The Warriors' nine-member social media team "will grow to 12 this year," as there is an entire team of digital employees "behind every seemingly-fleeting social post," according to Shayna Rubin of THE ATHLETIC. Fans might see members of the Warriors' social team "taking Boomerangs during warmups and lurking in the tunnel for prime positioning" to capture G Stephen Curry’s "famous long-range pregame 3." But that is "only just a sliver of what’s on the social team’s docket." They go on "most (not all) roadtrips with the team, and travel on the chartered flight, too." If they "don’t travel, at least one of them is tied to the couch" posting like they "would any other game." The Warriors are the "second-most followed NBA team on Twitter" behind the Lakers. The Warriors’ follower count "jumped exponentially in correlation with their recent success -- from 110,000 in September 2012 to 5.92 million followers" at the beginning ofthis month. In that same time span on Facebook, the Warriors "jumped from 360,000 to 11.09 million likes," and they "have 9.8 million followers on Instagram." Rubin noted the Warriors in '13 launched their own Weibo account, a Chinese-based social media platform, and it now "has just over 5 million followers." The move "made them the first NBA team to expand their social reach in China." The Warriors also "utilize a software that alerts them when any of their social posts heat up." From a "marketing and advertising standpoint, those numbers, and the experiences involved, are impossible to ignore" (THEATHLETIC.com, 11/6).
