We plotted out every team’s fan count, engagement rate (social metrics), win/loss record, average attendance, merchandise sales, and the population of the city the team plays in (real-world data), looking for correlations and patterns. Ultimately, the best metric was the ratio of average attendence to fan count, though looking at Merchandise sales and standings was also enlightening: The Yankees have the most fans by far (8,474,881). This is not surprising. They have the biggest city (pop. 8,175,133), the highest merchandise sales, and the third best record in the league (60.3%), and have been a consistenly winning team for generations.
The Nationals have the least fans (230,581), which is somewhat surprising, considering they have the fourth best record (58.5%) and a relatively big population (601,723, compared to say, St. Louis’ population of 319,294).
There is no significant difference in the frequency or quality of the posts made by the Yankees and the Nationals.
The teams with the best merchandise sales (New York and Boston) are also the two pages with the most fans, and have the best attendance-fans ratio (0.5 : 100 and 0.7 : 100, respectively; the average is 1 : 25).-With very few discrepencies, the top ten teams that sold the most merchandise correspond with the ten teams with most fans (I.e. NY is #1 in merch sales and in fans, etc.).-Teams with inflated fan counts (NY, Boston, SF, etc.) likely have many fans that don’t live where the team plays.
The ratio of Yankees fans to Mets fans (8,474,881 : 626,869) is far more extreme than the ratio of average attedance (41,570 : 27,458).Team pages do a good job of posting photos, questions, short messages, occasional contests, videos, etc. One possible area of improvement would be to focus more on posting before a game than only doing recap posts.The team with the highest engagement by far is the Dodgers, who have won 61.8% of their games this season. The teams with the next highest engagement rates, the Mets and the Angels, are not ranked as well this year (both currently at 53.6%).
There seems to be a stronger connection in the fact that two of the teams with the best engagement rates are the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels (37.2% and 26.8% respectively). The Mets have a 27.5% engagement rate, and it can be presumed that the Yankees’ highly inflated fan count leads to low engagement. Most of the teams with above-average engagements rates are among the larger cities in the league (LA, New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Fort Worth).
There are of course, large cities with poor engagement (Toronto or San Diego, for example), but the only real standout is the smallest city in the league, Pittsburgh, with a high engagement rate.of 27.7%, the 6th highest in the league.
The Dodgers are third in merchandise sales, but other high sellers have poor engagement rates such so that the metrics don’t correlate. Boston, number 2 in merch sales is third to last in fan engagement.
We compared attendance to population, and then compared that to engagement, but data did not correlate well.
There seems to be a difference between people who go to games and people who engage on Facebook. For instance, Atlanta is a small city (pop. 420,003, the 9th smallest in the league) with high average attendance (29,852, well over the league average), and yet the team’s page has an engagement rate of 11.21%- far from remarkable. Cincinnati is another example. They have a killer attendance-population ratio (27,163 : 296,943) and has the second worst engagement in the league- 1.62%.
If you’re a data monkey and would like to see the numbers for yourself, You can check it out here. You can also check out the technology we used to get these numbers and get your free trial over at Blitzmetrics.com
The hashtag #GRAMMY received over 7.0 million mentions through Twitter this year while its counterpart #OSCAR received only 1.9 million mentions with 633,874 users tweeting about this during the show.
Adele was mentioned over 3.8 million times on Twitter, and spiked at over 700,000 mentions at one given time. That tops any Actor/Actress Mentioned at the Academy Awards, with Brad Pitt being the most talked about actor (62,025 mentions) and Meryl Streep most talked about actress (38,202 mentions).
As you might expect, the Oscars generated the most buzz at the end with over 125,000 mentions per 5 minutes during the announcement of Best Actress (Meryl Streep), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin mentioned 64,000 times), and Best Picture (The Artist). Most mentions were directed at “The Artist” – the first silent film to win an Academy Award since 1929.
The Grammy awards generated the most attention during Adele’s performances, award speeches, and a performance by Rihanna that generated over 700,000 tweets. Comparing that to the Academy Awards, no single celebrity could match any of the Grammy traffic, even as Oscar traffic is still very timid.
Though the awards themselves may not have generated much talk during the show, the Academy may make up through the memes now spreading around the Internet. These moments include the Angelina Jolie Leg-bomb now being photo-shopped across the world into famous pictures, The Robert Downey Jr. Tebowing, and Sasha Baron Cohen dropping the supposed ashes of deposed dictator Kim Jong Il onto the unsuspecting Ryan Seacrest (326 Tweets).
Social TV sites such as GetGlue did help pull in the Oscar ratings creating an extra 60,000,000 impressions across Facebook and Twitter, but is unclear whether this helped or deterred conversations.
As an advertiser, one has to think hard about next year’s awards show season and where to start placing budgets. Crowd sentiment played a factor at The Grammy Music Awards, where Adele – the top mention and new Social Media favorite – had recently overcome vocal surgery. Many tweets were sent because of the inspiration they gave; unfortunately there were no such stars at this year’s Academy Awards. Best advice for advertisers; keep track of the stars rising and falling. If there is a star about to undergo major surgery or a big life changing event who also is up for an award, you can bet it will generate a huge amount of traffic when the award is announced. Also, look next year for the Oscars to be brought to online viewing, as this will also play a huge factor in viewership and interaction.
As Billy Crystal put it best, “There is nothing Americans enjoy more than watching millionaires giving each other Golden Statues.”
About the Author:
Andrew Corliss Facebook Analyst for Blitzlocal. Graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2011 specializing in Marketing and Analytics. He has worked on a variety of projects in advertising and brings his wealth of experience and knowledge to BlitzLocal.
Sources: http://z6mag.com/arts-entertainment/oscars-2012-social-media-guide-on-twitter-news-coverage-165870.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/02/oscars-2012-ranks-as-second-most-popular-event-in-social-media.html
http://www.socialmediadelivered.com/2012/02/23/and-the-oscar-goes-to-social-media/
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/02/27/tweetreach-reveals-twitters-oscar-buzz-over-2-million-tweets-with-a-spike-of-18718-in-one-minute/
At the Webby Awards, we are constantly monitoring social networking platforms to bring our fans our unique view into the ever-changing landscape of what’s happening online, in order to provoke and inspire by highlighting some of the most innovative work and trends on the Internet. One such trend that we’ve come across is what we call the “Golden Age of Complaining.” In this culture of dissatisfaction, everyone is an instant critic. Consumers are taking to platforms, such as Twitter, to air their disappointment with brands that have done a disservice to them.
Brands and companies have understood the importance of communication with their customers. Traditionally, in a somewhat antiquated means of communication, chagrined customers would call a 1-800 number or write (if you were even less technologically inclined) to express their displeasure with a company. With platforms such as Twitter and Facebook that allow for instant response and timely interaction, good brands and companies have created accounts on these sites that are staffed full-time by a customer service representative.
1. Responding requires a high-touch and thoughtful approach
Some great examples of brands that have taken to Twitter are:
– Airlines:
Delta’s @DeltaAssist
American Airline’s @AmericanAir
– Cable providers:
Time Warner’s @TWCableHelp
Comcast’s @ComcastCares
– Motor companies:
Engaging customers about their complaints is one of the best ways to retain brand loyalty and encourage their continued use. That being said, there is a right way and a wrong way of communicating with customers. There are two basic categories in which complaints fall: 1.“[brand] sucks” and 2.“[brand] help” – and knowing which to respond to is important. If a Twitter user merely tweets, “@Delta, you truly suck”, how is a brand supposed to respond? There is nothing in which to engage them with. However, if a Twitter user posts “@DeltaAssist traveling with an infant and had a confirmed seat on window but got moved to aisle”, it is Delta’s duty to respond to this customer.
However, one to three tweets should be the maximum for exchanges online; after that, the conversation should be taken offline by exchanging contact information. Sometimes, the problem can be resolved in just one tweet – for example: “@DeltaAssist: I’m sorry about your seat, please DM your confirmation # so we can check your next flight for you.” This takes care of the situation head on without going back and forth.
We’ve also noticed three great ways brands are responding to their fans on Twitter:
1. Take advantage of over-share
If you’re in NYC, you’ve probably eaten at a food truck or three. The great thing about many food trucks is their ability to be mobile – they are restaurants on wheels! Brands such as the Souvlaki Truck have created Twitter accounts to monitor what they’re fans are saying about them. We recently tweeted to the @SouvlakiTruck recently about missing their food – they used to be right around the corner from us – once they saw our tweet, they responded by offering a care package to be sent to our office. The following week we were all dining on their delicious Greek food. And because they were tuned in, the Souvlaki Truck was able to be proactive and garner 60,000 impressions from our tweeting our appreciation.
2. Reveal the human side of brand
Recently, one of our interns tweeted to his colleague that we were out of sweet potato chips and hummus. Another great brand @PretzelCrisps, took it upon themselves to offer their snack as a viable alternative that goes great with hummus. They engaged him and asked for mailing address. Sure enough, that afternoon, bags upon bags of Pretzel Crisps were dropped off at our office. By revealing themselves as real people behind the social media platform and not just an automated bot that responds, the Pretzel Crisp brand was able to create a relationship with a new customer.
3. Create personal interactions
One particular brand that has an interesting campaign on Twitter is Jell-o, which launched their “Pudding Face Mood Meter” in an effort to gauge America’s current mood. Jell-o is tracking tweets that contain smiling and frowning faces and are taking the opportunity to tweet to those users that tweeted frowning. While they are cued in to the collective American feelings at a current time, they are not making the interaction personal. It seems more insincere to tweet to someone who is having a bad day: “here, have a coupon for a free Jell-o pudding” as opposed to engaging the user if it’s appropriate to your brand message. This misguided effort to connect with new fans and the connection between the brand and the message they wish to convey is not obvious.
The few things we’ve learned from the culture of dissatisfaction are:
1. That even though consumers are increasingly venting on Twitter and Facebook, certain brands are proactively transform complaints into praise.
2. Brands can strengthen their existing customer relationships and create new ones by engaging the right way.
3. As long as you make it a good story – the word will spread itself.
Guest author David-Michel Davies (DMD) is Executive Director of The Webby Awards & the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences. He also serves as Chairman & Co-Founder of Internet Week New York. DMD has appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America to discuss Internet trends and news, and he has lectured to audiences at a diverse mix of conferences and companies including Interbrand, Microsoft and the Institute for the future.