Seattle Mariners baseball plus social media equal relationships

Last evening the Seattle Mariners and the Social Media Club of Seattle co-hosted Social Media Day at Safeco Field as part of Mashable’s Annual Social Media Day.

Thanks to Mariners Marketing Director, Gregg Greene (@RealGregg), Shauna Causey (@ShaunaCausey), VP of Marketing at Decide.com and former Mariners employee (ball girl to marketing), and all the other folks who pulled together a very nice evening. A walkoff win by the Mariners over the Red Sox (2nd in 3 nights) in the 11th was icing on the cake.

Whether my team is wining or losing, I’m a big a baseball fan. In addition to the game itself, it’s the relationships you build in and around attending games.

Baseball is a game where you take your family, friends, clients, and business associates out to the park. You talk with the people around you and make friends with the ushers in your section. It’s all about relationships.

Last evening was no different. Who knew Mariners great, Edgar Martinez, used to pay ball girls $100 if they dove for a ball at the old Kingdome, which had a cement floor under the astroturf. Shauna traded stories about just that last night.

When I walked into the luxury box Gregg Greene asked if I was related to Colin O’Keefe, my son, who he and Kevin Martinez, Mariners VP of Marketing, had met with last year regarding the role of social media in major league baseball. We then chatted for a while about how the Mariners could better leverage social media to build relationships with fans and the Seattle community.

In addition to face to face exchanges, major league baseball, like other sports, lends itself to online exchanges via blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. Look no further than Gregg’s twitter feed last night and Colin’s Mariners Twitter list of folks with a Mariner’s interest. Exchanges that build and nurture relationships.

A good lesson for lawyers here. Networking online through social media need not involve legal matters and legal information. Common interests, such as baseball, or social media itself enable you to build relationships. Relationships where others get to know you and you get to know others in a real and meaningful way.

Social media, unlike traditional marketing, is all about building and nurturing relationships. A great business development tool for the Mariners as well as business professional.