MTF = Team Work! Sandy Triolo - Communications Sub-Committee Chair

USATF Masters Communications https://WWW. USATFMASTERS.ORG https://www.instagram.com/usatfmasterstrack/ https://twitter.com/USAMastersTrack https://www.facebook.com/usatfmasterstrack/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/usatfmasters/ https://www.youtube.com/?gl=US

INTRODUCTION The Communications Sub-­‐Committee grew out of the former Media Sub-­‐Committee, chaired by Bob Weiner,. The concentration was on building a national MTF audience through traditional media exposure. The new committee was created in January 2018, with the recognition of the expansion into greater web, social and new media. With focus on Team Work Bob Weiner agreed to become the Director of Championship Media, covering the bi-­‐annual National Championships, as part of the new committee. MTF now has the best of traditional and new media to share our message and grow our sport.

WHAT WE DO The Communications sub-­ ‐committee is concerned with all communications that might be necessary for MTF to achieve its objectives. Additionally, the committee looks to improve existing procedures as well as suggest new ways to improve communications internally and externally.

Comm Sub-Committee Responsibilities Website Press – Press Release Social Media Photography - Video Announcers Promotion of Events Marketing

Building on our Strengths Committee Members: Joy Upshaw, Amanda Scotti, Jerry Bookin-­‐Weiner, Lisa Rosborough, Jeff Brower and George Melichar. Advisory members are Cathy Utzschneider, Michael Arata, Clinton Aurelien, and Andre Baynes. To be successful and useful good communications requires input from many different people and areas of MTF. Good Communications requires TEAM WORK!

WWW.USATFMASTERS.ORG WEBSITE OVERHAUL

Increased Exposure – Growth in Awareness of MTF

Increased Exposure – Growth in Awareness of MTF

Social Media Growth The biggest area of growth continues to be in social media where our account reach has steadily risen. In 2015 the Facebook page had 500 followers, today it has 2700, the Facebook private group is over 1200 members and growing in a little over a year. The benefit has been that we have multiple ways to reach our members, the challenge is to harness the power of these platforms beyond simple communication to find new members to advertise and to show potential sponsors the power of our members.

As many as 70k+ views a month - 6-10k avg weekly reach SOCIAL STATS Platform Followers/Members STARTED Average Traffic Facebook Page 2700 2015 3-7 thou avg reach Facebook Group 1200 2017 1000 engagements mth Twitter 1165 Varies 79k in sept! Instagram 3100 5 thou impressions avg YouTube 27 2018 New RSS/Specific Feeds 31 DAILY REACH 7143 As many as 70k+ views a month - 6-10k avg weekly reach

National Championship Media Coverage – Bob Weiner 2018 Media Highlights Contact and promote National meets to local and national media outlets Arrange on-­‐site media coverage and interviews Manage on-­‐site media visits, liaison with USATF at events Help athletes with interviews and media connections Assist with creating and releasing championships press releases Track championship coverage, collecting links and information March 19, 2018 -- Centenarians break world records at track meet March 17, 2018 -- The newest -- and oldest -- rivalry on the track March 17, 2018 -- Hurricane Hawkins has no plans of slowing down July 27, 2018 -- 11-00PM -- 2018 USATF Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships TV coverage July 28, 2018 -- 6-00 PM -- 2018 USATF Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships TV coverage July 29, 2018 -- 5-00 PM -- 2018 USATF Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships TV coverage July 30, 2018 -- 11-00 PM -- 2018 USATF Masters Outdoor Track & Field Championships TV coverage

2018 Accomplishments New Communications Methods Expanding Announcing Options Created New website! The USATFMasters.org site was completely rebuilt from scratch. All pertinent information was moved from the “old site” to the “new site”. The old site remains online as an archive for the depth of information there, some of which has not been moved. The new site went live just before the WMA Championship in Malaga. Created RSS Feed/Website Syndication: (really simple syndication). This is a simple service with a powerful effect. Those that sign-­‐up get notified automatically that new information has been posted. We will collect these emails for use in future marketing and newsletter production. Promoted New Communications Methods: Google Docs, Google forms, FB group, Whatsapp, building a new email list, specific feeds -­‐ newsfeed, Expanded Announcing Options: In Spokane, we hired an announcer local to the region, Paul Merca. He lives in Washington State and came highly recommended. Although he was not as familiar with Masters Athletes as say, Pete Taylor, he is now more familiar then he was before Spokane Outdoor Nationals. MTF Announcing GOALS Expose more professional announcers to the world of MTF Have multiple choices for announcing around the country Have options for 2nd announcers (better coverage of field events) Note: Pete Taylor will return for our Indoor Championship in Winston Salem, and JDL will supply a 2nd announcer.

2018 Accomplishments - cont DATA (and more data) Announcing Increased use of existing Data: This year, considerable hours were spent building a large spreadsheet (ever growing) of Masters Athletes who had registered in the past few championships. The spreadsheet contains many data points such as hometown, events, awards, records WR and AR and HOF. This was created by Jay Wind and enables searching for individual athletes by state and/or by records as well as speeding up the production of lists for building press releases for instance. Many thanks to Jay Wind for his work on this! Expanded Announcing Options MTF Announcing GOALS Expose professional announcers to the world of MTF by engaging announcers around the country Have 2nd announcers for field events Better coverage of field events Note: Pete Taylor will return for our Indoor Championship in Winston Salem, and JDL will supply a 2nd announcer. In Spokane, we hired an announcer local to the region, Paul Merca. He lives in Washington State and came highly recommended. Although he was not as familiar with Masters Athletes as say, Pete Taylor, he is now more familiar then he was before Spokane Outdoor Nationals.

Growing Trends NEW WEBSITE FEATURES DYI MTF PROMOTION Website Goals Expanded & Specialized Events Lists - Corporate, LDR, Racewalk Expanded news: Masters News, Masters in the News, Videos, Championship News, Press Releases Links – Photographer sites and more Privacy Policy Coaches Corner – Cathy Utzschneider & Eric Dixon so far Website Goals Expanded Regional Information Coach List & Infomation Team Lists & Infomation Encouraged, involved and provided support to Masters Athletes projects and ideas to improve MTF communications or personal projects related to promoting MTF. Some of these are still in beginning stages, some are further along, but all speak to a growing community of involved athletes in our sport. Clinton Aurelien – SWS Video Interviews Clint Flash Santoro and Josh Robbins – Arizona Videos John McKenzie - https://thefirstsport.net/ Survey - https://tinyurl.com/yahepnnb Others

2019 Goals 2019 the year of MTF Video! LARGER GOALS Why? We have new equipment! 2- handheld video cameras for interviews on the field & at the track during events 1- 4k camera for footage for promotions (does slowmo) higher end interviews GoPro for creative production Create Interviews with Masters Athletes across age groups and events Create promotional media for MTF social media and website and Youtube acct Bring additional Masters Athletes into the communications committee Marketing – experienced marketer Encourage/Help MTF Ambassadors Add Masters “stories” to our website Add Coach and Team Lists and info on website Enhance marketing of regional events Build photo collection online Engage Ideas

THANK YOU Looking forward to a great 2019! GO #TEAMUSATF