As you would expect, the Golden State Warriors have a huge following on social media. As of today they have over 9.1M likes on Facebook, 2.39M followers on Twitter, and 3.2K followers on TuneIn. This creates a wonderful opportunity to use their Warriors Sound online radio station and podcasts to engage with their fans who would like to hear more about the team and what they are doing.
In April 2016, the Warriors teamed with Backbone to help explore new realms of driving additional fan engagement. During the 2016 spring playoffs they began to run informational programming on their Backbone Radio station, taking interviews with personalities around the country using the Backbone Talk phone system. This created a substantial library of audio upon which to base a 24/7 branded sports station.
The Warriors Sound audio library is used to broadcast and rebroadcast live on their station. Many of these library components have been edited into podcasts that were shared, tweeted and liked. Since the station’s inception, The Golden State Warriors have continued to grow their social media presence. During the playoffs, for instance, there was an uptick in listenership to their podcasts, as many of the playoff-related podcasts drew more the three times the downloads as those produced in April.
Helping to drive the uptick, TuneIn featured Warriors Sound several times during the playoffs. This mutually beneficial promotion resulted in increases in the number of Warriors Sound radio listeners, podcast downloads and followers of the station on TuneIn.
As part of this experiment the team put together a video on some of the things they did to drive engagement.
As the upcoming NBA season nears, we believe these efforts are just beginning to enable the Warriors to align more closely with their fans. The Warriors and the NBA have a powerful worldwide following, and delivering Warriors Sound content through a diverse set of avenues is a great way to keep those fans engaged.