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UFC

First Social Media Incentive Program for Athletes

May 14, 2011

By: Britt Johnson

The NBA, NFL, and other professional sports leagues are all too familiar with handing down fines to athletes (and owners/coaches) who violate their social media policies. The UFC has no interest in collecting money from its own athletes. Instead, they are doing the reverse in handing out the cash—$240,000 annually to be exact.

This week UFC president Dana White announced the first-ever incentive-based social media program for fighters during the UFC Summit in Las Vegas where more than 300 fighters were required to go through Digital Royalty University social media training. The allotted money will be dispersed as quarterly bonuses to fighters who make the most impact with their personal Twitter accounts.

Competition was in the air as the program was announced to more than 300 fighters at the annual UFC Summit at the Red Rock Casino in Vegas. Thousands of fans, fighters and media outlets followed along here using the #UFCSummit Hashtag where thousands of tweets were exchanged real-time throughout the week. Mashable and Sports Business Journal also covered the news.

The UFC understands the power of social media. The goal for the incentive program is to encourage the athletes to embrace these new communication tools and increase fan engagement. The UFC and related Twitter accounts are already known for their fighter-to-fighter interactions. The heightened engagement will strengthen the organization’s network, allowing for quick message delivery, more fighter-to-fan interaction and most importantly it provides exclusive value to new and existing fans.

Starting June 1st, Stikeforce and UFC fighters will be divided into four groups depending on their number of followers. From those groups, three winners will be named in the following categories, each receiving $5,000 for most followers gained, highest percentage of followers gained and most creative campaign.

A social media powerhouse himself, Dana knows the influence Twitter followers carry. Factor in a few hundred additional social media-savvy athletes, and you have a force to be reckoned with.

For more information about Digital Royalty University, email Info@TheDigitalRoyalty.com

Post image for UFC and LA Kings Keeping It Trendy Worldwide

UFC and LA Kings Keeping It Trendy Worldwide

October 25, 2010

You may have noticed some virtual jump high-fives between the Digital Royalty team this past Saturday. We were excited and here’s why.

Digital Royalty concepted and implemented the first-ever National Hockey League Hashtag Battle between the Los Angeles Kings and the Colorado Avalanche. The goal for the night was to raise money for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Kroenke Sports Charities as part of the NHL’s month-long Hockey Fights Cancer campaign. And of course, some friendly twivalry. The competition was on: #GoKings vs. #GoAvs. The teams donated $1 for each hashtag tweeted.

We wanted to get #GoKings in front of more than just hockey fans. Our broader target: the general sports fan or Saturday night tweeter who was looking to tweet for the greater good. But there were a few obstacles on the ice.

The Kings vs. Avs game wasn’t nationally televised, therefore, wasn’t easily accessible by the average sports fan. On top of that, it was a Saturday during college football season. The epic UFC 121, heavyweight championship event, was also taking place in the target market (Los Angeles) plus the San Francisco Giants were trying to win the National League Pennant against the Philadelphia Phillies. (Note, the UFC is a dR client as well so our team was performing a social balancing act. Everything netted out as planned. See below.)

We knew people would definitely be tweeting heavily about sports. But would they be tweeting about the Kings vs Avs game? We needed to influence a few key groups:

Kings and Avs fans. These teams have an intense rivalry and we wanted to translate it into a social competition. With bragging rights on the line, the tweets came pouring in.
NHL fans. The support of the NHL helped get the word out about the battle to hockey fans who may not have been closely following the Kings or Avalanche. This Coyotes fan is a perfect example.
Online Influencers. We targeted specific sports-influencers who helped us get the battle into the pathways of their followers. Baseball fan and actress, Alyssa Milano tweeted about the battle as well as the the pro-soccer team LA Galaxy. LIVESTRONG CEO, Doug Ulman (a pioneer at using social media for the greater good) supported our mission as did Sarah Palin who must not have been busy with SNL.
Charitable-minded. We anticipated that by this point the #GoKings mission would be reaching the eyes of people who would participate solely to help raise money for higher objective. We knew this had worked when we started seeing “I’m not a hockey fan but…” tweets.

With the chain-of-support in action, #GoKings leaped to the number one worldwide trending topic by the end of the first period (for you non-hockey fans, that’s approximately 20 minutes). Our trending topic status added welcome fuel to the fire. By the end of the game the official hashtag score was #GoKings 29,374 and #GoAvs 13,876.

We scored three W’s with the hashtag battle. Each team shared a new kind of spotlight and exposed their brand in the pathways of new fans, they increase their following on Twitter and and most importantly the charitable organizations benefited.

In the meantime, the UFC 121 event was taking place in Anaheim, CA. To generate buzz on that front, Amy Martin was on the scene with UFC President Dana White sending out his personal phone number to more than 5 million UFC fans on facebook and twitter. By the end of the night, the UFC secured 8 of the 10 worldwide trending topics as the world watched history in the making.

Needless to say, we’ve posted this on our fridge at the dR office for a few days.

Post image for UFC and LA Kings Keeping It Trendy Worldwide

UFC and LA Kings Keeping It Trendy Worldwide

October 25, 2010

You may have noticed some virtual jump high-fives between the Digital Royalty team this past Saturday. We were excited and here’s why.

Digital Royalty concepted and implemented the first-ever National Hockey League Hashtag Battle between the Los Angeles Kings and the Colorado Avalanche. The goal for the night was to raise money for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Kroenke Sports Charities as part of the NHL’s month-long Hockey Fights Cancer campaign. And of course, some friendly twivalry. The competition was on: #GoKings vs. #GoAvs. The teams donated $1 for each hashtag tweeted.

We wanted to get #GoKings in front of more than just hockey fans. Our broader target: the general sports fan or Saturday night tweeter who was looking to tweet for the greater good. But there were a few obstacles on the ice.

The Kings vs. Avs game wasn’t nationally televised, therefore, wasn’t easily accessible by the average sports fan. On top of that, it was a Saturday during college football season. The epic UFC 121, heavyweight championship event, was also taking place in the target market (Los Angeles) plus the San Francisco Giants were trying to win the National League Pennant against the Philadelphia Phillies. (Note, the UFC is a dR client as well so our team was performing a social balancing act. Everything netted out as planned. See below.)

We knew people would definitely be tweeting heavily about sports. But would they be tweeting about the Kings vs Avs game? We needed to influence a few key groups:

Kings and Avs fans. These teams have an intense rivalry and we wanted to translate it into a social competition. With bragging rights on the line, the tweets came pouring in.
NHL fans. The support of the NHL helped get the word out about the battle to hockey fans who may not have been closely following the Kings or Avalanche. This Coyotes fan is a perfect example.
Online Influencers. We targeted specific sports-influencers who helped us get the battle into the pathways of their followers. Baseball fan and actress, Alyssa Milano tweeted about the battle as well as the the pro-soccer team LA Galaxy. LIVESTRONG CEO, Doug Ulman (a pioneer at using social media for the greater good) supported our mission as did Sarah Palin who must not have been busy with SNL.
Charitable-minded. We anticipated that by this point the #GoKings mission would be reaching the eyes of people who would participate solely to help raise money for higher objective. We knew this had worked when we started seeing “I’m not a hockey fan but…” tweets.

With the chain-of-support in action, #GoKings leaped to the number one worldwide trending topic by the end of the first period (for you non-hockey fans, that’s approximately 20 minutes). Our trending topic status added welcome fuel to the fire. By the end of the game the official hashtag score was #GoKings 29,374 and #GoAvs 13,876.

We scored three W’s with the hashtag battle. Each team shared a new kind of spotlight and exposed their brand in the pathways of new fans, they increase their following on Twitter and most importantly the charitable organizations benefited.

In the meantime, the UFC 121 event was taking place in Anaheim, CA. To generate buzz on that front, Amy Martin was on the scene with UFC President Dana White sending out his personal phone number to more than 5 million UFC fans on facebook and twitter so they could speak with him directly and share their picks for the evening. By the end of the night, the UFC secured 8 of the 10 worldwide trending topics as the world watched history in the making.

Needless to say, we’ve posted this on our fridge at the dR office for a few days.

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