At NMX 2013, Dino Dogan from Triberr sat down to talk with UFC President Dana White about Twitter, the possibility of the UFC going public, and more. Dino is a true fight fan with a passion for new media, so he was the perfect person to interview Dana! Check out the video here:
Thanks, Dino, for a great interview with Dana! Dana also sat down with NMX’s Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin to talk more about how the UFC is using social media, so if you missed that interview, you can see it now here.
Dino was one of our NMX 2013 speakers, and his session was packed. You know things are good when it’s still standing room only at the end of the presentation! For this week only, Dino’s session is 100% free on NMX University, the home of our 2013 virtual ticket. Don’t miss out; check out Dino speak about Insane Loyalty today!
Building Your Business with Twitter Transcript
Dino Dogan (0:08): Hello everybody, my name is Dino, founder of Triberr, and I’m sitting here with Dana White. We’re broadcasting this from Vegas for BlogRoll.com. And, it’s an absolute pleasure for me to sit here with the president and the face of the UFC. And the way UFC has been using social media is absolutely bleeding edge and very fascinating. And we’re going to talk to Dana to get some insights into how he uses social media.
(0:41)So, Dana, thank you for being here. Excellent keynote earlier. I want you to make a business case for Twitter. How do you use Twitter to actually lead your business?
Dana White (0:55): The way that I personally use Twitter is I speak directly to the fans. I talk to the fans one on one. You know, I’m not speaking for the company, as the company, it’s me. You’re talking to me personally. And that’s the way that I like to do it, but what Twitter does for me, as far as the night of a fight, right, which is different from anything we’ve ever done in the history of the company is, you always have problems. Things are always going to go wrong. You know, I’ve had situations where people’s seats were blocked by a camera or pay-per-view goes down in Indiana, a laundry list of things that I wouldn’t have known until Monday. But because of Twitter, I can handle it that night, get everything taken care of, make sure that everybody has a good experience. That’s my job that night, is to make sure that everybody that bought a ticket or stayed home to buy the pay-per-view or watch it on free TV is having the best experience they can possibly have. So, I love that. That’s one of the million aspects I love about Twitter and social media.
Dino (1:58): Yeah. And you can respond to situations, to the crisis in real time.
Dana (2:01): Yep.
Dino (2:02): Yeah, that’s amazing. You’re out there. You’re doing it yourself. You almost take pride in saying that you’re bypassing the PR department; the filter that’s created between you the person and the audience. And there’s certain inherent danger in that. And, clearly, you embrace the danger. And the benefit of it outweighs the danger. But, you’re out there, you have 400 fighters doing what you do, representing the brand. And just tell us a little bit about the crises that you’ve encountered. How many of them have you encountered? How exaggerated is the danger of getting out there?
Dana (2:46): Yeah, it’s very exaggerated. I mean, yes, we’ve had a couple…I have 400 plus guys tweeting every day. I tweet every day. You know, you’re going to have some problems here and there. The biggest problem that we’ve ever had is guys trying to be funny. Telling jokes and, basically, I tell these guys, use common sense when tweeting. You’re not a comedian. Leave the jokes to your friends, in your inner circle. Don’t tweet jokes. But, really, we’ve really had no problems. There’s going to be some stupid stuff here and there but, at the end of the day, people need to relax.
Dino (3:22): Right. It’s a tweet.
Dana (3:23): It’s a tweet. It’s a tweet, relax.
Dino (3:27): Get over it. That’s terrific. A lot of people want to know. UFC is a giant franchise. You guys are just going gangbusters. You’re on this incredible upslide. Are you going to go IPO?
Dana (3:43): I never say “never”, but I’d have to say never. I don’t think we…I don’t think so. I don’t think we’d do it. I haven’t seen too many great experiences with going public. And I just don’t think this is one of those businesses that we could really run the way that we wanted to if we’re not…The thing that I’ve always said since day one, too, about going public is, nobody believed in this thing. When we first bought it, started to build it, nobody believed in it.
Dino (4:13): I just want to say that I did.
Dana (4:14): Well, I’m talking about the business world, right? Now, all of a sudden, I’m going to take advice from these guys, you know, on Wall Street who never believed in it in the first place?
Dino (4:23): Right
Dana (4:24): I don’t see it. Not while I’m here, anyway.
Dino (4:25): Gotcha. Terrific. Anderson Silva/Georges St. Pierre fight. I know you’re working on it. This year? Could it happen this year?
Dana (4:34): Yeah, it could. You know, obviously, everybody knows that GSP wants to fight Diaz right now. That fight’s going to happen. And after that fight, should Georges St. Pierre beat Diaz…yeah. I want to make the fight. I mean, everybody thought it was going to happen after Georges’ fight with Condit. The kid had, you know, almost two years off with a knee injury, rehabilitating. And he wants another fight first, so, we’ll see what happens.
Dino (4:58): Fair enough. You have your employees actively engaged in social media. And, I know this is not a fair stereotype, but if a general population was to imagine the worst type of person to represent your brand, that would be a fighter. Because they’re perceived as brutes, which they’re not.
Dana (5:23): Right.
Dino (5:23): I know this. But, there’s…you have a lot of your employees actively engaged, getting out there, representing your brand and there’s a certain amount of training that they have to go through in order to…just to know what tools to use, how to use them and how to represent themselves. Like you said, don’t try to be funny, you’re not a comedian, right. So, tell us a little bit about the training that these guys go through for social media.
Dana (5:50): Yeah. It’s not as hard as you would think. Not only do I have, you know, 400 plus fighters. But when you say my employees, my actual employees inside the company are all on Twitter too. And, you know, obviously you’ve got to educate them on how to use Twitter, how to do this, how to do that as far as using social media goes. And then is all about using common sense. And I’m very lucky in that I’m not dealing with stupid people here. Yes, we have 400 plus fighters. Most of these guys are college educated. You know, very smart guys. Guys who, not only are the representing the UFC and the sport, but they represent themselves and their own brands and their own business. For instance, like Anderson Silva. Anderson Silva has 3 million followers on Twitter. When he’s done fighting and he moves on to the next chapter of his life, those 3 million fans are going to go with him into the next chapter. So, he’s not just representing us and the sport, he’s representing himself, you know, and his family and whatever he decides to do when fighting is over.
Dino (6:51): Right, yeah. I have a theory about Anderson Silva. Is he really a robot?
Dana (6:56): I think he might be. I’ve wondered that myself too. He’s an amazing, incredible athlete.
Dino (7:03): Mind blowing.
Dana (7:04): Yeah, he really is. Doesn’t get the credit he deserves, in my opinion.
Dino (7:07): Yeah, he is just incredible. Dana, this was a dream come true. Thank you so much for sharing your insights.
Dana (7:15): My pleasure.
Dino (7:16): And it’s great to see you here in Vegas at BlogWorld.
Dana (7:18): Thanks, brother.
Dino (7:19): NMX! Thank you, guys.
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