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Bill Hanifin
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I’ve always taken issue with people who raise concerns without solutions or criticize without offering suggestions to make things better.
The driving force behind Loyalty Truth is to scour the market for innovative marketing strategies which open doors for more effective customer-centric marketing, so when I called out the NBA’s Miami Heat for their disappointing use of Twitter, it was only fair that I should praise them when they stepped up their game.
Here’s what happened…….
My earlier post chronicled the gap between the buzz surrounding social media and those actually participating. Working hard at my desk one week ago, I was surprised to see this message in the Twitter stream “First 2 to tweet ” GO @MHEAT! ” Win 2 tix for tonight”. I replied and, lo and behold, won tickets for the game that evening. 
The Heat had an efficient fulfillment mechanism in place (a human being) and we picked up our tickets at the Premium Will-Call window minutes before the game that night. We had a great time at the game and witnessed a few celebs (Jelena Jankovic), the Miami Heat dancers (best in the league), and even fans who gave up a prime courtside seat for a disabled boy. The Heat was busy Tweeting about all the activity during the game and afterwards opened up the forum for some feedback with this message.
Ironically, after my effort to engage the Heat in social media, I was the one having my Tweets “eaten” by the cloud as my public time-line didn’t show my activity during the game. Either it was a Twitter outage or the environment within the American Airlines Arena, but fortunately, I was able to recover most of them on the FriendFeed that a wise man named @TheDudeDean advised me to set up.
My take away from the experience and what I’d like to share with you is that the Heat demonstrated how quickly organizations can go from skeptic to tester to leader in their use of social media to communicate with their customers and build customer loyalty. The Heat listened, promoted, participated, and even asked for Feedback. That is just the kind of short cycle response that will attract and retain Millennials, an important audience for the future of the NBA.
Of course they could do more, and I wouldn’t classify them in the “leader” category just yet. Just like you have to make the playoffs to have a shot at the title, the Heat took the first step towards successfully incorporating social media tools into their marketing mix.
