NBA finals are something special. This year’s finalists, Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors, didn’t win a Championship in 40 years (GSW in 1975). One of their rookie coaches (Steve Kerr or David Blatt) will become only the second rookie coach in history to win an NBA Championship. These two teams weren’t even on the map (of course they were, but you know what I mean) 15-20 years ago when we watched the Bulls, Lakers or the Spurs battle for the Championship, and now they’re the talk of the basketball world. All eyes are on them. And because of all the impressive content the NBA put on social, it’s hard not to watch!
Take a look at 4 things I found most interesting on NBA’s social media platforms during 2015 Finals:
1. NBA teaming up with Twitter
This is the first time a major sports league has officially teamed up with Twitter to form a custom timeline. All users need to is type #NBA or #NBAFinals in their Twitter search, and they will be able to access the custom timeline. This is an amazing add-on to fan experience because they don’t need to look at different accounts – everything about NBA Finals is in one place!
Another cool feature are the NBA-themed hashflags which became available just before the Finals began. Hashflags have been used before on Twitter for the football World Cup in Brazil etc., but it was the first time they were introduced for the NBA. According to @TwitterData, the “NBA fans have tweeted with NBA Finals hashflags 4,6 million times through Game 4”. As you can see in the gif below, by typing in any of the selected 6 hashtags, a hashflag will appear next to it in your tweet.
Here is how hashflags look like in a tweet…pretty sweet, huh?
2. Facebook graphics are off this planet
NBA really did a terrific job with graphics. They posted them on most of their official social accounts, but mostly on Facebook! And there are no words to describe them, I am at a loss for words. Simply amazing, it is hard to turn your head or keep scrolling when you run into their graphic on Facebook. To me, graphics are by far the best content they have.
3. Video variety
There is a lot of videos from the finals, but there are 3 categories I like the most…
The first one is the Phantom Cam. They post Phantom Cam videos on most major social media platforms. It’s basically slow motion footage of behind-the-scene content, lockerrooms, pre-game huddles, warm-ups, fans, players, and game play – everything worth filming. What makes this footage special is the slow motion which makes it more dramatic. Great content for fans, NBA is giving them just what they want. Enjoy!
The second category would be the ‘spelling bee’ from the NBA show The Starters in which they asked random fans to spell names of different players, in this case Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert. Fans were pretty confident they knew the answer, but most of them failed. Pretty funny content and cool fan engagement!
The third and final category I liked is the Mini movie the NBA made after each game of the Finals. They really made an effort to make short movies, starting with city scenery, fans coming to the Arena, pre and post game speeches, game highlights, and player interviews. It’s all in here, look no further.
4. Vine scoreboard
Different networks, different content. Although NBA shares a lot of its content on multiple platforms, some content is reserved for certain platforms only. That is the case with Samsung sponsorship activation content. The deal between Samsung and NBA resulted in a cool Vine gif. NBA used Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge to present half time and final score of every game in the final series.
NBA is doing a great job on social, we have to congratulate their social and digital team. They do share a lot of the same content on different social networks, but they also make a ton of different content. And it’s all great, so why not share. If they didn’t, we would. Content mentioned above is just a part of what they are doing, maybe you found something you like more. If you did, share your thoughts, we would love to hear your opinion.
In the midst of NBA finals, NBA signed an 8-year apparel deal with Nike that will begin in 2017/18 season. The deal is worth around $1 billion, which is a 245% annual increase from the previos deal with Adidas. Nike once again outbid its biggest rival Adidas. Fun fact: this will be the first time in league history that any manufacturer will have its logo appear on game uniforms.
PHOTO: YouTube Screenshot
