Imagine this. The president of the fastest growing sport, who has 1.1 million Twitter followers, tweets that he’s headed to a bar, he has free tickets and he wants to play you in Pop A Shot.
This actually just happened.
I was in San Diego with UFC President, Dana White and this is one of many social media stunts we’ve pulled off over the past year.
The goal was to integrate a marketing partner and a commercial partner. Enter Bud Light and Dave & Buster’s, two brands that fly the same social media flag as the UFC.
The video speaks for itself, but let us share a few public numbers:
- 12: Number of seconds it took fans to show up after Dana’s tweet
- 300: Number of dollars Dana gave to a fan who received a speeding ticket while racing to the event
- 15 million: Number of directly accessible impressions made within two hours via social media (Facebook & Twitter)
- 200: Number of people who showed up at Dave & Buster’s within minutes
- 100: Number of free beers given to the first 100 fans to arrive and say “Hey UFC, give me a Bud Light!
- 60: Score of the lucky fan who won a seat next to Dana at the event
- 2: Number of media outlets who showed up to cover the story (NBC San Diego and Heavy.com)
For additional media coverage of the event, click here.
February 12, 2010
Tuesday night, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) President Dana White officially crossed the 1 million follower threshold on Twitter. But how? And with what strategy? More importantly, so what?
Although social networks have millions of users, in some cases hundreds of millions of users, there are actually less than 220 individuals or brands on Twitter who have ever passed the 1 million follower mark. And of those brands and individuals, few if any are Presidents of organizations–not to mention sports organizations.
Even fewer have the degree of two-way communication that Dana has with his followers. Communication that includes breaking news and rewarding followers in a personal way with everything from event tickets to autographed items. Communication that entails responding to followers–even if that means being blunt.
And that’s where strategy steps in. Through Twitter, Dana uniquely humanizes the UFC brand. Sure, a million followers are great but what’s the bigger picture? Dana White and the UFC brand now have a combined, tight-knit community of 1.3 million followers that not only disseminates news, but often dictates trending topics. The UFC’s social media efforts demonstrate that they listen to fans, engage with fans and deliver valuable information where, when and how fans want to receive it. The entire organization understands the value of this new form of communication. That’s pretty powerful.
Digital Royalty activated a twitter contest for client Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Nearly 1,000 fans showed up to participate.
