Think Out-of-the-Box to Drive Your Team's Facebook Following

Sports marketers looking for new ways to drive their team/brand's Facebook following should consider thinking of some out-of-the-box ideas to engage consumers and drive awareness on game day. While content on team Facebook pages and online messaging/advertising are effective means to drive masses of new followers, here are a few additional ideas to consider:

Team Viral Designed to Drive Facebook "Likes"

Sports organizations can release a humorous viral where players, team personnel, legends, and fans sport giant Facebook "like" hands - as featured in the Andy Murray/Head viral below. Teams can feature players shooting/throwing/catching/making saves using the giant "like" fingers and/or giving thumbs ups, etc. 

Facebook "Like" Stations Throughout the Concourse

Teams can set up 10-15 designated kiosks throughout the stadium concourse (with a "like sign" overhead) where fans can easily follow the team and their favorite players on Facebook. Teams can reward all fans who sign up by creating a "Facebook Fans HOF" that encompasses photos of all fans who sign up to follow all of the players on Facebook. Check out how Hyundai executed a similar initiative at a recent car show:

Knicks Fans "Like" What They See with Splash Page on Knicks.com

As the New York Knicks head into the 2011 NBA Playoffs, the team is featuring a terrific splash page on its official website, http://www.nba.com/knicks (ala Knicks.com), that encourages fans to "like" their official Facebook page. The creative digital marketing tactic serves as an effective way to drive interest and awareness for the team's social media initatives amongst 200,000 unique site visitors per day (per Compete.com, the Knicks' website attracted 6.2MM unique visitors in February 2011).

To drive fan participation in their social media efforts, the Knicks are offering a variety of incentives, including access to an exclusive pre-sale for all playoff tickets, a chance to win a pair of free tickets to see the Knicks take on the Chicago Bulls on April 12th, and a chance to win a $50 gift card that is redeemable via the Knicks' official online team store.

Once fans click through the splash page, the Knicks are providing a call-to-action via interactive digital inventory on the team's official website. Since the Splash page was posted on March 12, "likes on the New York Knicks' Facebook page were up 27% (130K total) and their Monthly Active Users spiked 18%... pretty remarkable success.

Check out some visualizations of the campaign below. Hats off to the Knicks on executing such a terrific campaign!

A special thanks to Lowell Berg of Ohio University for his insights and contributions to this column!