Growing Demand Blog

When working with Pluck’s social media platform customers on strategies for deployment, we typically speak to three different approaches for putting the tools to use:

1. Augmenting your existing content with viewer perspectives
2. Generating valuable new content directly from the audience
3. Building relationships between community members

Each is a valuable and valid approach, but as primary content producers, it’s no surprise that many of our customers are particularly focused on the first idea.

So I always celebrate when a customer has thought creatively about “social media programming” – and rolled out a new application or campaign where the users and their content are the centerpiece of the action. In other words, they organized their audience to create a new experience (and traffic) that would not have been possible without social media. The brain trust behind NFL.com is my favorite recent example of someone putting the full power of Pluck’s SiteLife suite into high gear with advanced social media programming.

In preparation for the widely anticipated April draft, the NFL developed a strategy that would organize fans into War Rooms for their teams. In the weeks leading up to the draft, the momentum built with nearly 100,000 contributions of prognostication and analysis. When the curtain lifted on the two day event, the action grew even hotter – as fans reacted to the cascading effect of surprise picks from those further up the food chain and the latest gyrations from their favorite team’s general manager.

At the end of an exhilarating online weekend – the results spoke for themselves. More than 265,000 contributions were made by the NFL’s most valuable audience – the rabid fan. The site also reported that the average visitor spent 45 minutes on the site during the big weekend’s activities – up a startling 153% over last year.

And they produced a memorable experience that could not be easily replicated anywhere else online.  These customers are going to come back over-and-over again to the website that engages them in this manner. 

Finally, wins like this shine favorably on the digital marketers behind the results. The NFL’s social media success was picked up broadly with great reviews by Minonline, CNET, BrandWeek, and WebMaster World.

Congrats to our friends at NFL.com -- we're proud to be part of your team!

Dave Panos is Demand Media’s EVP of Social Media Platforms and CEO of Pluck. Follow Dave at http://www.twitter.com/davepanos.