How NBA Teams Use Social Media
January 26th, 2010
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Yesterday, we tackled the NFL and today we feature the National Basketball Association and how its teams use social media.
Let me just begin by saying, if you did not see yesterday’s article on the NFL, you can easily click on it here. Overall, I applaud teams for entering into the next stage of sports marketing and that is using social media to listen, brand and communicate with fans via different platforms. However, just because they develop a site does not mean the team is using best practices.
Today, we begin with Twitter. I put together a brief chart on the top five teams using Twitter. based on the number of followers each organization has listed over the weekend.
With Kobe and the Lakers coming off an NBA championship, it is no surprise to see the Lakers ranked #1 on Twitter among the NBA teams or to have Lebron and the Cavs at #3. Three of the five teams are considered large market teams. The average NBA team has 94,000+ followers but in reality the Lakers and the Orlando Magic Twitter pages push the averages beyond what the norm really is. Look at it this way. There are eight teams in the NBA that hold a Twitter following of 20,000 or more fans. The Golden State Warriors have a league low of 2,715 followers and they have posted exactly one Tweet.
Let’s take a look at our two day total and ranking of NFL and NBA teams combined. Here is my top 10 ranking of the combined teams on Twitter.
1. Los Angeles Lakers 1,446,153
2. Orlando Magic 1,008,507
3. Cleveland Cavaliers 34,792
4. New England Patriots 33,401
5. San Diego Chargers 31,857
6. Chicago Bulls 26,831
7. Boston Celtics 26,282
8. New York Jets 20,971
9. Oakland Raiders 20,687
10. San Francisco 49ers 20,535
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On to Facebook, where the top five teams looks something like this. Four of the top five teams from Twitter also appear in Facebook.
The Denver Nuggets, were, as of this weekend, fifth in terms of NBA Facebook following with nearly 90,000 fans.
What I have to stress over and over is that this data is just one set of measurement when it comes to facebook and Twitter. The numbers are nice, almost like a beauty contest, but the questions is, how do you use them? How are you using social media to help achieve your business goals? Do you have a plan or are you just repackaging information you would normally have in your media guide or evening game notes?
Between NBA and NFL, here are the top 10 teams in terms of followers.
1. Los Angeles Lakers 672,394
2. Boston Celtics 488,930
3 Pittsburgh Steelers 458,252
4. Minnesota Vikings 323,197
5. Baltimore Colts 242,032
6. Green Bay Packers 218,232
7. Washington Redskins 210.037
8. Cleveland Cavaliers 171,625
9. Chicago Bulls 158,755
10. Denver Nuggets 89,715
Categories: Basketball, BusinessTips & Topics, Football, Technology Boston Celtics facebook page, Boston Celtics Twitter page, Cavaliers facebook page, cavaliers twitter page, chicago Bulls facebook page, chicago bulls twitter page, denver nuggets facebook, Lakers facebook page, Lakers Twitter page, NBA on facebook, NBA on Twitter, Orlando Magic Twitter page
