Social Media Audit - Tampa Bay Lighting
Tampa Bay Lightning’s 30th Anniversary Logo
For my social media audit, I chose to measure the social media accounts of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning are one of the NHLs 32 teams in the league and play in the Atlantic division of the Eastern Conference. I have been a fan of the Lightning my whole life, so it was only right to do this audit on them. They have social media accounts through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Youtube.
The Tampa Bay Lightning Instagram can be found by looking up their handle, @tblightning with a follower count of 741k. The Lightning usually post every day or every other day, depending if anything is to be posted. They use their Instagram account to post gameday graphics, reels before, during, or after the game, achievements, and. much more. Their most recent post was from a game two days ago that featured Brian Elliot, the Lightning’s back-up goalie. The Lightning social media admin is unlikely to interact with fans in the comment.
While being found on Twitter under the same handle as their instagram, the Lightning post the same stuff as their Instagram along with more personal behind the scenes look at the players and staff of the team. They sit at 822.9k followers on the platform as that is where fans go to get game updates directly from the team such as when a team scores, intermission updates, and final score posts. The Lightning do well on this platform with engaging with their fans. They reply to some comments on posts, and they even do a giveaway called #lightningstrikes. With the giveaway, fans use the hashtag and write the name of the player they believe will be the teams’ first goal scorer. One lucky winner is given a Lightning strikes T-shirt that can only be found through this giveaway. Their most active posts are milestone posts, win posts, and highlight reel posts. Twitter is their second most engaged page with Instagram being first.
The Tampa Bay Lightning LinkedIn is the least used platform with the least amount of followers at 26.2k for the team as it is mainly used for the front office. This social media platform has job listings posted when available, but not much more than that. The Lightning have no actual posts such as videos, photos, or just writings and this is something they could do a better job with to bring more attention to their LinedIn, especially for those who may be looking to get a job with the team and do not know where to look.
With 602k followers on the Tampa Bay Lightning Facebook. the feed is the exact same thing to their Twitter as they have the two social media platforms linked. Any post you see on Twitter can be found on Facebook and posted at the exact same time. Blogs, final score updates, interviews, and more can be found on this page. The one difference between the two social media pages is the #lightningstrikes giveaway. Due to the hashtag being used to track who entered, it is easier for the admins to track that on Twitter. The Facebook page is the second least
TikTok
The Lightning TikTok has 163.1k followers and 2.4 million likes as they were late to hop on the social media trend. They use this platform to an even more personal use as they include their staff in videos and not just players and coaches. Their most watched video is from a look-a-like cam they have on the jumbotron during intermissions or TV timeouts. The Lightning posted the crew’s reactions from behind the scenes and it shows a whole new light to what actually goes on.
Overall…
The Lightning do a great job with keeping their social medias up-to-date and giving the fans content they want to see and even use such as wallpaper Wednesdays on Twitter. One recommendation I would give is to be a bit better with engaging with their fans through comments. Though not every comment can be engaged with positively due to negativity being provided from other fanbases on posts, little snarky comebacks to those people would make the engagement go up. For instance, the Carolina Hurricanes social media admin is great at doing this. They keep their comebacks family-friendly and not over-the-line, but they do through a little jab back at the “haters” in their comments.