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A Golden (State) Social Media PresenceThe Golden State Warriors help lead the NBA in the social media frontier.
by Kyle Stack / @KyleStack
Each NBA team’s Media Day is viewed as the official christening of the new season, the time when newplayers are introduced, old ones are re-introduced and fans get revved up for the new campaign. However, notmany NBA fans are familiar with Tweedia Day. That’s what the Golden State Warriors held for their socialmedia journalists Sept. 27 as an expanded portion to their Media Day activities. It’s one way the Warriors havebecome one of the most innovative professional sports teams to market itself on social media platforms.
Originally the idea of the Warriors’ lead PR directors, Raymond Ridder and Dan Martinez, Tweedia Day wasintended to provide full media access to bloggers,podcasters and others who cover the Warriors from asocial media perspective. While it’s something thathasn’t been tried by other teams, the Warriors felt like itwasn’t as innovative an idea as others felt it was. Itwas simply part of a larger plan to develop theWarriors brand through social media. That much wascommunicated to SLAMonline during a phoneconversation with Kyle Spencer, the Warriors’Executive Director of Marketing who didn’t wish to bequoted, per team policy.
Over 150 social media journalists applied for TweediaDay with 10 lucky ones gaining admittance. Fromthere, they covered the event on their preferredplatforms, many of which the Warriors are alreadyapart of. It was the Warriors who, more than threeyears ago, became the first NBA team to produce itsown YouTube channel. They also introduced a unique way to unveil a logo.
The “Warriors Draft Challenge” was held each weekday from May 20-31 earlier this year to unveil the team’snew logo and redesigned website. As the new “The City” logo was leaked by fans, the Warriors, run bySpencer, decided to take control and led an Easter Egg-like hunt with fans for the team’s full logo. Fans signedup on the team’s website and every day answered a question linked to the team’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTubeor Flickr account. Answer the question correctly and the fan received 1/9 more of the Warriors’ new logo thanseen the previous day, assuming a question was answered correctly. Getting all nine questions correctrevealed the full logo on the final day. The team gave away other prizes as part of the contest, and the entirecampaign helped increase website traffic in May by 66 percent versus May 2009.
“It’s two things we want to accomplish,” Warriors president Robert Rowell said of the team’s social mediamarketing strategy. “We want to build our base of fans that want information. The second thing we want to dois to enhance our existing consumers’ experience with our brand and product by using the social media toolswe use.”
One of those tools is Facebook, which Spencer used to team’s advantage during the preseason. Thinking of away to use preseason games to help establish the Warriors’ Facebook presence, Spencer used the team’s
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SLAM ONLINE | » A Golden (State) Social Media Presence http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2010/11/a-golden-state-s...
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e-mail database to to launch an e-mail campaign. In it, the team offered free tickets to its first two preseasongames if fans “Liked” the team’s Facebook page. The Warriors brought back the campaign for the finalpreseason match. It’s hard to argue with the campaign’s success as the Warriors gained 15,000 moreFacebook followers to reach 88,000, a 20 percent increase before the start of the campaign.
The other obvious social media network for the Warriors — and any other organization — is Twitter. Now, ifyou were to go by raw numbers of followers, the Warriors wouldn’t seem to be successful on Twitter orFacebook. Their 92,355 Facebook “likes”, as of Halloween night, puts them at 18th in the NBA. The 12,312people following the Warriors’ Twitter feed — also as of Halloween night — put them at 28th in the League. Yetthat can be as much a product of the team’s on-court success (or lack thereof) as their social media efforts.After all, the Lakers aren’t renowned by their social media innovation yet they have almost 1.7 million Twitterfollowers and nearly 3.7 million Facebook “likes”.
So, what the Warriors can brag about on Twitter is their players’ presence on there. Seven of the team’splayers, including star Stephen Curry, have official Twitter accounts. Those accounts, like the team’s othersocial media platforms, are documented and updated daily at the team’s social media page. As for educatingplayers on how to use Twitter, that’ll will take some time.
The Warriors brass is still figuring out the best way to help their players extract as much value as they canfrom Twitter. Some players want it simply as a forum to note their day-to-day activities. (Reggie Williamsrecently tweeted about a late-night burrito run to Chiptole.) Others see it as a way to expand their personalbrand. In that regard, the Warriors have to find a way to consult their players without alienating the players’agents, who also have their clients’ brand in their best interest. The Warriors did basic Twitter educating duringmedia training, but more education on what to do and, more importantly, what not to do, might be necessary.
One area of concentration for future marketing efforts is geo-location, such as what’s found on Four Squareand what eventually will be enacted by Facebook’s Places application. The team is still figuring out exactlywhere the value is in geo-location, and how to integrate their fans into it. They have a head start with their fanbase, in general.
Much of the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area is besieged with tech firms. For example, Twitter isbased in San Francisco and Facebook is in nearby Palo Alto. Google located in Mountain View, a neighbor ofSan Francisco. Even Wired, the popular magazine documenting the tech industry, is in San Francisco. TheWarriors are surrounded by people who are receptive to a sports team which is progressive in the way itmarkets itself. And the Warriors plan to go after those fans, according to Rowell. “We’re going to always becreative in how we brand and market what we do here.”
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SLAM ONLINE | » A Golden (State) Social Media Presence http://www.slamonline.com/online/nba/2010/11/a-golden-state-s...
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3 Responses to “A Golden (State) Social MediaPresence”Golden State Warriors Host First “Tweedia Day” Posted: Nov.1 at 12:58pm
[...] Stack at SLAM Magazine profiles an excellent piece on the GoldenState Warriors’ hosting of the first ever “Tweedia [...]
don Posted: Nov.1 at 9:45 pm
go ME8!
Elmore Hatch Posted: Nov.3 at 2:40 pm
Interesting article but can’t figure out how they are “leading the NBA inthe social media ” when they rank in the bottom half of the league inFacebook and twitter. Doesn’t add up.
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