NBA Digital Disciple Series: 5 Learnings from the Minnesota Timberwolves

30 teams. 7 weeks. 2 bloggers. 1 mission: to share our learnings of how NBA teams uniquely leverage digital tools to build fan community.

As students, or disciples of the game, we'll supply you with the doctrine - 5 takeaways per team - and then raise you one enhancement suggestion for each learning that's highlighted. (One way to make the great even greater)

Then, we'll wrap it up, pick a winner, and send you on your merry way to spread the gospel.

Cool?

Thus far, we've covered the Nets (over on Peter Robert Casey's site - check that post here). The full schedule is available here.

Let's move.

The Timberwolves season didn't come out as they'd hoped. But that doesn't stop them from creating a great experience online, where there is energy coming at you from all directions.

Here's 5 things to inspire you, along with a Plus One to make each better.

1. Wolves Twitter Pumps Through the Home Page

This is the key to the site feeling alive -- check the image below. You can see not only the latest Tweets from the Wolves staff and roster but, as you see here, all of the fan chatter around the team. Anyone hashtagging "#Twolves" gets elevated to the home page feed. Hot.

And, as you can see at the very bottom (or here), it is synched up for a mobile experience - meaning it is really easy to track the chatter on the squad wherever you go.

Plus One: How can we bring these worlds together? You have the Featured tab of TWolves players and experts and you have the chatter tab. Can we find a way to actually drive some of the chatter by interaction? Maybe it is hosting chats and having people use custom hash tags (like #AskJonny) to steer both the tab and the conversation?

2. Wolves Nation

Wow I'm digging this. A LOT. As you can find here and in the images below, Wolves Nation is the hub of all things social media and really the destination many programs could learn from. First, they elevate the latest pictures from Flickr, Tweets, Forum posts, and YouTube videos. If it is current, it gets elevated here. And second, they give you quick links to other sites that cover the Wolves -- news sites, blogs, and fan sites.

It's this area, the Blogroll, that leads to my Plus One: What if there was an incentive for people to pump into the site. What if bloggers actually got hyped on this site? What if each of them played a role in the lead story -- the traffic that'd drive would be monstrous for them. And the level of energy that'd give to the Wolves Nation site... Wow.

3. Flynn's Playoff Tweets

Rookie Jonny Flynn is active on Twitter, shown here (and below).



He's got just over 23,000 followers. The Timberwolves have an innovative way of keeping the dialogue going when their squad is out.

The Wolves are using Jonny as a Twitter source to cover the playoffs -- shown here covering the Thunder vs Lakers series. I like seeing this, as it shows the fans there's something to learn by hitting the site even after the games are over. Nice work.

Plus One: What if there was a schedule of times to interact with the players all summer long? Each player and coach could take the stage, rotating day by day. That gives us the same "gotta be there" feeling, while keeping it close to the current squad.

4. The Wolves on Flickr

I'm a big fan of seeing the Wolves Flickr stream hit the home page. You can check it out here, or below. This is great for a few reasons: 1) you can sign up for updates by adding the Wolves as a contact. 2) you can easily browse through these pictures by album and then take the ones with you that you want, and 3) just going through these photos makes you feel more connected to the Wolves.

Plus One: What if there was an incentive for posting the best pictures to the Wolves Flickr gallery? (Or to Flickr with the Wolves as a tag?) Perhaps the best fan photo each month shows up as the home page image for a day? Or gets turned into wallpapers for others to take with them?

5. Top 5 Plays of the Week

I'm a big fan of this. Elevate your strengths, and that you are an exciting brand of basketball. Week in, week out, the T-Wolves pump the best highlights right to the home page, shown below.

Click in and you get a pretty solid video player, along with access to previous weeks of highlights.

Plus, at the end of the video, you can easily share this to your friends. I'm not sure why you can't share this via email or Twitter, but at least we have Facebook!

Plus One: Bring the fans into the conversation. Ask fans on Facebook what their favorite plays were (or ask the players) and then roll those out as the final highlight packages. This is a chance to create a conversation -- take advantage of that!

Stand by tomorrow as we keep moving. (Here's a link for our full schedule of team breakdowns).