My "Junior Year" in NASCAR media

The Coca Cola 600 weekend in May 2010 was the beginning of my third year in my journey in NASCAR media or what I call the beginning of my "Junior Year". This means I am able to have a deeper understanding of the sport, the sponsors, the brands, the drivers, teams and the publicity machine behind the sport. My first few years were about "listening and watching" and networking. I was able to gain a broad understanding of the "matrix" which makes NASCAR one of the most complex sports around.

From grassroots family teams such as the Woods Brothers to the cutting edge teams such as Hendrick Motorsports and RoushFenway Racing, NASCAR has evolved into a major league sport with its own Hall of Fame this year.

Over the past year which I'll call my sophomore year, I started to actually make some small impact on the sport and build a network. In January, 2010, MediaMensch Networks produced the Social Media Motorsports Summit which was attended by many of the major teams and their pr/marketing firms plus a senior executive from NASCAR.

In the past few months at local press conferences I started to ask questions of some drivers such as Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson and NASCAR Hall of fame driver and team owner, Richard Petty.

Based upon my experiences, I am starting to look at my niche of how the sport reaches their fans and ties into their drivers and brands using social media. As an entrepreneur, the other viewpoint is how organizational dynamics such as teamwork happen with in NASCAR. So over the next year, I am looking forward to building stronger relationships, writing more in-depth and regular stories about the sport and producing our 2nd Social Media Motorsports Summit this fall.

As with my journey in media, marketing and technology it is the wonderful people that you meet along the way who help you learn and mentor you that enriches the experience.

Andrew Kaplan Live - Public Speaking, Radio, and TV

Andrew Kaplan,award winning Toastmaster and public speaker, is speaking to groups around the country regarding social media and branding. Kaplan brings a lively and interesting perspective to his talks which can be customized to your group. Kaplan brings his unique perspective of being an early adopter of social media combined with his backgrond working in traditional media. In 1987, Kaplan started a consulting practice to bring sales and mobile computing technologies to with over 200 companies including 30 Fortune 500 companies. If your organization would like to book, Kaplan as a speaker, please contact us with your dates, name of your group and topic.

Andrew Kaplan Public Speaking Biography


Andrew R. Kaplan is the Managing Partner of MediaMensch Networks, a company focused on building brands and communities using social media and traditional public relations. Over the past two years Kaplan has launched LinktoCharlotte which was one of the first and now one of the fastest growing Charlotte groups on LinkedIn. He also launched LinktoMotorsports which has over 700 executives from around the world and includes an advisory board from Motocross, NASCAR, NHRA and Boat Racing.

In 2007, Kaplan started blogging as a facebook branding expert in his blog Facebook Enthusiast. In 2008, MarketingSherpa.com voted an article featuring Kaplan's discussion of Facebook Branding, as #1 in its "Great Minds" series.

Kaplan recently has been involved with the local film industry as what he calls "an accidental actor". He has worked on 6 films from major motion pictures such as Leatherheads to local independent films. In January 2009, he received a "movie credit" as Social Media Marketing Advisor for the independent film In/Significant Others.

Kaplan is also on the advisory board, providing marketing and branding advice, to EVPowersystems which won the "2008 Green Idea of the Year Award" from the Charlotte Business Journal for the development of electric hybrid trucks and the eco-vehicle.

Kaplan began his career in college at WNBC radio at 30 Rock and worked in the early days at Home Box Office and The Movie Channel. After his career took a turn, he became one of the first trainers and certified consultants for ACT! contact management software. His company ARK Sales Automation Group brought sales and marketing technology to hundreds of companies in the NY/New England Market including Gartner Group, GE Capital, Virgin Atlantic, and Colgate Palmolive. He personally trained over 5,000 sales and marketing executives worldwide. He moved to Charlotte in 1995 to start his family and to build the new market around the banking sector and professional sports.

Kaplan enjoys giving back to the community and working with non-profits and received awards for leadership over the past few years including Toastmasters International NC President of the Year, NC Area Governor of the Year and Dickinson College's Alumni Volunteer of the Year. In Connecticut, he was one of the founding leaders and chairman of Corporate Volunteers In Action, a professional community volunteer group serving the Fairfield County area.

Currently Kaplan coaches business executives and creative professionals who are working on their own brands. He has active clients from countries such as Ireland, Germany, and Italy which found him using social networking. He also has a valuable team of coaches and advisors to help him reach his personal and professional goals as well.

Social Media Motorsports Summit Takes Checkered Flag

For Immediate Release
Contact: Andrew Kaplan
Media Mensch
704.293.2151
ewarriorbizdev@gmail.com

Social Media Motorsports Summit Takes Checkered Flag

Industry Leaders and Influencers Gather to Build Social Media Horsepower for 2010 Season

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Feb 3, 2010) – Try as you may, you can’t hear a “tweet” over the roar of race cars, but if you embrace social media you’ll quickly see it has more horsepower than 43 cars taking the green flag at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The first Social Media Motorsports Summit concluded at the Charlotte Westin, where motorsports and social media leaders met to discuss trends and share best practices. Now that one of every four Americans gets the news online, a communications authority wonders if one can conduct a successful enterprise without engaging social media.

"When I was at the May NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Charlotte Motor Speedway, I saw an opportunity to help brands with social media strategies and programs,” said Andy Kaplan, Chief Idea Officer at MediaMensch. Kaplan also saw demand for the social media motorsports event from MediaMensch’s LinktoMotorsports.com members, a group of over 1,500 motorsports professionals worldwide who embrace social media. Kaplan has spent his career working with corporations to become early adopters of technology and built his brand on being ahead of the technology curve.

Panel topics ranged from creating a social media toolbox and measuring social media ROI to social media and brands and social media trends. A broad spectrum of expertise was represented by speakers including Mark Walsh (GeniusRocket), Craig Coblenz (Facebook), Terry Dry (Fanscape), Ramsey Poston (NASCAR), Leilani Münter (ARCA driver/environmental activist), Joe Tripp (SPEED), Kevin Kennedy (PCG Campbell/Ford Racing), Jeff Gluck (SBNation.com) and Stephanie Agresta (Porter Novelli).

Keynote speaker Walsh put social media in perspective and set the tone of the summit when he discussed the change of marketing from elevator speech to the microscript – a simple one or two-word phrase that captures brand essence and consumer self perception. Think of President Obama’s campaign microscript of “change”. Kennedy, EVP, PCG Campbell / Ford Racing shared, "I really enjoyed the Summit and the exchange of ideas between the panelists and the audience. The discussions covered a broad spectrum of ideas of where Social Media is now and where it is headed in the future, and left everyone who attended richer for the experience."

The power and use of social media was not just conversation, but was also actively practiced as attendees “tweeted” and updated Facebook pages on their laptops throughout the day-long event. Joining in the conversations were representatives from Chevrolet, Toyota, Stewart Haas, Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway, Stewart-Haas Racing, JR Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing. Participants and speakers came from Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Detroit and Daytona Beach.

“The Social Media Motorsports Summit proved that online community and social networking is having a huge impact on the motorsports industry in general and NASCAR fans in particular. In 2010, social media will grow to be an even bigger part of marketing and exposure for this sport.” said Agresta, who is EVP of Social Media and Digital Strategy at Porter Novelli.

Future Social Media Motorsports events are being planned for New York City and in Charlotte in May to coincide with the NASCAR Hall of Fame opening and the race festivities for the Coca Cola 600. Social Media Motorsports also plans to offer a “virtual summit” to accommodate motorsports professionals worldwide.

Additional information about the Social Media Motorsports Summit, please visit the summit website at www.socialmediamotorsports.com and the Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/mediamensch. The twitter hashtag for the event is #smmsummit.

Social Media Motorsports Summit

Media Mensch and LinktoMotorsports announces the Social Media Motorsports Summit to be held on Thursday, January 28, 2010 at the Westin Charlotte. This event is for executives, drivers, team owners, media and pr professionals who want to learn and participate in a dialogue about social media as the new frontier of reaching your fans to build stronger relationships and your brand.

Registration and information is available at www.socialmediamotorsports.eventbrite.com

LinktoMotorsports - Lori Banks, Founding Member

Lori Banks is one of the founding members on LinktoMotorsports. Lori is a devoted NASCAR and Indy fan. She grew up in a family that raced. Today she travels to many of the races with the Woods Brothers team. Lori can be found in the center of many of the events for NASCAR and was our first LinktoMotorsports ambassador at the Daytona 500 race.

LinktoMotorsports is approaching its one year birthday and now has over 1,000 members who are professionals in motorsports from around the world. MediaMensch is building this network and plans to have events at races around the world hosted by our members.

Currently you can find our members collaborating and sharing business ideas on the social network, LinkedIn.



Lori Banks captured on our Flip HD camera at the Coca Cola 600 in May 2009.

MediaMensch Networks Launches LinktoMotorsports

On July 10, 2008, MediaMensch Networks began its launch of its new brand called LinktoMotorsports. This purpose of this brand is to allow members who are on networks such as facebook and LinkedIn to easily find each other and network. Since MediaMensch Networks is located in Charlotte, NC, our location in the heart of NASCAR and racing will allow us to hold live events also. We are currently putting together and advisory board and expect to have our first events starting in the 2nd half of 2008.

We have an 18 month plan to grow this business and would welcome any ideas or resources. If you are looking to sponsor our website or any other part of this business, please contact, Andrew Kaplan at ewarriorbizdev at gmail.com

MediaMensch Meets Marcus Smith, new CEO of SMI Motorsports

This week begins a new chapter for NASCAR and Motorsports as Marcus Smith, takes over as the CEO of the company founded by his father and chairman, Bruton Smith and fills the shoes of legendary promoter and former CEO, Humpy Wheeler.

Today at Lowes Motor Speedway Club, we had a chance to be part of a press luncheon to meet and greet Marcus. Marcus grew up in the business at his father's side and told some great stories of learning the business from the "outside". As a young man, he was a champion "Weedwhacker" who could trim your hair with precision. He also had to opportunity to take part in some other stadium "maintenance" activities such as chasing the pigeons away with shotguns. That was the "sunburn" part of his career.

After college, Marcus had the opportunity to learn about the business from the "inside" moving around from department to department and gaining responsibilities as he grew in his job.

His vision for the future of his organization was to keep SMI a place where the employees and fans had fun each day. At the heart of the sport is entertainment and the future challenges are allowing the fans to have access to the drivers in the face of increasing media and sponsorship demands.

Marcus is currently on a "listening" and learning tour of SMI and seems to be doing the things that a good leader must do, surround yourself with great people, provide direction, and then get out of their way.

Many interesting events are coming to Lowes Motor Speedway and the other tracks owned by SMI. Last week, SMI bought Kentucky Motor Speedway, and on September 11, 2008 will be opening the "Bellagio" of drag racing strips called the ZMAX Dragway. (Can you tell he owns the Las Vegas Speedway too!).

As far the the challenge of filling seats due to $4.00 gas prices, SMI will be working to package its tickets to keep that experience affordable to its core fan base. One statistic, I learned today was the their average fan to Lowes Motor Speedway travels 400 miles each way on average and stays for multiple days. It is the one sport, where you can really bring your friends and family and have a life long memory.

We also had a great time at our lunch table getting to know a "Motorsports Historian" and a few other executives who surround Marcus Smith and will be playing key roles in the day to day execution of his vision.

MediaMensch looks forward to deepening our relationship with NASCAR, NHRA and Motorsports owners, teams, drivers, sponsors and especially the fans!.

Welcome Marcus! We look forward to your 50 year plan!