Last week we interviewed the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks about being one of the first sports teams active on Pinterest.
We’ll continue with the sports theme this week as we talk to the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.
GetPinterested had the chance to speak with the Nick Monroe, the team’s Senior Sales & Retention Rep and overseer of the team’s social media activity.
GetPinterested: What do you see as a unique benefit to Pinterest as it relates to sports teams?
Nick Monroe: The design of Pinterest provides a unique opportunity for us to connect by allowing us to highlight our players both on and off the court in a highly visual way. Not only do we get to highlight our players, but our team gear and our fans as well. It’s a medium where box scores and breaking news aren’t the focus. This is a refreshing alternative to the more established platforms of engagement and we are hoping it allows us to tap even more into the casual fan and create new ones.
GP: The Bucks are an early adopter of Pinterest as far as sports teams go. What drove the Bucks on to Pinterest?
NM: We tend to be very early adopters of social media. We were one of the first NBA teams on twitter, the first on foursquare and the first on Pinterest. So any way we can branch out and engage our fans, or cultivate new ones, is something we are keenly interested in.
We had been considering a Bucks page and I dabbled in Pinterest personally beforehand. Following a conversation we had after a home game, I decided it was time to jump in. I stayed at the office until midnight working on it that night and it has since evolved to where it’s at today.
GP: Female fans seem to have always been more difficult for teams to reach out to. Do you see Pinterest as an opportunity to reach what’s almost a whole new demographic?
NM: No question. Looking at our demographic information for Facebook, for example, we see an opportunity to connect in a more significant way with women. With Pinterest currently holding an 80/20 female-to-male ratio it is definitely appealing. While we don’t get analytics from Pinterest, we have seen that a majority of our followers are female and that is likely a first for us on a social network.
GP: So often, great photos and the work players do in the community get lost. We so quickly move from game to game that it’s hard to look back on what just happened. It seems like you guys are really making an effort to do that with the photo board. Do you see Pinterest as a great opportunity for those things?
NM: Pinterest is such a great visual medium and that is a perfect way to showcase our strong community presence. One of the things most appealing to me is the longer shelf life content can have.
For example: On Facebook, if a user visits your brand page they rarely go deeper than the first few posts. Since we normally post 3-5 times a day to maximize views in the news feed, your content has a much shorter life. Normally 12-18 hours at most.
Whereas on Pinterest; as more users join and add our pinboards , repin our content or follow their friends, it allows this content to resurface easier and gives us a longer life per post. This isn’t limited to new users, Pinterest is built to browse so you jump from board to board and discover new things to pin. Our Community Relations department does a fantastic job integrating our team out to get involved in the community and we are excited to have another channel to highlight their involvement.
GP: What are some future plans you guys have and where do you think you’ll have the most success on Pinterest?
NM: As with our presence on all social networks, we will evaluate our current posts and their performance from an interaction stand point and adapt accordingly. The best way for us to do this is to continue to add all sorts of varied content to engage our followers, and they will help guide the future of our Pinterest page.
We love its potential to impact sales of Bucks related merchandise and share our content that invariably gets moved off the front of Bucks.com. It’s an exciting social network that allows us to go beyond wins and losses, and we are looking forward to seeing the results as it continues to expand.
Pingback: Pinterest : le sport professionnel doit-il y aller ?
Pingback: The Milwaukee Brewers and their Pinterest strategy