I’m really loving the whole social media space. I’ve been doing Facebook and LinkedIn for a while, have been blogging for years, and have recently started on Twitter.

By and large, it is fantastic to be able to interact in real time with people all over the world, with all their disparate interests, passions, and challenges. When it comes to sponsorship seekers, though, the people involved with social media seem to be either getting it very right or very wrong, with hardly anyone in the middle.

I’m not an expert at social media, but I am definitely an expert in corporate sponsorship, and though the communication channels seem to be under almost daily change, the principles of best practice sponsorship seeking still hold true.

Here is my advice for sponsorship seekers using social media:

Do…

• Use social media to make connections with both well-connected industry influencers and industry newcomers looking for advice.
• Use social media to demonstrate your industry knowledge by providing, or making reference to, a range of useful information and resources.
• Use social media to demonstrate your approach to sponsorship – partnership-oriented, creative, flexible, and more about the needs of the sponsor and the target markets than your own needs.
• Use social media to demonstrate that you are helpful, insightful, professional, and human.

Don’t…

• Use social media to directly flog sponsorship opportunities. You will never touch the degree of customisation and sophistication being demanded by sponsors in a tweet that reads, “Need sponsor cash for snowboard tour. I will wear your logo and love you forever if you send me a cheque.” Ditto for LinkedIn headlines. I don’t care how desperate you are, this is highly unlikely to net you any money and highly likely to damage your credibility with potential sponsors.
• Use social media to hunt down potential sponsors and badger them until they crack. First off, they are far less likely to crack than to simply block you from contacting them. Go ahead and seek out potential sponsors, but control yourself (see the list of “Dos”). Doing the social media equivalent of glad-handing them will be a huge turn off.
• Use social media to badmouth other sponsorship seekers. They’re colleagues, not competitors – you don’t have the same brand and you don’t offer the same target markets, benefits, or creative leverage ideas. Putting them down as an attempt to build yourself up will make you look unprofessional.