NBA Digital Disciple Series: 5 Learnings from the Houston Rockets

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 way.

Cool?

Thus far, we've covered the NJ Nets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Washington Wizards,Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Detroit Pistons, LA Clippers, NY Knicks, New Orleans Hornets, Indiana Pacers, and Toronto Raptors.

Our full schedule is available here.

Let's move.

Let's take a look at the digital connections made by the Houston Rockets (link here)

1. Chat Live with a Rockets Representative

Let me preface this with a comment -- I am not a fan at all of the splash page (the page that you are greeted with before you get to the page you are attempting to get to. Normally these pages show up to divert your attention - to celebrate a moment or get you to buy something. I find that we should not slow people on their quest. That said, I loved something about the Rockets' season ticket splash page. As you can see in the image below, you are given the chance to Chat Live with a Rockets representative.

Clicking in, you get a little pop up chat browser. Now that is service!

Plus One: Love this idea. A fan has a question on your team and you are standing by. Could this expand beyond the ticketing idea? What if you had a question on the starting lineup, or the health of a player? Something just feels like we are at the tip of the iceberg of having representatives willing and able to engage fans on their terms and I'm digging it!

2. Red Nation Chatter Elevated

It's pretty direct and very powerful. Take a peak at the home page and you're hit with the image below, immediate and up front access to the Rockets social media, under the headline "Red Nation Chatter." Elevating access to Facebook, Twitter, and Mobile alongside the Team Leaders and Video shows it's even more important. Here's a peak.

Plus One: Don't just elevate access, but elevate the latest activity... Or highlights of the past week (Tweet or Facebook post of the week, for example) That way fans get some insight into what they are missing by not clicking ahead.

3. Rockets bring personality into Facebook

I like what the Rockets have going on in Facebook. Nearly 100,000 like the Rockets on Facebook (you can join them by clicking here). There's a lot of great things about the style the Rockets deliver on Facebook, from highlight reels to celebrations for all things good in the franchise. But most powerful to me is the emotion in the communication.

Check this example to accompany their year end highlight package. "Miss the Rockets? Me too. Here's some video of the finer moments in 2009-2010." The result is below. 103 people like it and 33 comment. That's a nice viral stream of activity from a simple post. Great work here.

4. Rockets Widgets

The Rockets have a collection of NBA.com widgets available to fans. Simply choose either the Rockets team feed, or specific player feeds by clicking in and you can take them with you to your reader or blog of choice. It's a nice set up to bring your favorites with you, on your terms.

Pick up your Shane Battier widget here (and check the image below).

Plus One: I like offering the NBA widgets here, but can the Rockets now find a way to message with fans who have adopted each widget? Wouldn't it be amazing to find a way for Battier to interact with fans who have taken ahold of his widget? To me, the potential is there for fans who take a widget to get exclusive access that fans who don't have it won't get.

5. Rockets Player Sites

The Rockets bring you access to two things: the websites of their players and the foundation websites their roster supports. These are paired together, in a nice gallery linked here and shown below.

Plus One: I'd love to see a way to elevate the charitable foundations to an even higher status. The amount of good each player does is amazing. To see it all together, in one forum, could be exhilarating. And I think this could be done as simply as what we see with sites embedding their Facebook, Twitter, or blog feeds.

That's a wrap.

I hope you're enjoying this ride. Check out Peter Robert Casey tomorrow (here) as he closes down the week as we shift into Playoff mode with the Chicago Bulls. And click here to follow me on Twitter.

Andy