Background: The Chicago White Sox organization wanted to set up a meet-and-greet with their fans and followers before the end of the 2009 MLB season. The result was that on September 18, 2009, Cellular Field in Chicago played host to the first official White Sox tweetup.
Approach: Amy Martin, Digital Royalty founder, drew from previous experience as creator and host of the Phoenix Suns first tweetup, as well as fan feedback to hone-in on what elements were necessary to make the one-day event a success. The 31-dollar event took place at a cordoned-off portion of an outfield patio where twitterers enjoyed all-you-can-eat buffet, a fan-designed tweetup t-shirt, a baseball game and time to mingle with the White Sox VP of Communication, Director of PR, mascot and baseball legend Ron Kittle.
Results: A contest for the design of t-shirt for the event was not only exclusively launched on Twitter, but also produced a follower-designed t-shirt for the event. Key takeaways were that tweetup attendees met and took photos with key figures behind all of the White Sox accounts, as well as supplied the vast majority of content that originated from the event. User-generated content was then hyper-syndicated by Digital Royalty across a multitude of channels. All White Sox account experienced a substantial increase in followers, but of particular interest was that Southpaw, the White Sox mascot who had just joined twitter, garnered 1,000 new friends (followers) during this timeframe.
