Social Media Day 2011 Rocks Detroit, Brings the Community Together

I updated my “status” last night. Not by tweeting 140 characters or by writing a few words on Facebook, but by attending the 2011 Social Media Day in Detroit, MI. It was an event for people to get together, network, and rejoice in tables of free food. Most of all it was a chance to chat, chill, and tweet with people in one cool environment. “This event is to say thank you,” said Nicole Yelland, brand manager at

. “We think it's important to give the social community, and the media community, a party they deserve.” Livio Radio teamed with

to host the Detroit event last year after Mashable declared that June 30 would be the

of social media.

“Two weeks before it, John Policicchio [the digital marketing manager at MotorCity Casino Hotel] and I pulled together and said, ‘Yeah, we're gonna have this party!'” Yelland boasts. “We had 400 people last year. This year, almost 1,600 people RSVP'd and it looks like that many were actually in the building tonight. Last year was a super fun event we pulled together in two weeks. This year we had a full year to do it so we went big.” “Big” is an understatement.

During our interview, Yelland explained what her job as brand manager entails. “My job is to make sure that we are integrated into the community, and to make sure that our brand is known and understood,” she said. “We're all huge music lovers. Everything we do is Internet radio. Social media is in lockstep with what we do. People love listening to music, but more than listening to it, they love to talk about the music they're listening to and identifying with it. Social media is really an extension of who people are. Having that music online is what we're all about.” Later this year, Livio will release a new Bluetooth Internet Radio car kit. “It lets you keep your cell phone in your pocket when you listen to music, make and accept calls,” Yelland said. “It lets you listen to 45,000 stations anywhere in the world. There's no limit to location. If you're from Detroit and you [happen to be] somewhere else, you can still enjoy the music that you love.”

The Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Tigers, Big Fuel, Fathead, Bizdom, and hiredMYway were among the sponsors of the event. Jake Duhaime, the social media manager for the Detroit Red Wings, took a moment to tell Benzinga about the benefits that his and other teams have reaped from using social media. “I think that teams are seeing significant growth in their Facebook pages,” Duhaime said. “It is how you utilize them. You see teams like the Yankees with four million fans, but it doesn't matter how many fans you have if you're not utilizing them. For us, we built up from 300,000 to almost 600,000 over the course of the 2010 – 2011 season.” That level of growth is very impressive. But that doesn't make Duhaime's job any easier.

“With social media and pro sports, you have obviously fans who need to know the latest about their team, and they need to know it now,” he said. “There is no time to really process and sit down and write a story because you have everyone else competing against you and tweeting against you, especially in bigger markets – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. You have other reporters tweeting in the locker room. So you have to be very proactive, very aggressive, in terms of your approach in getting the latest information out there.” The next part of Duhaime's job is trying to figure out how to turn a team's massive audience into a revenue stream. “I think that's the biggest crossroad that a lot of teams are going in,” he said. “But we've done a great job of putting our corporate partners in a position to create a unique opportunity for our fans and drive revenue to our organization at the same time.” Further, Duhaime said that the Detroit Red Wings social media team has done a very good job of utilizing its fans. “We had tremendous viewing parties here, which sold out in minutes because of social media,” he said. “We had a DTE Energy

suite night, which allowed a group of our fans to win tickets to a luxury suite. We've gone on the road, we've had parties on the road for fans who may only get to go to one or two games a year. And it may not be an opportunity they have often, but when we do have that opportunity to interact with our fans and connect with them on a face-to-face level, we need to be hitting a homerun.”

Duhaime said that while he knows the audience is young and engaged, you have to realize that not every one of the 600,000 Facebook fans will watch every game. “But you want them to sort of know what's going on so that when you're playing real well or you have an event or a promotion going on, they'll say, ‘Hey, I wanna go to the Joe tonight! I want to go to Comerica! I want to tune in on TV,'” Duhaime adds. “So it's an opportunity to interact with fans on a grassroots level. There are so many opportunities there, and that's where social media is really important.”