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Boston Celtics’ social-media goal: Drive web traffic

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Here’s a good lesson that the goal of Twitter efforts should not be to simply increase the number of Twitter followers (or Facebook Fans, or…). As noted by social-media-optimization.com, the objective of the Celtics online efforts is to drive people to their web site.

Celtics.com features GameTime Live, an application that features real time scores, tweets, and blogging with supporters throughout the world. The team beta-tested GameTime Live during the 2009 postseason, and more than 50,000 unique visitors checked it out during the triple-overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls in Game 6 of the first round.

It’s remarkable how many marketers, though, fall into that trap of trying to boost numbers for the sake of numbers.This is why setting an ROI goal is so critical. Are you trying to sell e-books (like me <grin>)? Then which specific page on your web site are you plugging?

Back to the Celtics:

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/bostonceltics)
With less than 700 subscribers, the Celtics YouTube channel is not attracting a lot of attention at the moment. Most videos get around 1,000 views. However, the team recently began distributing exclusive locker room footage on YouTube which will drive more people to this channel and increase subscribers. This is a great example of providing different content for separate digital channels in order to make them more valuable in users eyes.

Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/bostonceltics)
With over 450,000 fans in its Facebook page, the Celtics are the second most popular NBA team on Facebook. Similar to the exclusive locker room video for YouTube subscribers, last week the Celtics launched 3-Point Play, an interactive stats prediction game for fans on its Facebook page.

Twitter (http://twitter.com/celtics)
With almost 22,000 Twitter followers, the Celtics have built up a good following. In addition to Tweeting quotes from press conferences and team events, the Celtics are also using Twitter to offer seating upgrades at games. The picture below was from earlier today.

I really like the stuff on Social-Media-Optimization.com. It’s worth adding their feed to your reader.