SOCIAL MEDIA
Diversification key to Chicago Bulls' digital growth Luka Dukich, Director of Content for the Chicago Bulls, shares why being adaptable is key for digital success and the importance of diversification to reach new audiences as well as sharing his predictions for trends in sports and social media for 2021. The Chicago Bulls have 3.8 million Instagram followers and 4.2 million Twitter followers. More than 18 million people like the Bulls on Facebook and over 100,000 people subscribe to the Bulls’ YouTube page. Across all social platforms, the team has a combined following of 28 million.
For a team with such a massive global reach, the Bulls can’t afford to take their digital strategy lightly. “Anywhere our fans are engaging and having conversations is important to us,” states Luka. “So the ‘traditional’ social platforms of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are obviously important, but we’ve also deep dived into some of the other places our fans have had conversations – Reddit, Facebook Fan Groups, TikTok. “Even within these platforms there are multiple ways to engage – it’s not just @ ChicagoBulls, it’s also our players’ presence, influential fans’ pages, the characters in the ‘Bulls universe’ like Benny the Bull and the Luvabulls. Everybody communicates differently on each of these platforms, and we think it’s important for the Bulls to be a part of each of these in a natural way. The Michael Jordan and Chicago Bullsfocused documentary also paid dividends for the Bulls’ digital team, which leveraged 34 | OTFF ISSUE 15 ★ APRIL 2021
their social media reach to tap into the hype surrounding the series. The Bulls have seen growth not only on the team’s main accounts but also on Bulls Archive – the NBA’s first team archive-focused social media account. Having lived in a corner of the Chicago Bulls offices at the United Center, the account has offered the opportunity to share some of the thousands of undeveloped photos from the Bulls’ finest years: Dennis Rodman posing off-the-court alongside Hulk Hogan, Scottie Pippen in mid-game action and footage of Michael Jordan as the centrepiece of the Bull’s championship runs in the 1990’s. “There are all these photos no one’s ever seen of the championship Bulls,” Dukich said. “The stuff you see on Bulls Archive is not stuff that you can go on Getty and find or just do a quick google search. This is really stuff that a lot of people have not seen before, and that was definitely part of the inspiration for the account.” The debut of ‘The Last Dance’ has helped Bulls Archive to almost triple its Instagram following. As of March 23, 2021, it currently has 93k followers, up from 32k at the beginning of April 2020. Luka explains that in the digital world,➡
