A Social Media Evaluation Of The NBA Conference Finals Teams
Which of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors, Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder does social best?
Last week, I had the honor of speaking to high school students about the communications field during Career Day. With only a short period of time to speak about a rather broad career field, I boiled “communication” down to three main points:
- What message is being conveyed — use your words well. Catch the attention of your audience using smart messaging that they will connect with.
- How the message is visually presented — good design and consistent visual branding is key.
- How it’s delivered — know the best mediums to reach your audience.
In my experience, by following the above formula, one should be able to reach and maintain pretty most audiences. This was fresh in my mind when taking a look at the social media accounts of the four remaining teams in the NBA playoffs. With Twitter and Instagram the two main social media platforms from which I receive my information, I decided to evaluate the teams’ visual and written communications.
Disclaimer: I like basketball and the NBA, but am by no means a sports expert. This is more of a view from a casual fan and communication professional. Also, definitely meant for fun.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Let’s start with my hometown team (also, alphabetical order), who, overall, do fine social media work. A cursory look at the Cavs’ Twitter page shows the team’s playoff message revolves its branded #ALLin216 campaign.
The Cavs use #ALLin216 on the captions of nearly all their Twitter and Instagram posts, allowing for a consistent experience that “on message” for users.
The team also uses a variety of GIFs, Vines, Twitter videos, branded graphics and images to create a dynamic experience with lots of retweetability. (Yep, it’s a word). The Cavaliers’ social media team also keeps tweets concise, using short quotes and links to articles and game recaps for maximum fan interaction.
Cleveland’s Instagram is also strong, though it’s definitely not the best of all the teams evaluated here. The feed is a nice mix of videos, game recap images/infographics and photos, but this mixture can sometimes provide for an inconsistent viewing experience.
The Cavs have really hit gold with whoever they have in their design department. These graphics are sleek and crisp, visually pleasing, well branded and super impactful.
Juxtapose that against …
These images are fine; there’s nothing wrong with them. But they simply don’t show as crisply as the team’s other visual assets. The beauty of Instagram is quickly posting pics taken on a phone, which often pale in comparison to professional photos. Many of these could be improved by using only one or two filters across the board, and ditching that annoying tilt-shift that is very Instagram circa 2012.
Golden State Warriors
The Warriors’ social media pages stack up next to the team’s record — they’re top notch. It doesn’t hurt that the franchise can rely upon its sexy logo, which is one of the best, if not the best, in the NBA.
Elements of the Dubs logo are echoed in the hash marks of their Strength in Numbers playoff campaign, which is clever.
The Warriors also tend to have some fun on Twitter, using memes and GIFs to commentate during games and even poke a little bit of fun at themselves, providing a more human experience:
Golden State also uses emojis and quick calls to action:
One thing about the Warriors’ Strength in Numbers campaign is that it’s a big visual departure from what’s usually used in their graphics. Playoff graphics play up black and white images with yellow text, while their other images are highly saturated and use blue and yellow. The difference on Instagram can be jarring:
It looks like the Warriors kicked off the Strength in Numbers campaign with some fan stories, which is fun and engaging, especially when this team is often accused of having a lot of bandwagon fans. It also gives some additional context and depth to the campaign name, and would be something nice to continue and feature more, even after the playoffs:
Oklahoma City Thunder
Auditing the Thunder’s social accounts is actually what inspired me to pen this little analysis — because the Oklahoma City’s social media accounts are overwhelmingly meh.
For starters, the team’s Twitter page graphics and bio give absolutely no indication that they’re an elite team:
The team also uses its playoff hashtag (#ThunderUp) inconsistently:
OKC’s social media team also missed some Graphic Design 101 lessons. Someone exported this graphic from Photoshop as a PNG instead of a JPG, which resulted in a transparent background instead of white. It physically hurts me. Additionally, what’s Thunder Blue Friday? A link or context would be good. #WeAreThunder! Where’d that hashtag come from?
Visually, OKC’s Instagram actually looks pretty nice. Lots of shades of blue, professional photos, a few graphics and videos thrown in there…
… But what the social folks make up for in imagery, they lose in captions. Or, lack of captions.
SLAM. After the win. 30p-12a-8r (huh?). Is this captioning or found poetry?
Toronto Raptors
My favorite thing about the Raptors is the franchise’s gritty, urban, underdog persona. The team’s playoff branding is graffiti-centric, putting a fun and creative spin on its existing visual identity.
#WeTheNorth has a lot of fan involvement and Toronto’s social media team leverages that engagement often to take advantage of the youth of the organization and the club’s dark horse status in the playoffs. The team’s Twitter bio even defines the Raps as “The Other team,” a reference to a real incident, but still sums the brand well.
The Raptors do a good job of posting engaging content with links, and also do more retweeting from fans/minor celebrities than the other three NBA accounts profiled here:
The GIFs, Vines and images posted are good, but the Raptors fall flat when it comes to posting branded graphics on Twitter (though they’re still a step above the Thunder). And when they do post graphics, they aren’t nearly as engaging as many other teams.
Toronto’s Instagram is also a little bit of a snoozefest. The team recently posted nine images that were basically the same:
Like on Twitter, the Raptors do a good job of interacting and engaging with fans. Because of the team’s underdog status and its lack of history and heritage, it’s important to connect directly with fans.
But then there’s some fairly bizarre, un-branded posts that come out of nowhere. If there’s one recommendation to make to the Raptors, it would be to better maintain visual consistency.
Admittedly, the NBA is so popular right now, it’s probably not necessary for teams to be “great” at social media, but for the casual fan, proficiency in this area could make or break his or her interest. In a world where people are increasingly turning to social media to get their information, unique and well-planned copy and imagery is critical.
Social media folks should strive to be consistent, conversational and concise in their content production and deployment — especially those working for NBA teams (or any company, really) hoping to resonate amidst all the noise out there.
