The Minnesota Twins baseball team uses social media to fill empty seats on game day and radio programmers attending the Arbitron Client Conference took some pointers from a Twins’ executive on how to apply his social media tips to radio. The point would be to reach more listeners.
At the Arbitron Client Conference in Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday, Chris Iles, senior manager of corporate communications for the Twins, says the team wants to increase its social media followers to 1.25 million users in 2013 and increase revenue conversion through social media to more than $180 thousand next year as well.
The Twins’ Facebook followers are starting to plateau at 785,000 fans however Twitter followers are still growing at 111,000+ followers. Out of a total of say 900,000 social media followers, “We want to bring them to our own website,” says Iles. The team has 300,000 registered users on its site. Out of that 300,000 total, some 81,000 are unique ticket purchasers, he says.
The team has special promotions aimed at social media users. An example from the most recent baseball season is “Opening Day Traditions” in which fans are asked to share their traditions with the team. In turn, the Twins vet them, send them to other fans and ask everyone to vote on their favorite. The winner gets free tickets to the Opening Day game. “We go from being the promoters ourselves to fans being the promoter,” Iles said.
The Twins have a special suite that select social media fans are invited to twice a year. The team invites fans registered on social media sites to apply. “We go through applications and identify heavy users of our tweets. We bring them in for a free game” in the suite, according to Iles. They provide the fans free drinks and food and use the group as a focus group, too.
The social media efforts help the Twins push incremental ticket sales.
