Adam Sherk » Sports

NBA Playoff Teams Ranked by Facebook Page Engagement

Adam Sherk — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:49:11 +0000

So Lebron and Kobe may (or may not) be heading towards a much-hyped NBA Finals matchup, but the real question on fans’ minds is: Which NBA playoff teams have the most user engagement on their Facebook Pages?

Ok fans could care less about that, but for myself and some sports and social media marketers out there it’s an interesting question.

In my post on the most popular NBA teams on Twitter and Facebook (and the more recent one on MLB teams) I looked strictly at the following each team has built up. This time I’ll compare user engagement on each team’s Facebook page.

With the second round of the playoffs recently under way I thought now was a good time to pull the numbers since all 16 teams were still recently active. So I checked the number of likes and comments for each team’s last 10 updates. I was going to go back to the first day of the playoffs but that turned out to be quite a few updates, so I’m using 10 as a representative sample.

I realize that counting likes and comments is a very limited measurement of engagement but it offers a simple way to compare user activity on each team’s Facebook Page.

So here are the 16 NBA playoff teams ranked by the average number of likes and comments on their last 10 updates (through Monday night prior to the start of any games):

		Facebook Fans	Average Likes	Average Comments	Total (Avg Likes + Comments)
1	Los Angeles Lakers	915,504	2156.9	370.1	2527
2	Denver Nuggets	151,165	784.3	251.1	1035.4
3	Boston Celtics	592,509	632.6	233	865.6
4	Cleveland Cavaliers	282,234	647.2	132.1	779.3
5	Chicago Bulls	202,975	559.1	179.2	738.3
6	Phoenix Suns	91,889	182.4	75.2	257.6
7	Dallas Mavericks	104,670	45.2	194.4	239.6
8	San Antonio Spurs	59,806	160.5	59	219.5
9	Portland Trail Blazers	95,469	78	92.3	170.3
10	Miami Heat	16,814	99.8	46.1	145.9
11	Milwaukee Bucks	47,593	70.2	60.1	130.3
12	Atlanta Hawks	20,155	69.5	48.8	118.3
13	Utah Jazz	67,595	41.3	65.1	106.4
14	Orlando Magic	130,022	70	33.2	103.2
15	Oklahoma City Thunder	26,539	54.9	24.7	79.6
16	Charlotte Bobcats	17,178	16.1	18.8	34.9

The Lakers are dominating but more fans mean more opportunities for engagement so they do have an advantage. Denver makes a strong showing at #2 despite having fewer fans than four other teams. Orlando having a long lay-off between the first and second rounds had a negative impact on their numbers. Their most recent 10 updates got limited feedback but the 10 before that fared much better.

Oklahoma City was a surprise at #15; I expected them to do better after their impressive effort in the first round. The Charlotte Bobcats came in last – unless they can get Michael Jordan to start making updates they’ve got their work cut out for them.

So what types of updates drew the most user feedback? Here are the wall posts that received the most likes for each team:

The Most Popular MLB Teams on Twitter and Facebook

Adam Sherk — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:40:17 +0000

A new baseball season is underway and we are in that wonderfully brief period when fans all over the country still believe this could actually be the year for their team. Enjoy it while you can.

But while major market teams have a big advantage in the real game, social media is the great equalizer online, so I thought I’d see which teams have attracted the largest following on Twitter and Facebook. After getting good response to the posts I did on NFL and NBA teams I wanted to add MLB to the mix.

So without further ado here are the 30 Major League Baseball teams, ranked by total number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans:

		Twitter followers	Facebook fans	Total
1	New York Yankees	272,665	1,249,555	1,522,220
2	Boston Red Sox	10,127	1,052,128	1,062,255
3	Philadelphia Phillies	561,223	337,405	898,628
4	Chicago Cubs	4,595	537,492	542,087
5	San Francisco Giants	16,742	321,164	337,906
6	St. Louis Cardinals	3,976	305,230	309,206
7	Minnesota Twins	8,046	272,034	280,080
8	Detriot Tigers	11,493	248,167	259,660
9	Atlanta Braves	14,626	242,171	256,797
10	Chicago White Sox	1,524	226,825	228,349
11	Oakland Athletics	6,365	189,187	195,552
12	Los Angeles Dodgers	18,371	171,098	189,469
13	New York Mets	6,916	181,531	188,447
14	Milwaukee Brewers	1,653	169,004	170,657
15	Cleveland Indians	2,360	147,130	149,490
16	Seattle Mariners	6,669	135,240	141,909
17	Houston Astros	1,336	125,677	127,013
18	Texas Rangers	6,149	118,638	124,787
19	Kansas City Royals	7,361	112,616	119,977
20	Tampa Bay Rays	4,677	107,636	112,313
21	Colorado Rockies	1,237	109,960	111,197
22	Cincinnati Reds	10,910	98,632	109,542
23	Los Angeles Angels	4,701	98,922	103,623
24	Toronto Blue Jays	4,775	98,513	103,288
25	Baltimore Orioles	3,657	92,042	95,699
26	Florida Marlins	1,824	81,382	83,206
27	San Diego Padres	3,996	77,636	81,632
28	Pittsburgh Pirates	2,636	68,085	70,721
29	Arizona Diamondbacks	2,885	63,118	66,003
30	Washington Nationals	2,165	42,411	44,576

I’ll add the usual caveats: these numbers change very quickly but I find taking a snapshot at various points useful for comparison (perhaps I’ll update this at the All Star break and the end of the season). And of course social media is not a popularity contest; it’s how you engage your followers/fans that really matters. But reach has value too and I like to see which teams are faring best in that area.

Baseball is a game of statistics after all, so looking at numbers seems fitting. I could take it further and come up with analogies for batting average and on-base percentage like average tweets per day or retweet percentages, but maybe another time.

Not surprisingly the Yankees and Red Sox are at the top of the standings, although Boston is far behind the Yankees and Phillies in Twitter followers. I believe that playing in the World Series got the Yankees and Phillies added to the previous version of Twitter’s Suggested Users list, which is likely why their numbers are so much higher.

In looking at the figures above, it is clear that teams are attracting much larger audiences through Facebook than Twitter at this point.

On a different note, if I was the Detroit Tigers I’d get in touch with Facebook. While the Tigers fan page has 248k+ fans, as of today the only page Facebook search shows for “Detroit Tigers” is an unofficial, outdated page with 841 fans:

Even clicking “See More Results” doesn’t surface the real page – I had to use Google to find it.

As Markus points out in the comments below, the problem with Facebook search and the Detroit Tigers page was actually that I used the misspelling “Detriot” in my search query. Pretty embarrassing. I guess I can salvage things by using this to point out that Facebook search needs to do a better job of understanding the user intent behind common misspellings!

Social Media Super Bowl: Which Team Has More Reach?

Adam Sherk — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:31:52 +0000

So the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints will meet in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV. NFL analysts and sports writers now have two weeks to dissect the matchup, talk about players and schemes and come up with good storylines. But I’m here to look at what really matters – which team has more reach via social media?

Now we all know that social media isn’t a numbers game – it’s not just about reach, it’s about making the most of your connections. Furthermore it’s not possible to fully quantify reach across all social media, especially since that brings up the discussion of what should or shouldn’t be considered “social media.” So I’m going to gloss over all of that and just look at four things, one for each quarter in the Super Bowl.

1st Quarter: Blog mentions
Two days after the conference championships, which team is being blogged about more?

Google Blog Search has 519,933 total results for “Indianapolis Colts” and 20,776 in the past week. For “New Orleans Saints” it’s 726,855 total and 31,215 in the past week.

On Icerocket the Colts have 24,526 total / 2,466 past week, and the Saints have 29,603 total / 3,666 past week.

And Technorati is showing 4,973 posts related to the Colts and 6,178 for the Saints.

Advantage: SAINTS

_________________

2nd Quarter: Digg
Ok, which team has seen the most activity on Digg? According to Digg’s search tool 1,549 Colts articles have been submitted, with only eight being promoted to the front page and three receiving more than 500 diggs. That compares with 1,645 articles submitted, 11 promoted and two with 500+ diggs for the Saints.

Advantage: SAINTS

…At the half, the Saints head into the locker room ahead. Can Peyton Manning and the Colts pull out another come from behind victory?

_________________

3rd Quarter: Facebook
Facebook offers one of the best ways for teams to engage with their fan base, so which team is making the most of it? As of today the Colts’ official Facebook page has 249,481 fans and their wall posts are getting a good amount of “likes” and comments. But from what I can see, and I searched with both Facebook and Google, the Saints do not have an official page. There are several unofficial pages, the largest one with 368,365 fans, but since the Saints appear to be missing the opportunity to engage Facebook users in an official capacity, this is a major fumble.

Advantage: COLTS

_________________

4th Quarter: Twitter
It gets worse on Twitter – from what I can see neither team has an official profile. So here we’ve got the equivalent of one team throwing an interception and then the other giving it right back.

There are several unofficial Twitter profiles for each team run by fans and media sites, but I could not find any official accounts. @NOScom comes close for the Saints, but this appears to be run by the people managing the team’s website, not the team itself. (Please correct me if I’m wrong).

Too bad the teams aren’t choosing to directly engage their fans via Twitter.

How about the players? Twitter-athletes.com currently lists profiles for six Colts players and 15 Saints players. Plus I suppose the Saints can count Kim Kardashian as a “spokesperson” of sorts.

So the Saints have a small edge here, but without an official presence from either team I’m calling this quarter a tie.

Advantage: NONE

_________________

WINNER:

Despite what looked like a Colts comeback, after a poor 4th quarter by both teams the winner of the Social Media Super Bowl is:

THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS

It’ll be interesting to see how these figures increase as the hype builds over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll see some creative use of social media by both the teams and some of the players. And good luck to both teams in Super Bowl XLIV.

P.S. Vikings fans, I feel your pain. You had it.

Photo credit: Steven Snodgrass (it’s a Creative Commons photo on Flickr, but I couldn’t get WordPress to link to it directly above).

The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook

Adam Sherk — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:21:31 +0000

NBA players, like many professional athletes, have taken social media by storm, but what about their teams? Fans love hearing directly from players, but they also identify strongly with the teams themselves. Twitter and Facebook offer a great opportunity for NBA teams to connect with their fans in a more personal, interactive way. So which NBA teams have the largest following on Twitter and Facebook, who is making the most of their presence?

I got good response when I looked at the most popular NFL teams on Facebook and Twitter back in November, so today I thought I’d do the same for the NBA.

In the table below the 30 NBA teams are ranked by total followers/fans on their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. I realize these figures change quickly, but the snapshot is useful for comparison.

		Twitter followers	Facebook fans	Total
1	Los Angeles Lakers	1,415,871	657,007	2,072,878
2	Orlando Magic	983,232	85,265	1,068,497
3	Boston Celtics	25,605	481,879	507,484
4	Cleveland Cavaliers	33,445	166,021	199,466
5	Chicago Bulls	26,161	155,827	181,988
6	San Antonio Spurs	19,901	90,550	110,451
7	Denver Nuggets	15,188	87,300	102,488
8	Houston Rockets	20,195	81,535	101,730
9	Dallas Mavericks	15,817	72,015	87,832
10	Phoenix Suns	21,896	64,976	86,872
11	Portland Trail Blazers	14,684	65,801	80,485
12	New York Knicks	14,395	43,972	58,367
13	Utah Jazz	11,785	44,328	56,113
14	Toronto Raptors	5,605	41,611	47,216
15	Milwaukee Bucks	7,089	37,197	44,286
16	Sacramento Kings	10,798	19,855	30,653
17	Golden State Warriors	2,655	27,826	30,481
18	Philadelphia 76ers	12,048	17,877	29,925
19	Indiana Pacers	7,204	14,760	21,964
20	Los Angeles Clippers	13,531	7,291	20,822
21	Washington Wizards	6,787	13,579	20,366
22	Atlanta Hawks	8,170	11,893	20,063
23	Oklahoma City Thunder	8,911	10,981	19,892
24	Detroit Pistons	9,537	7,854	17,391
25	Minnesota Timberwolves	6,554	10,742	17,296
26	New Jersey Nets	4,945	10,361	15,306
27	Miami Heat	13,870	599	14,469
28	Memphis Grizzlies	7,062	6,793	13,855
29	Charlotte Bobcats	5,502	7,281	12,783
30	New Orleans Hornets	8,459	1,647	10,106

The Lakers and Magic are well ahead in terms of total following, which isn’t surprising considering the popularity of the two teams and their stars, and the fact that both teams were in the Finals last year.

While a number of smaller markets and weaker teams are at the bottom of the list, I didn’t expect to see the Miami Heat down there. They are competitive on Twitter in terms of reach but their lack of a real presence on Facebook sent them down to #28. It doesn’t look like they even have an official page on Facebook; the one with 599 followers was the best that I could find.

But while building up followers is great, it’s what you do with that following that really matters.

So what should NBA teams be doing on Twitter and Facebook? The most important thing is to communicate with the fans, plain and simple. Let them know what’s going on with the team, and more importantly LISTEN to what they have to say.

Beyond that there’s no right or wrong answer, but teams will certainly get a lot more traction by being compelling and interactive. Facebook pages offer a better opportunity for expanded content and extended conversations, but there’s a lot you can do with Twitter too.

A simple thing that many teams do is providing in-game updates via Twitter. As a Bulls fan living outside of Chicago I don’t get to watch many games, but I feel connected to the team when I see a scoring update:

Here are a few other things NBA teams should think about:

Dish: offer insights and information that fans can’t get anywhere else
Go behind the scenes: give them sense of what the organization is really like
Humanize: not just the players, let them get to know the entire organization
Speaking of players: the more they are involved with the team’s official social media activities, the less likely they’ll be to “go rogue” and say something regrettable on their own profiles
Multimedia: photos and video bring sports content to life, and social media users love to share them
Contests and promotions: tickets, gear, autographs, chances to meet players – you can quickly build buzz by giving away the good stuff
Tie it to the community: let fans see that the team cares about the city and what’s going on there

Now if we could only get the NBA to change the first round playoff series back to five games…

The Most Popular NFL Teams on Twitter and Facebook

Adam Sherk — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:20:51 +0000

The role of social media in professional sports is getting a lot of attention these days, unfortunately mostly in the form of teams and leagues trying to clamp down on it or players making mistakes with it.

Despite this, fans are passionately supporting and discussing their teams through a range of social media outlets, in particular Twitter and Facebook. Since we’re in the heart of football season, I thought I’d take a look at which NFL teams have the largest following on both sites.

In the table below the 32 NFL teams are ranked by the total number of followers/fans on their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages. These figures obviously change quickly but this current snapshot is useful for comparison.

		Twitter followers	Facebook fans	Total
1	Pittsburgh Steelers	No official account	408,277	408,277
2	Chicago Bears	10,694	371,597	382,291
3	Minnesota Vikings	16,670	202,084	218,754
4	Indianapolis Colts	No official account	201,100	201,100
5	Green Bay Packers	11,220	185,577	196,797
6	New England Patriots	30,040	143,563	173,603
7	Philadelphia Eagles	No official account	170,114	170,114
8	Washington Redskins	No official account	170,114	170,114
9	San Diego Chargers	28,467	135,572	164,039
10	Miami Dolphins	17,124	145,687	162,811
11	Seattle Seahawks	9,759	111,772	121,531
12	San Francisco 49ers	18,099	81,950	100,049
13	Denver Broncos	11,411	83,465	94,876
14	Cincinnati Bengals	13,838	68,854	82,692
15	Oakland Raiders	19,045	60,586	79,631
16	Baltimore Ravens	9,738	57,373	67,111
17	Kansas City Chiefs	9,950	55,862	65,812
18	New York Jets	15,822	48,290	64,112
19	Buffalo Bills	9,303	54,057	63,360
20	Cleveland Browns	7,657	40,320	47,977
21	Atlanta Falcons	11,956	35,835	47,791
22	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	4,694	39,468	44,162
23	Detroit Lions	2,633	41,218	43,851
24	Tennessee Titans	11,531	31,664	43,195
25	Houston Texans	3,047	31,797	34,844
26	Jacksonville Jaguars	3,570	30,003	33,573
27	Arizona Cardinals	No official account	32,836	32,836
28	St. Louis Rams	3,166	16,053	19,219
29	Dallas Cowboys	9,826	No official page	9,826
30	Carolina Panthers	5,208	No official page	5,208
31	New Orleans Saints	No official account	No official page	N/A
32	New York Giants	No official account	No official page	N/A

Interestingly, despite no official presence on Twitter the Pittsburgh Steelers have the largest reach thanks to their large number of Facebook fans. I was also surprised that the Dallas Cowboys do not have an official Facebook page as they would certainly attract a significant number of fans.

I had expected all the teams to have more followers on Twitter. The San Diego Chargers lead the league with only 28K followers. (UPDATE: Thanks to Mike Blewitt for noticing that it is actually the New England Patriots that have the most Twitter followers at 30K+).

The New Orleans Saints and New York Giants are currently at the bottom of the social media heap with no official presence on either Twitter or Facebook. However an unofficial Saints page is very popular on Facebook with 163,760 fans.

Capturing data on only “official” accounts and pages was actually somewhat difficult (I welcome corrections if I’ve missed any). Twitter is a wild west for NFL teams right now – there are far more unofficial accounts, and even those that that claim to be official aren’t always actually so. Twitter should consider extending its “verified accounts” to team sites as well. On Facebook the official team pages are easier to identify, but they often face competition from other pages created by fans or local media. For several teams the unofficial pages have significantly more fans.

So the main takeaway is that NFL teams need to take better control of their social media presence and come up with more a cohesive engagement strategy. NFL fans are among the most passionate, so there is a great opportunity to leverage their loyalty and enthusiasm and further extend the relationships.