the research proposal

Usage of Twitter for Brand Building: The Case of NBA Teams

Brand communication provides an important role in the sports industry. It lies at the heart of it and takes on many different forms with varying stakeholders. In sports organizations, there are many mediums to reach their stakeholders including television, radio, publications, and online efforts. About over 65% of online adults using social networking sites, social media has unprecedented grown in usage across variety industries, and has become an especially popular medium in the sports industry (Madden & Zickuhr, 2011). Sports teams are now utilizing an increasing number of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, live chats, Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Social media are really useful in reaching many stakeholders with speed, carrying ample amounts of information, and with the capability of interaction (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). These elements directly apply to uses in sports communication to connect with the public, build a brand, conduct customer relationship management, and manage reputations.

Many sports organizations and leagues are still searching the capabilities of social media landscape, especially through Twitter. The online social network Twitter has grown exponentially since 2008. The many studies examined Twitter use among professional athletes who use Twitter to communicate with fans and other players. The National Basketball Association (NBA) and its teams have tended to use Twitter to develop professional relationships with their publics via sharing information and promoting products.

The purpose of this study is to identify how Twitter are being utilized by NBA teams. It focused on how these clubs used Twitter to build professional, personal, and community relationships through a content of tweets on their official Twitter sites. The study analysis the second sources form the NBA teams’ official Twitter sites, and interviews with NBA social media specialists to evaluate current social media efforts in the NBA. In analyzing current social media strengths and struggles of NBA teams, the study addresses two research questions：

What content that NBA teams use through Twitter to build brand awareness in the game day?

Branding & Brand Equity

Brand Building

Brand In Sport Teams

Twitter

Usage Of Twitter For Brand Building

Madden, M. & Zickuhr, K. (2011). “65% of online adults use social networking sites.” Pew Research Center. Retrieved April 29, 2012. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Social-Networking-Sites.aspx

Kietzmann, J.H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I.P., & Silvestre, B.S. (2011). “Social media?

Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media.”

Business Horizons, Vol. 54, pp. 241-251