March 26th, 2009 
Journo Last week we got an e-mail from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing’s media relations department asking us if we wanted to join their mailing list. TC sent a response thanking them for asking before they added us but said we would likely not use anything they sent. They of course added us anyway.
Fast forward a couple of days, they sent an e-mail through their list that we thought was kind of interesting (we stand corrected I guess). Here is the gist of it:
Our goal is to work with you in order to increase the reach of social media outlets in today’s coverage of motorsports by providing you with better access to those that make the news…We understand the challenges social media outlets can face…To that end, we have created specific media lists with the idea of delivering an increased level of access to social media outlets covering our race teams that traditional media outlets have always enjoyed.
Essentially what they are doing is giving those working social media (Web 2.0 if you will) in the sport a platform for access to their organization. This includes, according to the e-mail, teleconferences and online chats with team executives, drivers and crew members and access to “exclusive online content and photos.”
While we likely won’t take part in any of their offers, I think it is a fantastic idea. As you know TC and I do this on the side, but there are a lot of people out there (you might be one of them) working very hard to get their blogs and Web sites going, without the access members of the traditional media have.
These sites though are no less important than the newspaper and TV outlets. Millions of people access NASCAR news online everyday and if as a team you aren’t giving people the talking points, someone else will.
The most important part of public relations (and media relations encompassed within the discipline) is controlling your message. If you can directly bring people stories, unique content and access, odds are they’re going to be a lot more fair to you and they are going talk about you a lot more. When it comes down to it, that’s what the business part of this sport is all about.
Beyond helping out those in social media, all of these teams really need to start looking at other Web 2.0 tools like Twitter (our friend Kerry Murphey has put together a list of NASCAR twitterers), Facebook and YouTube (EGR has recently started up a page). From the quick searches I did, I couldn’t find many teams doing these things; and I think it’s crazy they aren’t.
General Motors and likely your member of congress twitter; I even know of health care systems that use it. I can be a fan of politicians, artists and products on Facebook. And I can watch a lot of stupid stuff on YouTube. NASCAR teams are almost non-existent in these realms though.
At the end of the day, none of this stuff takes a whole lot of time to create and maintain (and it’s free!), and if it means you can get your sponsors out there and maybe make a new fan it will all be worth it.
Kudos to EGR for thinking outside of the box, it is a good start.
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Haha…Them adding you after telling them no thanks doesn’t surprise me. I don’t know about EGR but DEI would put you on a mailing list and would use it for years, even after you canceled your subscription.
I’m curious to hear if EGR’s content actually lives up to the hype. I was a DEInsider (which I paid for) for quite a while and finally canceled because they literally did nothing with that section it seemed for an entire season. Maybe the new management/staff has a plan to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
One good thing about that subscription, though, DEI had put up webcams in the 1 & 8 shops where fans could watch the workers work on the cars. It was a pretty cool feature that I wish more teams would employ. It was cool, for example, to see Junior’s black paint scheme coming to life before the public even knew it was going to be a scheme. (I’m unsure if EGR has that function today.)
As social media evolves, it will be interesting to see if bloggers will be held to the same ethical standards as traditional media.
I agree with you that NASCAR teams should be using more social media, however I tried Twitter, but its not for me nor is Infield Parking or Facebook, but its a start for them, I only really use MySpace and that is for this kind of stuff with artists in country music, comedy and television programs.
As for sources that I use, I only have access to everyday sites like everyone else and NASCARMedia.com and was thanks to a PR company on behalf of a NASCAR sponsor, so if more teams did this with social media and blogs, not to mention other motorsports series, it would get their message out to more people and people would talk about them, as for EGR, I don’t have anything on them, images included.
By the way, I blog on the side too and I would love to have more of what tradional media has…just though on covering NASCAR, Motorsports in general or automobiles for that matter.
I would love to see the Teams have twitter sites, they could send out driver appearance notices or updates. Nothing like going to a race and finding out you missed seeing your favorite driver because you didn’t know he was going to be somewhere you had access or could get access if you had a heads up.
I absolutely agree that NASCAR needs to embrace new media. We started it at RGM and I’m continuing it at d4d.tv. We have even built a social media site that features unfiltered NASCAR content at thehotpass.com.
Sponsor pay huge money and it is a simple ROI. What teams need to understand is controlling the message is much easier if you are broadcasting themselves.