New Track Record

IMS Marketing: Hashtag FTW (for the win)!

I like to pretend I have insight into many things – IndyCar racing, marketing, broadcasting, and event management are just a few of the areas on which I pontificate.  It’s an ancillary benefit of writing a blog.  I have no credentials or resume to support any of my opinions.  So please allow me to offer another unsolicited morsel of my deep understanding of social media.

In some metaphysical way, my blogging and Twitter presence cause people to assume that I actually know something about the power of social media.  In fact, the fine people at IMS were so completely fooled dazzled by my social media cred last year that they asked me to participate in the inaugural Social Media Garage at the 2012 Indy 500.  That participation and my subsequent Social Media Garage activity at the IMS Super Weekend for NASCAR were great insights into how a business begins to incorporate social media into its marketing.

What I observed last year was the initial flailing about as a business tried to connect a relatively new and somewhat uncontrollable method of communication with a marketing strategy that may or may not have been fully fleshed out.  One senior member of IMS management alluded to last year’s Social Media Garage as “dipping a toe in the water” of social media.  It looks like IMS has decided to jump all the way in this year.

The Twitter use of #Indy500orBust (remember, you pronounce # as “hashtag”) is the 2013 social media campaign of IMS to connect to the increasingly mainstream demographic that uses the social media platforms of Twitter and Instagram.  You can go to indy500orbust.com to get the skinny on the campaign.  The marketing team at IMS has connected Twitter to Instagram, a social media photo sharing site.  Not a bad idea to connect the two platforms, especially since Instagram users are decidedly less snarky, judgmental, and reactionary than those on Twitter.  Or so I’ve heard.

The negative reactions I have seen on Twitter (surprise!) make a very valid point about the seemingly cross-purposes of marketing at INDYCAR and IMS.  The #Indy500orBust ads that we saw before and during the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg seemed to promote the INDY 500 at the expense of races at St. Petersburg, Barber Motorsports Park, and Long Beach.  While ticket promotion at those sites is the domain of the promoter, it would seem the series would have a vested interest in promoting the television productions of these races.  If viewership drives sponsorship, then the primary business of INDYCAR should be driving eyeballs to the broadcasts.  Even so, you cannot fault IMS for trying to sell tickets to the 500.  My guess is that the new management team being put in place by Hulman & Co. CEO Mark Miles will be putting more marketing and promotional personnel under one roof to drive advertising dollars, sponsorship, and viewership to both entities.  The long-term viability of the series demands it.

So keep the hashtags coming IMS and INDYCAR!  Continue to connect us to Instagram, and I look forward to using Vine during the month of May this year.  And I’m sure someone in the Snake Pit will be using Snapchat.  If you don’t know what that is, ask a teenager.  It’s the next big thing.  Until the next big thing, that is.