(UPDATE – 4/19/2011: I’ve included links to all the web and social sites to the team listed below as well as numbers if applicable.)
Criteria:
Revenues generated as a direct result of social media. Here’s why this is the most important factor in determining the winner. What do fans want most? A winning team. The best situation would be a championship team. And the factor that determines whether or not a team is of contending status or not is their ability to financially attract and retain talent. And for the purposes of this blog post, let’s see which Toronto sport’s team has reaped financial benefits.
Wait a sec:
Fan engagement and reach is important too. In this day and age of instant communication, sports fans demand up to the second updates. This is why athletes and media are heavy users of tools like Twitter. However, to measure the “return on investment” of social media engagement.
Also, understand that these are just my observations. I have not interviewed anyone who works for the nominees even though I know them. The purpose of this blog is to give my viewpoint and to spur some discussion. I would love to hear your thoughts on who is “winning” the social media game. On to the nominees!
The nominees:
Twitter: 4,696 Facebook: 2,727 YouTube: 253,697 upload views
The Argos website has share functions throughout. Furthermore, their Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels are well populated with a fairly engaged online community.
LeafSpaceMonika: 8,713 Twitter: 48,642 Facebook: 378,572
Their Leafspace.com fan-focused site drives both fan engagement and revenues via advertising and ticket and merch sales. The Leafs also have a huge following on both Twitter and Facebook.
Social Media Clubhouse, Twitter: 32,210 Facebook: 249,397
A very busy website where the social media properties are hard to find. While we did see the BlackBerry sponsored Tweeting Tuesday’s ad, we had to scroll down to the bottom to see the Twitter and Facebook links. The BlueJays also have a very popular Facebook and Twitter following with a highly engaged audience.
Twitter: 30,697 Facebook: 204,592
Piggy-backing off their Maple Leafs cousins, the Raps have done an amazing job with their Raptorspace fan site as well as with their Twitter and Facebook pages.
The Winner:
This is a hard one. I’ll be honest tough. Before I even started to write this I had the Blue Jays picked as the winner. Why? They had actually obtained a sponsor as a result of their Tweeting Tuesday’s initiative – BlackBerry. The Blue Jays are improving in how they communicate and engage with their fans via social media. And last year they not only obtained a sponsor for one of their social media properties, their parent company (Rogers) has done a great job by looping in all their media properties. Listen or watch a game and there will be mention of “following” or “friending” the Blue Jays. But…
The Leafs are the perennial favourites here in Toronto. Yet picking them would be too easy and lazy. However, after some surface research, I have to announce the winner as the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Leafs have done an amazing job interacting and engaging with their fans on Facebook and Twitter. They (as well as the Raptors) have also created a fun and interactive fan site called Leafspace. And when it comes to monetization they have conquered that too. A cursory glance at their website shows corporate ads on their fan areas. And they also held a Facebook competition which was sponsored by a corporate sponsor.
Congrats Toronto Maple Leafs! And a HUGE thumbs up to the Toronto Blue Jays for doing a kick ass job in a relatively short period of time (and for inspiring this blog post!).