i often forget that the teams i’m watching duke it out on the court, are actual brands, but a look around the stadium will reveal logo hats, jerseys, blankets, and even cell phone covers. i just read an article about the way teams are branding themselves, without selling merchandise and tickets, and still improving their loyal relationship with their fans — they’re going social. with news coming out every week about the power of social influence marketing and web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 (insert number here) features that have allowed brands to turn potential customers into die hard fans, it’s been no surprise to see some of blupint’s favorite teams and athletes turning to social media channels to better connect with fans, engage communities, and increase brand interaction. our research has yielded some interesting insight as to who is leveraging their communities well, and what opportunities exist.

one of the most active teams in the digital sphere, are the boston celtics. using celtics.com as their main portal they have launched a GameTimeLive application that aggregates tweets, blogs, posts, and videos for their digital fan. their youtube channel has locker room videos uploaded minutes before they are taking to the hardwood. they tweet about sick players and at-practice antics and their facebook is full of things happening in and around boston that the team is involved in. however, while the celtics are far ahead of most NBA teams in social media engagement, they are still lagging behind the los angeles lakers who have over a million twitter followers. why are the lakers more successful in the social media sphere? after all, the lakers don’t have a facebook page directly dedicated to their dancers or a 3 point app like the celtics do. well, a quick scan of each team’s twitter accounts illustrate that the lakers connect with individuals through more direct conversations, another illustration that personal engagement is the key to social media success.

while we’re on the subject, we should mention that twitter’s top trending topics of 2009 sports list shows that the lakers were the 2nd top trending team while the cleveland cavaliers were the 4th top trending team, pointing to the NBA’s ability to create social dialogue. interestingly, only kobe bryant crossed over as one of the top ten most tweeted about people, clearly too many ashton kutchers, tila tequilas and kim kardashians to compete with.

college athletics are following in the footsteps of some major sports teams and going social. NotreDameFalcons.com, for example, has encouraged both coach, fan, and player participation on the web. the pints know this to a be a needed move because falcon fans are online already, checking up on stats, scores, and information. their website includes many of the coaches twitter feeds and also includes several student-athlete and coach blogs to keep the fans updated. calbears.com, the official athletics website for uc berkeley, has dedicated a whole section to cal on social media, which has helped boost twitter followers to over 1,500 and facebook followers to over 7,200. some universities and sports teams have more followers than others, but keep in mind that social media pages aren’t there to simply create more fans, they’re also there to foster already formed relationships — and the falcons and bears are taking a step in the right direction by connecting with current students, alums, and fans with a click of a button.

we see a great many number of opportunities to connect digitally with fans for other major league sports by replying to fans directly on twitter, having contests via facebook, posting fun content on youtube, and coming up with some great smartphone apps. the pints are eager to see major league baseball and soccer teams getting more digital and more social! 2010 is a great year to start, get to it.