The Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, and Indiana Pacers were all waiting around patiently this past Thursday night to see if they would receive a few more days rest, or if the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder close their series out on the controversial Los Angeles Clippers. This year's NBA playoffs has been one of the more exciting in recent years. Round One had 24 upsets and 8 overtime games -- more than any in the past 11 years. Not to mention the number of last second buzzer beaters. And this year the NBA Finals is set to follow suit, and become one of the most anticipated finals in history. While the excitement continues to build through the final stages of the playoffs, it is important to understand the role that social media and SEO (search engine optimization) play in this.
Social Media
Social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook have been building-up a lot of speed for The Finals. Athletes and fans everywhere have been moving the conversation from their home to online. As of late, many sports have seen a decline in viewers. However, even with the drop in view, the NBA hasn't lost any fans. The NBA Facebook fan page has 22.6 million "likes" with over 1.5 million currently talking about the NBA. These numbers double those of the NFL, and quadruple the MLB! So what's driving the NBA's social following wins? Posting behind the scene photos and videos exclusively to their social media accounts, all with the hopes of driving buzz and drawing in more viewers for the 2014 NBA Finals.
With superstars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, and Tony Parker all in the NBA's version of the Final Four, social media outlets plan on capitalizing on this event. The NBA's twitter profile has 10.1 million followers. They continuously tweet throughout the day to keep pushing momentum. Recently you could watch the NBA combine via their Twitter profile -- filled with tweets from players while at the combine, Vine videos of future NBA stars going through their workout routine, and much more. Twitter has been said to have garnered around 10,200 tweets per second during the February 2012 Super Bowl when the New York Giants won. With that being said, there is no reason that the higher following of the NBA couldn't follow suit and break that record, especially if there is a rematch between last year's NBA champions -- the Miami Heat and the San Antonio Spurs!
SEO
If Social Media Optimization plays a role in NBA finals viewership during and after the game, where does SEO fit into the conversation? Search engine optimization (SEO) has just as big a role during NBA events as its long lost cousin social media. However the time-frame to utilize and maximize SEO's effect is different than that of social media. Depending on your niche and goals you can utilize SEO for your benefit.
One such example of opportune SEO use -- when the comments of Los Angeles Clippers Donald Sterling surfaced. The next day hundreds of Donald Sterling articles went live on Google. Within many of those articles, SEO links pointed back to a variety of niche industry websites that could benefit from or had an opinion of the scandal. Law firm, PR Firm, and Reputation Management Firm URLs were all being cited across thousands of articles, likley because of the legal trouble Donald Sterling has found himself in.
A more positive example of SEO as it relates to the NBA? Simple. When LeBron James hit a buzzer-beater during the 2013 NBA playoffs vs. the Pacers, the next week Google was filled with hundreds of articles about LeBron and the NBA playoffs. ESPN maximized on the Lebron-mania by posting an article about the Top 10 LeBron James playoff moments that year. The article, while very entertaining, was essentially was created to drive interested sports readers to their website by capitalizing on their interest - on search engines - in Lebron's amazing shot...and subsequently pull users to a link where they could watch the NBA playoffs online.
This year agencies and sports platforms all over the U.S. will be utilizing SEO during the NBA finals to create traffic, gain attention, and hopefully achieve the goal of converting that traffic to revenue!