Attracting and engaging more fans on social media is a goal for every company today. Especially in sports. Although the NBA saw a season in which marquee franchises performed poorly and superstars such as Kobe Bryant, Paul George, Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose missed significant time, the league did have a successful year in terms of growing its social media audience.
According to an official press release today, the NBA added 240 million new fans since the end of last season. This 40% increase is the largest they have ever experienced and now puts them at 811 million followers and likes across all leagues, teams and players.
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This massive amount of new followers led to 31 billion impressions in the past season, which is also a 130% increase over the previous season.
To take a look inside some more specifics, NBA.com and NBA Mobile recorded their all-time traffic record with more than 16.7 billion page views, and 4.2 billion video views combined which is a 9% increase from last season. The NBA GameTime App was also successful as they received an all-time high 7.4 billion downloads which is 32% more than the last season. Here are some more key statistics per NBA.com that illustrate the league’s digital growth:
- Facebook: +4.8 million new likes, +22% (26.2 million total likes)
- Twitter: +4.1 million new followers, +42% (13.9 million total followers)
- Instagram: +3.5 million new followers, +151%, (5.8 million total followers)
- YouTube: +665 million new videos viewed, +33% (2.7 billion total videos viewed)
The NBA has always been diligent about engaging fans on social media. For instance, they allow fans to vote for which players to send to the all-star game via their all-digital program. This program lets fans vote on NBA.com and through social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Sina Weibo and Tencent Microblog; via SMS text; and with the NBA Game Time and the NBA Game Time from Sprint applications.
As the NBA enters the playoffs the league is as strong as ever and using digital means to grow the reach of the game on a global scale.