The Pittsburgh Steelers won big on social media during the 2023 NFL Draft! The Steelers increased their fan base and received support from existing fans at a level that outperformed all other teams in the league. 

The 2023 Met Gala hosted by Vogue achieved unprecedented social media buzz, surpassing the conversation generated by every Met Gala in the last decade by a significant 20%.

Instagram recently announced its new focus on Reels and its move to simplify the video experience within the app. While some celebrities have spoken out against this shift, the behavior trends of Instagram users have given Meta all the data needed to support the platform’s new direction. 

Coffee brands, for instance, see 25% of their engagement from Instagram driven by Reels. However, Reels only make up 15% of the content they post on the platform. We see this same pattern ring true across industries like hospitals, colleges, and food and beverages. 

So what does this mean for brands leveraging Instagram to expand their marketing reach? It means: Start getting comfortable posting Reels! 

From a recent study among social media marketing professionals, we know 31% of marketing professionals consider creating relevant video content one of their biggest challenges going into the 2022 Holiday Season. If the thought of creating more video content makes you nervous too, you can rest easy and keep in mind authenticity is often a key attribute in creating effective content on Social Media.

As you create Reels, remember that audiences are not looking for a perfectly polished brand video. They want raw, lofi content, that by nature, should not require tons of creative resources. The secret to success lies in knowing what content will perform best based for your target segment and marketing objectives.

Lucky for you, our ListenFirst team of social media analysts know a thing or two about how to extract the insights that will give you the direction you need. 

Below are four ways you can leverage ListenFirst to discover what makes Instagram Reels successful in your industry.

#1 Review how your audience reacts to Reels related to your other branded content on Instagram.

Considering Instagram is making significant efforts to bring Reels content to the top of users’ feed, it’s likely that Reels are the most engaging content for your brand’s account. Of course you’ll want to confirm this with real data.

View your top performing Instagram content to see which post type garners the most engagement. Then look for patterns across all the different posts types to understand what factors, i.e. topics, influencers, colors, hashtags, etc., are drawing the most attention.

#2 Understand how short-form videos perform based on the channel in which they are posted.

As you know Instagram is one of many platforms where viewers can watch short-form videos. It’s helpful to take a look at how your short-form video performance varies across different channels like TikTok and YouTube, as well.

#3 Identify the Reels that are stealing consumer attention in your market.

ListenFirst makes it easy to quickly view the top performing Instagram Reels in your industry. With an easy-to-read table and quick links to watch each Reel play out, it’s essentially a dynamic leaderboard for Reels in your competitive landscape.

#4 Benchmark the performance of your Reels against others in your industry

Put your performance metrics in context and gain a clear understanding of how your Reels performed compared to Reels from your competitors.

Choose what metric is most important to you and then filter by that to understand if your post drew in more views, comments, or shares, compared to other Reels in your market. Or see who’s Reels consistently perform above benchmark and explore why that is.

There are so many ways to slice the data. Just let your strategic marketing goals guide the process so you can stay focused of what matters most.

Did you Know?…

ListenFirst allows users to analyze the performance of Reels that were posted as far back as August 2020, when Reels first launched. This can reveal interesting insights for brands who want a deeper understanding of how their short-form videos have performed over-time and across different channels. 

No matter what your social media goals may be, incorporating Instagram Reels into your social media strategy is most likely going to be a solid investment. But, before building your Reels strategy, do your due diligence to understand what topical or creative trends lead to top performing Reels within your content or in your industry at large. 

Check our upcoming webinar, Are You For Reels? How Brands Can Optimize Instagram’s Secret Weapon, to hear from a panel of expert analysts on this very topic.

Curious to see how you can access these insights quickly using ListenFirst? Reach out for a demo. 

Looking to get started with social media and wondering where to begin? Here is your guide.

Social media is no longer an ancillary marketing channel for brands to explore. In a world where content continues to reign king, an effective social media marketing plan is critical to your brand’s success.

The right social media marketing plan serves as a guide to achieving your desired marketing goals. By incorporating key audiences and personas, core tactics, assigned roles and responsibilities, and critical social media KPIs, you can identify and track your brand’s success.

The first step? Getting started. 

That’s why ListenFirst created a simple guide to kickstart your social media marketing strategy. Let’s dive in.

1. What is social media marketing?
2. What are your goals?
3. Who is your audience?
4. What social media content will you share?
5. What times will you post?
6. How will you measure success? 
7. How will you measure your progress?
8. How will you optimize your strategy?
9. How to get the entire company sharing?
10. Are you ready for prime time?

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing focuses on creating relevant content for social media platforms that connects with your audiences, drives engagement, and increases brand awareness. 

While there are infinite variations of this definition, the bottom line is social media marketing is about engaging customers in a relevant, authentic way to help them understand your business, connect with your brand, and ultimately drive leads and increase sales.

Today’s brands understand the increasingly indispensable role of social media marketing. According to our 2022 Social Media Trends Survey Report, more than 55% of brands surveyed increased their social media spend during the first two years of the pandemic. And just over half of brands planned to increase spending further during 2022.

What Are Your Goals?

Setting tangible, measurable social media goals is key to success. 

Only 14% of marketers can always tie social media efforts to ROI. Being able to set clear goals around what signifies social media success and accurately measure performance is essential for an effective social media campaign. 

Think big. Ensure your plan aligns with overall business goals. 

• Do you want to grow awareness? Consider goals related to audience growth. 
• Are you set on increasing brand affinity and loyalty? 
• Set a target for engagement rates. Is brand love your focus? Aim for a positive social sentiment. 

Incorporate short-term and long-term social media goals into the mix and plan to benchmark progress along the way.  

As the infamous business strategist Tony Robbins put it, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

Who is your audience?

Identifying your audience and persona research.

While it may seem obvious, audience and persona research is a step that is often overlooked when developing a social media marketing plan. To create impact, know your target audience so you can customize content to fit their specific needs and interests. 

Here are some key elements to consider: 

• What platforms do they use? 
• When do they use these platforms? Why? 
• What content do they engage with? 
• What other brands and/or influencers are they following? 
• What inspires emotions? 

The right social media analytics solution can provide the full picture of these insights for your brand – quickly and easily. This video explains how. 

Creating Personas 

Go one step deeper and develop research-based personas to bring your target audience to life. Classify your customers into specific groups based on their desires — and plan to tailor your content accordingly.

A persona can include your ideal customer’s role, their goal, and their segment: 

Role

A customer’s job description, responsibilities, tasks, and external factors related to their interaction with your service. These factors typically relate to business, work and productivity.

Goal

What the customer is trying to achieve. Goals have a timelessness that roles do not, and should be differentiated from “tasks.” For example, for an online shoe shopper an easy registration process is not their goal, it is a task on the way to buying shoes.

Segment 

Characteristics the customer shares with many other customers such as demographics, psychographics, attitudes, and/or behaviors. 

Research-based persona categories may revolve on a single main descriptor, for example, a Gen Zer who regularly watches reality TV on Netflix. Or a main descriptor with multiple sub-elements, for example, a Gen Zer who regularly watches reality TV on Netflix, spends time gaming, and gets their news from Instagram. 

There are many tools that can help you glean insight from your target audiences and create buyer personas. 

It pays to use an in-depth social media analytics solution to easily view audience insights for each social media platform. A comprehensive dashboard, like the one shown below, can help you establish a baseline of competitive audience demographics, languages, geography, and brand affinities to craft the most high-impact, tailored social media marketing plan. Additionally, it can provide in-depth knowledge of current campaigns and what your audience is responding to and why. 

The right social media analytics solution can also help you reach new audiences by identifying new trends in your industry to maximize the number of people you reach.

Discover which brands, people, events, and influencers your audience finds interesting, and use that to inform your messaging and creative. By doing so, you can form more targeted, successful partnerships. Plus, you’ll learn how to create engaging content to keep your customers interested. 

What Social Media Content Will You Share?

Knowledge is power. Once you have a deeper understanding of your audience and buyer personas, you can develop shareable content that resonates. 

But with social media trends ever-changing, what kind of content is the question? Here is some inspiration to help. 

Humanize your brand 

By now, you should have a specific “voice” for your brand. Be consistent in tone, and don’t be afraid to show the behind-the-scenes processes, the day-to-day work culture, and other aspects of your brand that make it truly unique.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s is a brand who sees politics and social justice as very central to their culture, with them donating 7.5% of their earnings to social causes. These values are also front and center in some of their most popular social media posts. Their top performing post in April 2022 was an Instagram Gallery about cannabis justice that got 191,916 engagements, while their top performing post in June 2022 with 105,541 engagements was an Instagram post outlining their disagreement with their parent company selling their ice cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.   

User-generated content

We’ll talk later about how to get the entire company involved in sharing, but when it comes to user-generated content, think about some of your biggest brand advocates — your customers. Can they provide reviews, or use a specific hashtag to share experiences with your brand? 

One of the most successful examples of brands using user generated content is the TikTok user Nathan Apodaca, who went viral on TikTok, for a video where he’s drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and singing along to a Fleetwood Mac song while on a skateboard. Ocean Spray shared his video on their Instagram account where it got 102,013 engagements. Additionally, the top performing social media post of 2020 for Ocean Spray with 163,096 engagements was a follow up Instagram video where they gave Apodaca a new car. 

As new forms of content continue to surface, it’s important to keep your finger on the industry’s pulse to uncover the latest trends. Right now, here are some forms of content your brand should consider.

Short-form video

With the advent of TikTok and Instagram Reels, it’s no secret that video should be top of mind. According to research, the average person will spend 100 minutes a day watching online video. 

Short-form video content, in particular, is what social media consumers most resonate with — and research shows time and again that they get the highest conversion rates.

How dominant is short form video for brands at this point? Between January – July, 2022, 58% of the top 100 social media posts by episodic TV brands with the most engagement were published on TikTok. That includes the top performing post, a 12 second Tonight Show TikTok video featuring Noah Schnapp and Maya Hawke from Stranger Things that got 8,367,300 engagements.  

It’s not just brands that are inherently video focused benefiting from sharing short form video through TikTok. The 5 social media posts that generated the most engagements for fashion brands between January and July 2022 were all TikTok videos. 

Paid partnerships with influencers

According to Forbes, “influencer marketing is stronger than ever; brands are projected to spend $15 billion on influencer marketing during 2022.” 

As social networks like Instagram and TikTok make the in-app shopping experience more seamless, this creates a wealth of opportunity for brand partnerships to thrive with shoppable products at their fingertips. 

Images and Galleries 

While video is here to stay, images are still an important and essential part of the social ecosystem. In fact, as Instagram continues to push video content, they are seeing a backlash from many users with a desire to bring back more images. 

When thinking about your content flow, aim for galleries over a single static image. In a recent webinar, Top 5 Social Media Trends Driving Brand Engagement, we found that during August 2021, 33.5% of engagement on brand content was coming from gallery posts compared to only 18.9% of engagement happening on single image posts. 

What Times Will You Post?

As the saying goes, “timing is everything.” Yet on the flip side, there is no one size fits all solution for the perfect time to post content on social media. 

 A social media analytics feature like our Instant Insights can help you determine the right times for your brand. It will give you the core elements, like the best time of day, day of the week, words, emojis, and hashtags that make up the best performing social media content. 

For example, in a recent report focused on hospital brands, data showed that 56% of all industry Reels are posted between 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., resulting in some of the lowest average engagement on videos. As a result, we recommend hospital brands post their Reels between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.

By benchmarking performance against your brand’s historical performance and competitors’ performance, brands can get a clearer picture on what posting windows makes the most sense for them specifically.

How Will You Measure Success?

As management guru, Peter Drucker, said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Yet many brands still struggle with proving the value of their social media marketing campaigns. The key to successful measurement hinges on leveraging social media analytics.

Set social media marketing KPIs that align with your business goals

When it comes to setting social media marketing KPIs that will have an impact, less is more. Start with your business goals. Ask yourself, how do those translate into social metrics or outcomes? 

Identify metrics that matter

It’s critical to do industry research prior to determining the most logical social media marketing KPIs for your brand. 

Of course, you want to look at historical trends for your brand as well as for your competitors. But there’s also a lot to gain from reviewing other aspirational brands who’ve accomplished what you’re after. Even if the brand is not a player in your industry, understanding benchmarks across industries will give even more context on performance goals and best practices. 

Then ask yourself, what’s a reasonable expectation for your brand based on the historical data and performance across other brands? Focus on metrics that speak to non-paid audience activity around your brand such as Interest Score, and look at metrics that normalize audience size, such as Response Rate, which shows engagement relative to the number of followers your brand has.    

The ListenFirst report How to Maximize Social Media Analytics provides more details on how to identify the metrics that matter. 

How Will You Measure Your Progress? 

Social media KPIs are crucial to your brand’s success. A data-driven approach will help in measuring social media engagement as well as your goals, and continuously improving upon them.

Reporting is key to tracking your progress. 

Reporting that allows you to see all of your cross-channel data in one view is essential. You’ll also want to set up reporting that will allow you to see the most important metrics, including your benchmarks and historical trends, at a glance.

Dashboards are a great way to communicate the story the data is telling to your key stakeholders. Configurable dashboards are an invaluable tool that allows users to build a series of dashboards to best match their team’s goals.

How Will You Optimize Your Strategy?

The social media landscape is ever-evolving. The TikTok “revolution” serves as a prime example of this. Brands that want to stay relevant to today’s consumer must constantly work to optimize their social media marketing strategy.

Tap into audience sentiment

A sentiment data analysis can help identify opportunities or trends impacting your brand. Once you understand how your audience is feeling and why, you can gain a better sense of what you need to do to change the course of your plan or campaign.

Refine your creative content 

Once you’ve nailed down your audience, it is crucial to ensure you are continuously engaging them. Make changes if needed as you discover what inspires action. 

By focusing on elements such as color, product, talent or layout that perform best, you can create more impactful campaigns. 

Instant Insights from ListenFirst helps you optimize your visuals and messaging, so your content always delivers against your goals. 

How To Get The Entire Company Sharing?

Employees should always be seen as a valuable asset. But when it comes to your social media marketing plan, did you know employees are one of your most powerful tools to achieving success?

According to The State of B2B Social Media Marketing Report, nearly 50% of CMOs said that employee advocacy was their best-performing social initiative. Their second highest-performing social initiative was social selling, coming in at 32% — another form of employee advocacy.

So how do you get your employees to walk the walk? Here are a few simple tricks.

Create a social culture

Ensure that your employees can access the appropriate and relevant social media channels at work – and that they feel comfortable doing so. This creates a more social media-friendly culture, where employees will be more apt to share your company content. 

Share third-party content 

Relevant and credible third-party content is a great way to build thought leadership and bring more attention to your social media feeds. Think about content related to your industry or community. Make sure you tag the appropriate organizations and/or thought leaders to extend your content to a larger network.

Connect employees to the vision

Your vision isn’t for management and management alone. Share your social media marketing goals more broadly, and explain how they tie into your brand’s overarching strategy. Employees will buy into these goals and be more motivated to work toward them as a team.

Notify your team

Many social media networks, like LinkedIn, now have features to notify your employees when you make a post. Take advantage of this feature to cast your message – and encourage more reach and engagement.

Recognize employee contributions 

Are you employees making strides in social media sharing? Whether it’s a virtual high five or a company shout-out, be sure to let them know their efforts are seen and appreciated. Positive reinforcement will encourage your employees to continue to engage and spread your brand’s message.

In 2021 for example, the top performing Tyson Food content on social media was a Facebook post that got 67,493 engagements about Jeannie, a team member who secured 1.4 million meals for military families. Overall in 2021, the 43 posts Tyson Foods shared using the #TysonTogether hashtag promoting their employees averaged 2,501 compared to their 195 posts not using that hashtag averaging only 98 engagements. 

Are You Ready for Prime Time? 

Is your social media marketing plan ready for prime time? 

Our premier social media analytics solution can help you unlock social insights, optimize social media marketing, and maximize social media ROI. To learn more about ListenFirst, you can request a free demo.

When a holiday’s biggest sporting event is literally a hot dog eating contest, that’s a pretty clear indication of how important food is to celebrating July Fourth. The National Retail Federation estimated $7.7 billion would be spent on food items around Independence Day this year. For CPG Food and Beverage brands, the holiday is an especially opportune time to connect with the social media audience. 

So which brands and tactics were most successful in their July Fourth related messaging? We looked at the social media analytics to identify the biggest winners around alcoholic beverages, non alcoholic beverages, and CPG Food.   

Non Alcoholic Beverage Winners 

Looking at the non-alcoholic beverage brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: Non alcoholic beverage brands averaged 475 engagements for the 90 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022. 

Preferred Format: Gallery posts stood out by averaging 1,959 engagements. Single Image posts by non alcoholic beverage brands with Fourth of July messaging averaged 494 engagements, while video posts averaged 129 engagements. 

Best Performing Channel: Instagram posts averaged 959 engagements. By comparison, Facebook posts averaged 323 engagements, TikTok posts averaged 90 engagements, and Twitter posts averaged 26 engagements. 

Timing Is Everything: July Fourth related post published by Non alcoholic beverages on July 1 performed the best, averaging 1,137 engagements. By comparison, their July Fourth related posts shared during the actual holiday only averaged 368 engagements. 

Most Noteworthy Post: Liquid Death got 11,289 engagements on an Instagram post sharing the Dehydration Detector 9000, essentially a picture of pee color for people to reference so they understand how dehydrated they are. This innovative approach, beat out an Instagram post by CELSIUS Energy Drink about sparklers, to become the most engaged Fourth of July related social post by a non alcoholic beverage brand.  

Alcoholic Beverage Winners 

Looking at the alcoholic beverage brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: Alcoholic beverage brands averaged 270 engagements for the 181 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022. 

Preferred Format: For Alcohol brands single images were most effective, with those July Fourth themed posts averaging 320 engagements. Gallery posts averaged 226 engagements with video posts averaging 131 engagements. Text posts averaged 292 engagements, with that primarily due to a Bug Light Facebook post about the sound of opening up the first beer. 

Best Performing Channel: Alcohol brands averaged 376 engagements on Facebook for their July Fourth related posts. That outperformed Instagram, where the brands averaged 223 engagements and Twitter where their holiday posts averaged 131 engagements. 

Timing Is Everything: Alcohol brands averaged 2,266 engagements for the July Fourth posts they share on June 29. The holiday themed posts they shared on July Fourth only averaged 131 engagements.  

Most Noteworthy Post: Evan Williams Bourbon had 14,581 engagements on a Facebook post promoting their American Made Heroes Foundation and wishing veterans a happy fourth of July. The American Made Heroes Foundation awards up to $75,000 in grant funding to qualified organizations that serve U.S. military veterans. This was the most popular Fourth of July post by an alcohol brand around the holiday this year.  

​​

CPG Food Winners 

Looking at the CPG Food brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: CPG Food brands averaged 425 engagements for the 425 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022 

Preferred Format: CPG Food brands averaged 643 engagements for their July Fourth related Gallery posts. In comparison, CPG Food brands averaged 314 engagements on their Video posts, averaged 189 engagements on their single image posts, and averaged 81 engagements on their Text posts. 

Best Performing Channel: TikTok was the most effective channel for CPG Food brands as they averaged 659 engagements for their July Fourth related posts there. The brands averaged 384 engagements on Instagram, 205 engagements on Facebook, 169 engagements on YouTube, and 48 engagements on Twitter. 

Timing Is Everything: For CPG Food brands, the most effective day to share their July Fourth related posts was July 1, when they averaged 518 engagements. The holiday posts they shared on July Fourth only averaged 174 engagements.  

Most Noteworthy Post: The top performing July Fourth related CPG Food post came from a product that’s not actually food. Dubble Bubble Bubble Gum got 20,329 engagements for a Facebook post where their patriotic eagle wished everyone a happy 4th. 

Conclusion 

When looking at the top performing Food and Beverage posts around July Fourth, a couple of different templates emerged. Top posts were either clever, such as Liquid Death’s Dehydration Detector 9000 concept or Oreo sharing a gallery of firework themed Oreo creations, or patriotic, such as  Evan Williams Bourbon saluting veterans or Double Bubble and their bald eagle.  Additionally, when it came to timing, July Fourth posts shared 3-5 days ahead of the actual holiday performed the best. 

Holiday campaigns are challenging for brands because there’s a very limited amount of time the messaging is relevant, making in window optimization near impossible. By using a social media analytics solution to understand what worked for holiday posts across an entire cohort of competitors, brands have a much clearer understanding of the proper approach to take around the next holiday.  

 Want more holiday related social media insights? Request a ListenFirst demo today! 

The NBA Finals is one of the biggest sporting events of the year, not only on TV but on social media as well. How much social media engagement was there around the Finals this year compared to the past? Additionally, how much do players and paid partnerships around the games connect with the social audience? 

ListenFirst dug into the social media analytics and here 6 insights you should know about the NBA Finals.  

Insight #1. The Twitter Conversation Around The NBA Finals Peaked In 2016

During the NBA Finals this year, meaning between June 2-16, 2022, there 1,201,942 Tweets that mentioned the event. That’s a decrease of 70.25% from the volume of Tweets mentioning the NBA Finals between Jun 3, 2016 – Jun 19, 2016.   

There are a few reasons the volume of Tweets discussing the NBA Finals during the past 10 years peaked in 2016. It was the year the Golden State Warriors set the NBA regular season record for most wins, only to lose to LeBron James and The Cavaliers in the Finals, the franchise’s first title. Additionally, it was the last time a Finals series went to a Game 7.  

In 2017 and 2018, the Warriors and Cavaliers would play each other in the Finals again, but during those years the Warriors had Kevin Durant on their roster, and those series were much shorter.

The amount of Tweets discussing the NBA Finals was up 2.35% in 2022 from 2021, but the social media interest in having the Warriors back in the Finals still can’t compare to the audience interest in the Warriors facing off against a competitive LeBron James team in the Finals.   

Insight #2. Stephen Curry Was The Player Who Gained The Most New Followers During The Finals 

The MVP on the court was also the MVP on social media. During the NBA Finals this year, Stephen Curry added 945,917 followers to his social media accounts, including 720K followers on Instagram and 100K followers on TikTok (he has 28.8 million total fans on social media). 

That’s 4.4X more followers than any other participant gained during the NBA Finals. Klay Thompson got 216,99 new followers during the Finals, while Jayson Tatum was the Celtic who got the most new followers, adding 133,216 followers in the same time period. 

Insight #3. Role Players Overperform On Wikipedia 

During the NBA Finals, the Stephen Curry Wikipedia page was viewed 1.09 million times. However, other than Curry, the top performers on Wikipedia were somewhat unexpected. 

Andrew Wiggins, had the next highest total, with 437,000 views of his Wikipedia page. Wiggins is not exactly an obscure player, he was the number one overall pick of the 2014 Draft, but up until this season, his career was viewed as a disappointment, and he was recast as a role player. Wiggins was in the NBA Finals for the first time, and with casual NBA fans not hearing about him in a while, they were curious to learn more. 

Similarly, the Al Horford Wikipedia page got 392K page views during the NBA Finals, more than any other Celtic. He’s far from the biggest star on the team, but Horford’s career was considered all but over after disappointing stints playing for the 76ers and Thunder. With Horford getting national attention for the first time in a few years, people were visiting his Wikipedia page to catch up on what they missed from the University of Florida graduate. 

Unlike with other social media networks, the audience uses Wikipedia to learn about people they’re less familiar with, not necessarily the biggest stars. 

#4. Sponsored Content Had A Big Impact During The NBA Finals

Television ads weren’t the only valuable real estate for brands around the NBA Finals. The NBA shared 600 sponsored posts during the NBA Finals that averaged 28,703 engagements. The top performing sponsored post was an Instagram post sponsored by YouTube TV announcing the final score of Game 2 that got 912,385 engagements. 

During the finals The Warriors did 10 paid partnership posts on Facebook and YouTube, with those posts averaging 15,021 engagements. The top performing of those posts named Draymond Green player of the game, was sponsored by Google Cloud and got 43,545 engagements on Facebook.

Meanwhile, the Boston Celtics shared 36 sponsored posts on Facebook and YouTube during the finals that averaged 5,153 engagements. The top performing post, got 19,177 engagements, was sponsored by VistaPrint, and promoted Game 4 ahead of it happening.

Insight #5. NBA Finals Players Should Be Doing More Paid Promotion Posts  

Obviously players don’t have the time or energy during the NBA Finals to monetize their social media channels personally. That said, given the spotlight on these athletes during the Finals, someone should be posting paid promotion posts on their behalf which would increase engagement. 

For example, an Instagram post by Klay Thompson celebrating his 4 rings, with a Michelob Ultra banner prominently in the background got 688,864 engagements on Instagram. Meanwhile a Marcus Smart Instagram post promoting Uleva hemp products got 16,999 engagements. 

The engagement ceiling for social posts by players is even higher. The top performing post by an NBA Finals player during the series was by Stephen Curry saying “Night, Night” on Instagram after the final game, which got 4,202,706 engagements. That was not a paid promotion post, but 12,402,000 viewers watched that Game 6 on TV, and if the average engagement on Instagram posts is between 1%-5% this means exponentially more people saw that Curry post than watched the game.  

A sponsored post shared by an MVP is worth far more to brands than a TV spot at this point. 

Insight #6. The Audience Still Pays Attention to Post Game Comments  

HOLY CANNOLI pic.twitter.com/6lzx43MASA

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) June 17, 2022

There were 16,635 Tweets mentioning the term ‘Holy Cannoli’ between June 16- 20, 2022. Klay Thompson memorably used the phrase in a post game interview to express how he felt after just having won the NBA championship again. 

Conclusion 

Given the impact of NBA players as social media influencers, and how much engagement and follower growth they get during the Finals specifically, paid partnerships posts with both teams and individual participating players, is an ideal way for brands to stand out around the event. Understanding which of these players are connecting with the social media audience and how, will give brands the necessary context for optimizing this marketing strategy. This is a key missed opportunity for brands and should be built into the next large sporting event to maximize a brand’s reach and create ROI.