Christopher Heine of Clickz writes about the success of the UFC’s “Hide & Tweet” strategy in his latest piece.
Martin said the campaign so far has helped create almost 2.25 million UFC followers on Twitter and 3 million Facebook fans. What’s more, the 17-year-old organization only trails the much-older National Basketball Association – among all major sports leagues – on Facebook when it comes to fans, she said.
Payout Perspective:
The UFC is killing things on the social media front. There’s always room for improvement – I’m not sure anyone has this space mastered just yet – but the combination of the impressions and unique interactions the UFC has been able to generate with the fans is outstanding.
Not only do these “Hide & Tweets” provide a cost effective way to produce immediate, trackable results but they also help the UFC form key partnerships with other businesses. Dave and Buster’s or Pinkberry definitely benefit from these tweet-ups, and that could pay dividends for the UFC in the future.
Perhaps the next step for the UFC is to leverage these tweet-ups in order to secure official partnerships within the retail or QSR categories. Dana White could hold a tweet-up at three Burger King locations before every fight or agree to meet fans at multiple Sports Authority locations as part of a sponsorship agreement.
Instant ROI is a hot button issue for many potential sponsor brands in today’s business climate – these tweet-ups provide that.
The UFC is amazing at social media networking. I have an “mma list” on twitter and the fighters are constantly promoting upcoming events. For example, Brandon Vera was on facebook before the recent UFC fight night saying how sick the card was going to be. All these interactions do make a huge difference.