The Problem
Marketing in the NBA throughout the off-season presents itself as a challenge due to the inactive season resulting in less news, highlights and any sort of content to deliver to fans. The off-season is a time to more or less prepare for the upcoming season. This period can be challenging for social media managers looking to retain their current audience, while even trying to recruit new followers. With less content to share in the off-season, what campaigns or social media practices can be done to peak interest and prevent the loss of followers?
Social media presence is crucial throughout the regular season, however, the off-season presents itself as a time that is much more significant in regards to how fans can maintain their passion and love for the teams and the game of basketball.
Research Questions
How has social media platforms been used as a marketing tool for sports news outlets, team organizations and players themselves?
How does an active season versus off-season affect social media analytics?
What can social media teams do throughout the off-season to keep maintain engagement between the team and fans?
What type of content do fans prefer to see during the off-season?
Method
As a quantitative research, utilizing an anonymous survey as a tool for retrieving data was selected. A series of questions was designed, pertaining to social media practices, as well as interest when it comes to basketball and preference when it comes to different types of content. I wanted to make sure a diverse set of data resulted from the questions being asked, therefore, I made the survey accessible from multiple platforms. The platforms were all NBA related forums consisting of fans who discuss anything and everything when it comes to basketball. These forums included Reddit, The General Board, Inside Hoops, and Facebook NBA groups.
Analysis
Following the collection of data, I conducted an analysis revealing the following results:
- Most respondents are young adults (61.4%)
- Instagram is the most used social media account
- Most respondents prefer to get their news/highlights from social media (72.9%)
- Respondents do follow official team accounts (55.7%)
- Engagement is more apparent throughout the regular season (44.3%) with partial respondents saying they are engaged in both the regular season and off-season (27.1%)
- 1.4% is engaged in the off-season
- Videos are the most engaging type of content (60%)
- 71.4% stated they would NOT consider unfollowing accounts during the off-season
- What catches people attention during the off-season? Trades.
- 66.7% stated if team accounts posted more content in the off-season, they would stay engaged
These numbers in itself provide great insight as to whether or not people are engaged in the off-season, what measures can be taken in the off-season to increase engagement, as well as how we can boost traffic on social pages. However, the data does not stop there. To further investigate what can we do to give the people what they want, my last question end-off the survey asked for suggestions as to what type of content would keep fans engaged.
When fans don't have basketball to look forward to in the off-season, their curiosity leads them to wonder what does a day in the life of an NBA player look like in the summer. Fans want to see how players are spending their time off, whether it is with family, friends or partaking in more training to prepare for their upcoming season. Furthermore, data results indicate fans would be much more engaged if campaigns were created that focused on behind the scenes footage, summer league camp, a look at what goes down when it comes to trades, deadlines and preparing for the upcoming season.
Fun and engaging are words respondents used constantly to describe the content they look forward to seeing.
Researcher Biography
Name: Lida Qanun
Age: 24
Career Interest: Sports Marketing
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lidaqanun/
Favourite Team: Toronto Raptors