Facebook has 74% of the NBA’s fans… and they’re more loyal

 By Aarun Rumbaugh

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In fact, the stronger the team, the more Facebook fans they have. Chicago is at 91%, while Charlotte is at 50%.

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The top 50% of teams have 16.5% of their fans living in their home metro area. The bottom half average only 9.8%.
Is Facebook a barometer of real world loyalty?

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The Lakers, at 24 million fans, are 37% females. Milwaukee and Charlotte have 21% females, which is 43% less than the top teams.
Could it be that teams who actively engage both genders have stronger growth? What is it about their content and engagement strategy?

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Twitter fans tend to not live in their home city.
We believe that people connect on twitter because of topics, while Facebook is for real friends.

Team that have made it into the Playoffs have more than double the engagement of teams that don’t– 6.18% vs 2.82% PTAT.
Fans with winning teams are more engaged than fans of losing teams.
Chicago is the only outlier. They made the Playoffs, but have a 2.5% PTAT. It’s their large, dormant fan base.

So engagement is often out of  the control of marketing, and driven by team performance.
How do you separate the impact of external versus factors within your control?

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Stay tuned!
In our next segment, we’ll cover twitter across the NBA in more detail.

Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu
Dennis Yu is co-author of the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in social media, The Definitive Guide to TikTok Ads.  He has spent a billion dollars on Facebook ads across his agencies and agencies he advises. Mr. Yu is the "million jobs" guy-- on a mission to create one million jobs via hands-on social media training, partnering with universities and professional organizations.You can find him quoted in major publications and on television such as CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, and LA Times. Clients have included Nike, Red Bull, the Golden State Warriors, Ashley Furniture, Quiznos-- down to local service businesses like real estate agents and dentists. He's spoken at over 750 conferences in 20 countries, having flown over 6 million miles in the last 30 years to train up young adults and business owners. He speaks for free as long as the organization believes in the job-creation mission and covers business class travel.You can find him hiking tall mountains, eating chicken wings, and taking Kaqun oxygen baths-- likely in a city near you.