Last updated on October 28th, 2015 at 04:09 pm
As an avid NBA and social media junkie, I feel compelled to highlight the parallels between the two in a column designed to offer lessons on social media success.
The NBA season is around the corner, beginning Tuesday night, and all eyes are on NBA’s Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages to get ball heads in the mood for Opening Night.
If your B2B firm is using social to talk to and engage with your fans, the NBA has three important things to teach you, simply based on what the basketball league has accomplished in the past week:
1. Video is the all-star
The NBA social team has long been praised for its use of video, and this week is no different. The NBA just straight owns pushing out compelling video. Recently on Twitter and its YouTube page, the NBA compiled a video of the first made baskets by 50 great NBA legends:
From Ossie Schectman (1946) to Anthony Davis (2012) we look back at the first NBA field goal for 50 NBA superstars! https://t.co/F0uvQUwkjF
— NBA (@NBA) October 24, 2015
Talk about whetting the appetite! The timeless is perfect here, thanks to a well-edited and exhaustive video coming a day after the means-nothing preason ended.
As always, too, the NBA YouTube page is quick to shoot out highlights and game recaps from preseason battles, in a turnaround time of roughly one hour. The NHL could learn a lot from the NBA’s snappy editing skills.
Lesson for your B2B team: If your social media managers aren’t pumping out video on their channels to both entertain and inform your fans, rethink your social strategy. Get a production team to shoot and cut video quickly before the buzz wears off. If you just presented at a conference, bring a video team along to get that panel talk uploaded to your company’s YouTube page within 12 hours.
2. Get creative with publicity
This week, the official NBA reddit user posted the new TV spot on the sub-reddit /NBA, being completely transparent about the blatant publicity move. But the NBA user didn’t just astroturf and leave; he or she stuck around to answer questions from the many reddit users who commented on the ad. Now THAT is smart social savviness; the NBA knew how active that sub-reddit can get and didn’t just disappeaer to flood another site with the ad.
Besides, the NBA user on reddit has a history of engaging with reddit users in a respectful and funky way, whether slinging the odd joke or accepting feedback on online programs the NBA should undertake.
Lesson for your B2B team: Don’t just hunker down at the usual social networks you were taught to work on, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Be creative and open-minded, look around to other networks like WhatsApp, Snapchat, reddit, even Pinterest, and analyze if your social presence there makes sense for your product offering. If you’re in mar-tech, you could opt for joining community pages on Google+ and engaging with the very tech-oriented audience on that network. reddit could be worth looking into if you work in the cloud, and even want to spend some ad dollars to get your offering in front of the right audience.
3. Show the fun side of your team
You shouldn’t be so vanilla with your social media output. Sure, schedule tweets about your recent release, your revamped website, the new hire. But ensure your social presence isn’t so static it becomes predictable.
I was having a laugh when @NBA tweeted about the below pics of players dressing up for Halloween:
Dirk, Durant, Russ & plenty of other players dress up for Halloween LOOK: https://t.co/89TDCYtmuQpic.twitter.com/jxxm3VxULL
— NBA.com (@NBAcom) October 25, 2015
Be real on your Twitter feeds, without oversharing. If your company is running a Halloween party, why not post costume pics the day after to show your fans how your firm has a little fun? Or the next company anniversary can celebrate with Facebook Video of the CEO cheers-ing the staff.
Lesson for your B2B Team: Get out of the office and snap pics at unexpected environments, the more interesting the better. Talk to your admin staff about the next events or conferences where some behind-the-scenes photos could add some tasty flavouring to your social media posts.
Did we miss any tips you learned from the NBA social team? Let us know!
Photo via Flickr user Keith Allison
