A short presentation by Gareth Robinson showing how Carl the Cobra froch can leverage social media tools to build his brand in absence of terrestrial TV support.

1. Building the Carl Froch brand using social media. Prepared by Gareth Robinson

2. Despite being involved in the fight of the year in 2008 and a career defining win over Taylor, awareness of Carl in the UK is still low Source: Google trends

3. TV coverage for boxing is proving increasingly difficult to come by as share of screen is taken up by reality TV and the soaps.

4. Mixed Martial Arts has also become popular stealing fight fans attention

5. A pivotal question: In light of these trends how can Carl: (1) Generate awareness of who he is and what he is capable of for the key years of his career? (2) Ultimately gain coverage on terrestrial TV ?

6. Carl Froch MUST plan and execute a social media strategy in order to: (1) Generate buzz and excitement about his upcoming super 6 fights. (2) Generate awareness of who he is outside of Nottingham and to people outside the hard core boxing fan demographic. Heat map showing highest concentration of visitors to carl-froch.com since launch Source: Google Analytics

7. What is social media? Social Media is content created by people using highly scaleable and accessible publishing technologies Source: Wikipedia A fad?? No! 1.8 million pieces of content shared daily on facebook 70% of 18-34 year olds have watched TV on the web Facebook grew 100 million users in 9 months

8. A 2 pronged attack is needed around (1) best in class content and (2) engagement with communities where your fans inhabit One cannot be done at the expense of the other........... Content Community engagement

9. Best in class content must be distributed via website and key online platforms. Indeed, some super 6 boxers are already using some of these sites. NONE of them are using them all. Step 1 – Carl Froch accounts need to be set up for each of the following online platforms and populated with as much information as you are comfortable providing e.g. training details, diet, announcements about upcoming events. These need to be updated regularly so as to generate traffic.

10. Example 1 - Mikkel Kessler has over 100,000 followers on Facebook....

11. Example 2 - Lance Armstrong has over 2 million followers on Twitter....

12. Step 2 – Respond to all online posts and articles related to Carl Froch so as to build brand equity. Carl needs to respond to as many of the posts about him as is possible (positive and negative). Carl needs to mimic the approach adopted by wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk who gets 100,000 unique visits a day to his wine tasting website...

13. Planning and executing this activity is time consuming (a full time job at some companies). You need to do this but lack the time to devote time to it as you have other priorities..... I can help you with this by (1) Planning your social media strategy, (2) executing the plan and (3) managing your online reputation on an ongoing basis...

14. Who am I? Head of Online Marketing at Dyson UK Part time lecturer in eBusiness at University of West of England Masters Degree in Computer Science and Business and..... a HUGE long time boxing fan: Set up an manage www.carl-froch.com fansite. My passion, boxing knowledge coupled with my work experience provide me with the exact skills to make you.....

15. As established online as the MMA star Kimbo Slice

16. You are a brand, whether or not you choose to see yourself this way. (Brogan, 2009)

17. Next steps: Contact: Gareth Robinson 07733264276 [email_address] View what colleagues say about me on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/profile?goback=%2Econ&viewProfile=&key=14290583&jsstate =