11.20.2008
A Slap and a Tweet:
Hockey Teams on Twitter
By Fiona Quick
NHL fans are regarded as the most tech-savvy in all of sports among fans of
the four major team sports, according to market research from Scarborough Research. NHL fans rank first in PC ownership among fans of the four major sports leagues, and first in accessing the Internet via broadband. Hockey fans are part of the internet generation so you would think that the NHL should be jumping at the chance to embrace all forms of the internet. But at last count, there were only a handful of teams with official Twitter accounts.
The Minnesota Wild have said they are examining the application and have recently implemented an account for Xcel Energy Center. Teams like the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks have committed one person to their efforts while others like the Washington Capitals and Atlanta Thrashers seem to be dipping their toes in the Twitter waters.
Jason Beck, a sports business consultant and social media blogger in a recent entry "Why Teams Should Get Involved With Social Media" states that "More sports properties are beginning to enter the social media world to better connect with fans and discover new ways to communicate with their audiences." He cites a Consumer Internet Barometer statistc: one out of ever four people online visits a social networking site. Twitter is one of those social networking sites.
Journalists were amongst the first group of early adopters of Twitter, including Citizen Journalists, which means that sports teams looking for increased media presence, for those wanting to disseminate a message, there is a great opportunity for that on Twitter. Because of the wildfire nature in which news spreads across the Twitterverse, teams not paying attention to Twitter are potentially missing out on a valuable medium for their message.
From a business standpoint, teams not using Twitter are losing an opportunity to add to robust CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) efforts already developed by the league. According to a recent article in Direct Marketing Magazine, there are 20 million avid hockey followers in North America — 13 million in the United States and 7 million in Canada. The NHL began to capture and identify those people, which will be housed in a relational database the league fired up in September.
In the Digital Marketing Magazine story Perry Cooper, the National Hockey League's senior vice president of digital/direct marketing and fan strategy, estimates that at least half NHL fans live far from the teams they follow and could grow by the millions especially with the number on streaming options now being offered by the league. Twitter is an application that can be used in conjunction with that CRM database to gain insight specifically about those fans, especially international fans, who follow the NHL, and to connect directly with them, and develop those relationships even further.
Teams listening to fans through Twitter have the ability to develop superior customer service, responding to tweets fan concerns promptly and providing solutions. The National Hockey League's own Michael DiLorenzo, Director of Corporate Communication, has been a one-man show providing this service himself since joining Twitter this year. He has sought feedback about the league's new partnership with Yahoo! adding video to the fantasy hockey application, and has spoken with fans about the online streaming application GameCenter, even providing an exclusive discount coupon for shopping at NHL.com to Twitterers. Conversations like these can generally develop greater trust and loyalty amongst fans and go a long way toward building brands.
Social Media applications are by nature customer oriented, but instead of making the misake that is made by many, and just "using" Twitter accounts for sending messages to fans, as Peck suggests in his article, social media is interactive and teams should be "involved" instead. Twitter accounts are interactive and should not be used as just feeds for promotional messages, or media releases, though that is one component for the account.
News feeds and exclusive sales and information can be disseminated through a team's Twitter account in 140 characters or less and are a vital component. Live tweeting of games can be incorporated, especially with fans receiving SMS feeds of Twitter accounts on their phones. Exclusive Twitter coupon codes for merchandise and partner sponsors and community event partnerships should be regular Twitter parts of sports account information tweets.
A robust social media component is a compliment to a website; it is part and parcel of a public relations, community relations, merchandising and marketing strategy especially for sports teams. Several players and teams who had previously embraced Facebook and Myspace are now finding their way to Twitter as another aspect of that package. In fact, according to Compete.com while Facebook and Myspace usage statistics had slowed or declined over the past year usage of Twitter had has more than doubled since the start of 2008. "Microblogging" sites such as Twitter are the wave of the future, which is why the growth of Twitter has been exponential.
The teams that have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon early, will be far ahead of the game and will be reaping the equity of those relationships built. Fans appreciate a team that makes an effort toward a personal connection and listens and that is what an application like Twitter provides in a convenient computer application that is fun to use. The key is implementing the utility correctly to build that relationship and trust that fans expect and want from their socal media.
The loyalty and trust of a sports fan for their favourite team is unique, which makes Twitter the perfect social media application for fostering that relationship. In a such a short period of time it has developed its own avid fanbase because it too has shown itself to be unique in the world of social media applications. The two industries seem made for each other.
Quick Facts' Keys for NHL Twitter Account Success:
Identify what you want to achieve from account: Customer Service, Media Relations, Increased Loyalty, etc
Allocate Resources/People to monitor team Twitter accounts, and identify them, don't make them anonymous.
Update often with exclusive information. Do not just use account as a feed for media releases.
Interact with Followers and follow them back, these are your fans. Twitter is conversational, use it as such.
Set up RSS Feeds of Twitter searches for your team name and reply back
Tweets when necessary (eg, bad or good fan experiences).
Have some exclusive Twitter content not available on other outlets (Live game Tweets, Guest Twitterers like a player, Twitter contests, etc.)
Link back to your other sites (web, radio, etc) in your tweets.
Always listen to your followers when they reply to you, they provide great feedback!
NHL-Team Twitter Accounts:
Atlanta Thrashers - @AtlThrashers
Chicago Blackhawks - @NHL_Blackhawks
Detroit Red Wings - @detroitredwings
Ottawa Senators - @ottawasenators
Pittsburgh Penguins - @Pittsburgh_Pens
Mike DiLorenzo (NHL Director Corporate Communications)- @umassdilo
Don't forget to follow QuickFacts on Twitter too!
Other hockey-related Twitterers:
USA Hockey - @USAHockey
Xcel Energy Center - @XEC
College Hockey News - @chnews
Binghamton Senators - @Binghamton_Sens
Hockey Fights - @hockeyfights
Habs Inside Out - @habs_inside_out
SB Nation - @sbnhockey
Globe Hockey - @globehockey
Hockey Wilderness - @hockeywilderness
WHL News - @WHLNews
Behind the Jersey - @behindthejersey
Eklund - @eklund
Knoxville Ice Bears - @icebearshockey
Kuklas Korner - @kuklaskorner
Cornell Hockey - @ELynah
On Frozen Blog - @OnFrozenBlog
Iowa Chops - @Iowachopshockey
Edmonton Oilers fan - @edmontonoilers
Phoenix Roadrunners - @phxroadrunners
Inside College Hockey - @INCH
ECHL - @ECHL
Mound Hockey - @moundhockey
Bemidji State University - @LTTBDC
Some other informational Twitter links:
Global Neighborhoods: 7 Tips for New Twitter Users
Dosh Dosh: 17 ways you can use Twitter
901AM: Top 5 Ways Smart People Use Twitter