The Most Popular NBA Teams on Twitter and Facebook

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 and 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…