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I am working on developing a platform that allows sports fans to interact with their star athletes. I have outsourced social media marketing for initial 2 months. Now we have developed differences over the following issues:

They suggest we focus on social media marketing for atleast a month and get 1000 likes before inviting athletes on our website to interact with the stars, hence building fan base.

My opinion is that if we focus on marketing and create buzz about our platform and over promise and fail to deliver once we start inviting people to our website then no one would return. I am trying to focus on the MVP model and trying to focus on immediate launch and then adjust accordingly. But I do understand their point too as they are suggesting that if you don't have enough users, what is the point of inviting a guest athlete to the site. so Its chicken and egg problem i guess.

Please guide me on this issue.

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4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Sounds like a business model problem. What is the value proposition here?

  • Athletes (may) want recognition
  • fans get questions answered by their athlete

How will you ever know what athlete will gain enough attention without polling first? And have you polled enough agents to see whether this sort of thing would be of interest to them?

One theoretically could run a demand side business, where the fans vote who they would like to talk to, and you run interference by getting them to participate for a one time event.

Think about it in a kickstarter type way - people could commit a minimal fee to participate - and if enough people sign up, then you move to secure the event. Then, if the athlete doesn't want to participate, you refund them back. Posting the challenges in getting the event together also would be interesting fodder for fans.

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up vote 1 down vote

Why waste the time/money getting likes if you don't even know you're going to have a product "stars" to sell?

Your opinion is correct. You will fail if you over promise and don't deliver on your launch. You will loose all of your credibility.

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up vote 1 down vote

Randy is correct but what I don't understand is why are you on start-up out sourcing social media? That is a fee and burden that takes away from you start-up costs. I can see outsourcing branding which typically also includes social integration, such as web design with twitter and Facebook integration. Also, you are outsourcing nothing right now. You have no product, which is the athletes, as you have stated.

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up vote 0 down vote

Ok here is the value proposition

For fans: they want to interact and engage with their star athletes and ask them questions about their profession as well as other aspects.

For athletes: they are being paid by us to come and write articles, as well as engage in conversations with their fan base. We are starting polls for fans to decide what athlete they want on our site.

The problem of agents is almost non existent as the market is not that developed in India and Middle East. One can easily approach sports stars.I have talked to few athletes and they have given their consent for the right amount, which is within my budget.

The reason for outsourcing social media marketing is to create as much buzz as possible in the shortest possible time. I didn't want to experiment with it myself only to have minimal result and waste of time.

So now that it is established that the product "stars" will be available , what would be a better strategy for marketing. Thanks for the guidance

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