Searchfest Presentation: Dan Harbison (Portland Trailblazers Internet Marketing Manager)

Dan Harbison turned his long-standing love of professional sports into his current position overseeing the online marketing and branding initiatives for the Portland Trail Blazers. This includes the Official Site of the Portland Trail Blazers: trailblazers.com, the first social networking site launched by a professional sports team; IAmATrailBlazersFan.com, direct email marketing, and a myriad of Web 2.0 applications including blogs and podcasts.

Gives overview of team – had bad image that needed to improve. Revamping image by bringing in character people – need to embrace the players as people. Web 2.0 = Blogs, podcasts, RSS, social media, social networks. Electronic handshakes with your fan.

Cleaned up large email database. Let the fans post & control the content. Started broadcaster blog, gametime blog & Spanish blog. Moderate comments & encourage feedback. All audio gets podcasted, is in Itunes. Social networking – common thread (Blazer fans) – leverage Myspace, Facebook. Myspace gets bad rap – when 120 Million people come together, there will be some creepy people naturally. Launched Imatrailblazerfan.com – first sports team to launch an online community & aggregate information.

Dan’s Searchfest Blog Post