NBCSN's Online Presence

Since NBCSN is the channel strictly dedicated to airing only sports, it doesn’t technically have its own website. It does have a Twitter feed and a Pinterest page of its own, but the website you’re directed to from the aforementioned social media platforms links you to the NBC Sports website. It’s slightly different when it comes to trying to find the NBCSN Facebook page. Yes, the Facebook page does exist, but it is simply a Wikipedia history about NBCSN. Facebook, however, will suggest you look at the NBC Sports page which will tell you all about the programming being shown on NBCSN.

The NBC Sports website is very simplistic with no-frills and no clutter. There’s a section for the headlines across all sports, and then every sport has it’s own section with its own headlines. You can tell which sports they have a vested interest in due to the way it’s placed on the site with a larger font and more detail than just the headline. The website is a very good reflection of NBCSN because it does not go out of its way to overly promote its own interests with regards to the programming that they own the rights to. It’s not like other websites that assault your eyes and ears with constant advertising of what they’re showing every time you click a different link on the site. The NBC Sports site contains mostly original content provided by their reporters, but just like many other news sites NBC Sports also uses content from the Associated Press to cover smaller stories.

There isn’t a lot that NBCSN does to get its viewers involved in their social media accounts. On the website you are allowed to comment on the stories that are posted, but they use Twitter and Facebook as a way to share headlines and new stories as they happen. They also advertise the programs that will be coming up on the TV channel with hashtags to use it if you are watching and tweeting with other viewers. The programming that NBCSN has all have their own social media accounts which are far more interactive than the main NBC Sports Facebook and Twitter accounts. Overall, the main social media sites are very similar to the NBC Sports website in that they only share news and schedules. It’s not until you get to the network programs social media accounts that you get to interact with things like polls to vote on, or viewer email bags.

NBC Sports Facebook banner

I think that NBCSN and NBC Sports are doing the right thing in that the main job on their main website and social media accounts are to deliver the news and the facts about what they are reporting on and covering.  Frank Rose told us that it was very important how you tell a story and the different ways you can garner the attention through social media. The examples he used for The Dark Knight and Mad Men were both creative and entertaining, but I don’t think they can apply here with NBCSN. When it comes to people seeking out news about sports it’s not that much different from when people seek out political news; they just want the facts. I think that NBCSN does a very good job in doing this throughout their various websites.

So how does NBCSN encourage their visitors to get involved with the different social media platforms and their programming? Well, the majority of their programs have their own Twitter account or Facebook page. So the NBCSN Twitter feed will send out a tweet or retweet that looks like this:

@NBCSN

Then the viewer can go check out that program’s Twitter feed where they can interact with other viewers as well as the people running that particular program’s Twitter account. The NBC Sports website may not be very glamorous, or look like much fun, but they’re trying to be taken seriously, and I believe they’re doing a good job. The entertaining and interactive parts of social media come from the network’s programming accounts and the people that run those accounts.