor plate races at Talladega and Daytona. The unpredictability, tense and tight 30 car packs, create a must watch event. After the wild finish at Talladega in the spring, when Carl Edwards attempted to block Brad Keselowski, and left Edward airborne and in the fence, NASCAR has implemented a number of changes.

A. First and foremost, the speedway raised and improved the catchfence, for fans safety. There were a few minor injuries after the spring race when debris from Edwards car hit the fence. 
B. NASCAR made a change to the size of the restrictor plate carburetor, reducing the power to keep the top speed below 200 miles per hour.
C. This final change is one that is somewhat controversial. Due to the design of the cars, when two line up bumper to bumper, the aerodynamics create such an effect that the two cars can pull away from the pack of cars. [It was truly exciting to see the strategy work when the two cars become one and charge through the field.] So after final practice on Friday, NASCAR made a change stating that cars need "daylight" between them and can no longer push bumper to bumper through the corners. 


Needless to say the style of racing has changed today, as I'm watching the race. Many have been upset from drivers to fans with the mid-weekend change. While I'm a little sad to see the change made, I do realize that it was made to keep the competitors safe; I figured I'd check to see if there was any activity on the NASCAR Facebook page. The following quotes are from some opinionated fans posting on the NASCAR Facebook wall during the middle of the race.


"Nascar isn’t saying anything now to em, hmmm, maybe [NASCAR President] Mike [Helton] got his head out of his ass!"
"Looks like a IRL race""Finally a little bit of excitement, ok Nascar time for you to step in with your warnings, its getting to crazy.""Come NASCAR, REALLY? This race sucks! I'm so pissed that's about as nice as I can be right now!""Did nascar ok this 3 wide?""there more excitment on this board then on the tv""It's bad when right now I am watching the Cleveland Browns more than the race"

While the middle of the race was a little boring, the end is sure to be gratifying. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to he race. Enjoy

Is NASCAR Opening Up?

Often considered the sport most heavily dictated by executives, NASCAR may be opening up a bit. If so, it is only a small estimate. NASCAR is at least providing an easy avenue for which to interact and communicate with fans.

Starting last week, NASCAR is going 2.0! One of my favorite blogs to read, The Daily Planet, released an article last week, discussing how NASCAR officials have expanded their offerings on the web to MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook (You will find each of the NASCAR pages linked). In addition to the article, I also obviously noted the signage on the NASCAR.com homepage (which is operated by Turner-Sports) touting the new and enhanced community features.

The development that seemed of the greatest importance, noted by The Daily Planet, was the MySpace page. Last time I used MySpace was in high school, and I deactivated my account. Instead, I am on Twitter following the official NASCAR account, in addition to the tweets posted from NASCAR_com.
Since I started studying the social media phenomena, the main idea is that everything revolves around relationships. Considered a fan friendly sport, NASCAR seems to be providing an easier, more direct line of communication for fans. After all, we the fans are what make the sport go round, or at least what I'm supposed to believe.

The first topic of conversation I noticed on the Facebook, Twitter, and NASCAR.com home page was the topic of a shift to more two-day events. For you non-NASCAR followers, the average race weekend consists of arriving at the track Thursday night, qualifying on Friday, and practice Saturday, before the race on Sunday. The thought is to condense the weekend by practicing and qualifying on Saturday and go racing on Sunday. Logistically, a two-day weekend would work wonders for a team's financial burden of travel and hotel accommodations.

My opinion aside (although I’m not opposed), the various sites lead fans to places like the Community on NASCAR.com or direct Twitter followers to comment on the Facebook page, to leave opinions and thoughts. On Tuesday, the Facebook page had 145 comments. As of Friday evening, I saw more than 560! What a great way to easily, and relatively effortlessly gain voluntary opinions.

Knowing that the stakeholders besides fans, like track-holding companies, team owners, etc, will have a greater influence over any major decisions, NASCAR has proved that they are willing to make changes to please fans and generate better competition (i.e. Double-File Restarts). Plus, any way that owners can save more money to help the cars go faster, should have support in the garage area.

Of all these advances with the social media and the sport I love, I have a couple concerns/thoughts:

1.      People take the opportunity to speak with some authority and intelligence (yes I’m aware of the NASCAR stereotypes)

2.      NASCAR continues to learn and grow with the social media trend, and establish stronger relationships

3.      Hire me! I’ll help do it!

That’s my time for the evening. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic, or take any other ideas to blog about in the future.

Tale of Two You's

With the huge social media explosion taking place in our world today, especially for emerging professionals, it's important to be aware of your online profiles. Filtering content on profiles such as Facebook should be common knowledge, but can be an easy thing to miss. It's really hard for employers to take you, the professional, seriously while you, the party-er, is bragging about the past weekend's escapades, or posting all the crazy photos online.

Most people are aware enough not to post compromising information themselves. What people need to watch for is what other people post. If needed, individuals should ask photos or other information be removed if necessary. It is always interesting to see the information that people post about others.

Have you ever read the fights between people on Facebook? They are hilarious to read. I can recall seeing those on news feeds in High School, but I was always dumbfounded that they actually happened. Does anyone have anything surprising that they've seen come up on Facebook or anywhere else online?