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Heat Turns to Social Media In Effort To Keep Wade
Yesterday, the Miami Heat launched a social media campaign entitled, “We Want Wade.” It’s purpose is to encourage fans to show their support and love for Dwyane Wade in an effort to entice him to stay with the Miami Heat franchise. The website describes itself as the “place to show your support for our MV3 and to help keep Dwyane Wade in Wade County! It goes on and states that they will be adding things right up to the start of the free agency period, so visitors should check back often for the latest D.Wade info, events, downloads and more.”
As of July 1st, D. Wade has the ability to speak with other teams as he will be a free agent. The Heat franchise will be working tirelessly during the course of the off season to keep Wade on their roster. However, he is sure to have offers from other interested franchisees. The site encourages fans, specifically in the South Florida area to record a video, tweet using the #WeWantWade hash tag, submit an audio message from the site or via a form submission. The site hosts a live twitter feed and shows approved fan posted messages in real-time. Shortly after the announcement of the campaign launch, the site crashed due to the enormous amount of traffic it received. The site allows and encourages you to the share the campaign to facebook, digg, e-mail and twitter. Users in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties also have the option to request a Free Fan Kit said to be equipped with “stuff you can wear, stuff you can share, stuff you can place everywhere.”
This is an excellent integration of social media that compliments the Heat’s effort to show how significant Wade is to the team. The “We Want Wade” campaign has a landing page on the Heat’s website. When surfers visit Heat.com they have the option to enter Heat.com or the We Want Campaign website. The photos, messages and videos obtained during this campaign will give them a plethora of content and create a great deal of buzz. This campaign is sure to create some die hard Wade evangelists. The site also lists scenarios and offers fans Do’s and Don’t tips in the event that they randomly see Wade. A great way to refocus and rally fans to now now only serve as a fan but an advocate for the campaign.
