Like most sports organizations, we've been active on Snapchat for a few years now sharing largely behind-the-scenes content on game days, including community events and other team focused initiatives.
While we think we were doing a good job, we were very aware that, across the course of an 82-game NBA season, our Snapchat Story became a little repetitive and predictable.
To mix it up and reengage our fan base, we decided to do a "host takeover" for two multi-game road trips, with two of our digital team coordinators acting as hosts for a trip to Dallas and Indiana and a west coast trip in Portland, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Our objectives were primarily to diversify our Snapchat coverage, garner more views and "Snap Story completions" than our typical Snapchat content, and make our fansfeel closer to the team by giving them a sense of what happens on an NBA road trip. We also wanted to put some faces to the folks who travel with the team and help bring everyday experiences to life for our fans on our social channels as well.
The increased attention from the host takeovers additionally allowed us to try to collect fans' email addresses, and hold mini 'digital scavenger hunts' during the course of the road trips.
Samantha and Kamil – our social media coordinator and digital content coordinator, respectively - talked our fans through what happens on an NBA road trip, taking our fans onto the team plane, hotel rooms, training sessions, and in the equipment truck. They answered fan questions live on Snapchat and even let fans vote on things like which sweater/tie combo one of our athletic trainers should wear for one of the games.
Strategically, we thought it was important to give our Snapchat a voice and a face to make it more human and personal. Just as importantly, we wanted to give our fans a voice, by reacting to what they told us that they wanted to see. In this way we were looking to move beyond just publishing content, and really shift our Snapchat efforts to be more engaging and tailored to what our fans asked for in real-time.
The primary focus of the host takeovers was to react to what was happening in real time – both in terms of what was happening "in real life and to the requests and questions that were coming from fans.
We also got the broader Chicago Bulls organization involved, with our players, coach, radio personalities, public relations managers, fitness staff, and more getting time on camera, explaining what they were doing and how their roles help get the team ready to play in cities all over the country. Everyone embraced what we were trying to do and that comes across in the quality of the content.
Over both road trips, we had more than 8.5 million Snapchat Story views, with an average view per snap that was 10 percent higher than our non-hosted efforts.
We also captured more than 3,000 email addresses from our Snapchat audience through the digital scavenger hunts that we ran during these takeovers. These email addresses are added to our email marketing efforts and included in our CRM systems, allowing us to effectively build stronger relationships with these fans.
