Once upon a time, the WNBA reached out to female bloggers…
March 6, 2009 by Megan Hueter
Filed under Basketball, Events, From the blogosphere, Marketing and Advertising, Sports Journalism
And they lived happily ever after.
This is not a fairytale – it’s truth.
Today, the WNBA reached out to me (on behalf of Women Talk Sports), @techmama Beth Blecherman of Silicon Valley Mom Blogs’ Techmamas, @PunditMom of PunditMom and Sarah, @GoonSquadSarah, of Blogher.
Why? Because they wanted our opinion. On how they can become more involved in social media.
It’s truly refreshing to hear when a company actually decides to listen and take feedback from its audience – namely, in the WNBA’s case, influencers of niche female blogging communities.
We gave them some great ideas, including having athletes join Twitter (in my opinion this is the most important thing they need to do), making RSS feeds more visible and identifiable, having more embeddable/portable content, having WNBA players create viral videos teaching basketball moves, attending blogger conferences such as Blogher, guest blogging, offering tickets and incentives to bloggers so they can give them away as prizes, inviting bloggers to attend the WNBA draft, making WNBA players available for weekly or monthly interviews.
This is all really great stuff (there’s more, but it’s too much to type up).
I learned a few things, too…
I learned that Diana Taurasi maybe be one of the first WNBA players on Twitter, also maybe Candice Wiggins (who’s got a great background story). I heard that the WNBA has many great charitable programs that bloggers should hear about and cover. Also, I was invited today to join the WNBA’s Facebook fan page and follow them on Twitter, @WNBA.
In addition, I came to the realization that female sports bloggers need to start more actively engaging with mom blogs (we have many similarities). Together, we can help promote female sports initiatives. THEY are the ones with the connection to the youth audience.
I hope (if I can afford it) to attend future Blogher conferences and network with some of the mommy bloggers – I hope some of the female professional sports teams (and their sponsors) will be in attendance, too. Would be great to have an entire session dedicated to female sports someday.
Anyway, if you have any ideas that you’d like me to pass along, please be sure to leave me a comment. I’m very excited of this new relationship, and I hope WNBA will continue to foster more as they grow to engage directly with their fans and become a more transparent, credible organization.
I have been a WNBA fan since the beginning. I hope and pray it stays alive. I saw the very first game of the Detroit Shock. If I knew what it would take to draw more fans I would be the happiest fan around. All I know is that if the WNBA stays true to the fans, does not become a league of catered superstars like the NBA, it may survive and I will stay the loyal fan I am.
It was amazing. I have felt pumped up all afternoon.
The WNBA (and the NBA) have been fabulous with reaching out to bloggers and social media.
Such great news for fans of the WNBA, and of women’s sports in general.
I’ve always thought the WNBA has done a poor job marketing its superstars. They should be cross promoting their recognizable faces with their sponsors ads that run year round, not just during the summer season. Candace Parker’s agent has been terrific on his own. He has her placed in ads that have been running during the NFL and NBA season (McDonalds and Gatorade). The league could learn something from him.