IPL teams and the social media

I have been following the rise of social media (in particular facebook and twitter) closely since the past few years — and being close to the social media team of one of popular the IPL teams — how they (recently) started using it to interact with their fans more. In this post I will try to analyse what social media tools the IPL teams have been using and how — and then provide a quickly list of the teams and where they are available at the social media platform.

1. Website

Before facebook or twitter — there used to be something called a website — where people used to sign up, post things (usually forms) — and hoped some day some one would reply to them and hopefully get a discussion going. The job of a company, sports team was to make this platform available and move away from it — very static. But with the netizens growth and impact (refer egypt controversy on twitter later) — a website can’t stand be static any more. All IPL teams have a website — the Kochi team even have/had a website (http://kochiteam.com) even before having a name — and wore this on their tshirts during the IPL 2011 auction — which just went to show how important it has become to get a word out — get the youth (majority of the netizens and customers/clients/audience of the IPL) engaged.

In 2008, 2009, 2010 though the websites were still used as a broadcast medium — getting team news out — who is there doing what — lately this has changed — actually I have observed it has changed a lot since the last 2 – 3 months. They want your information now — they want you to register — things are locked out on the website — the latest polls are available but you can’t vote till you register — no more creating discussions on facebook or twitter — lets have these discussions on the website — you might ask why? — DATA — one has realised the importance of data — especially user data, information, audience — but what can one do with this data ?? — target the audience (google walmart data mining) — to bring a product that the audience likes, relates to which leads to revenue, money, profits — and that’s what the game is all about money — and why not — everyone wants money.

Examples: Visit http://facebook.com/MumbaiIndians, http://facebook.com/RajasthanRoyals or and look at their latest and most frequent posts. KKR(.in) has even decided to go ahead and make their own social media platform.

2. Facebook

We love facebook. You are an outcast if you don’t have facebook (ps: read a post on fakingnews on this topic for a laugh) .

But facebook hit India late — later than the US, UK, Australia. It hit India late because of the amazing infiltration orkut had — but then most of us had NRI friends who were on facebook because of their foreign friends and we wanted to connect to them more — they are the ones who we didnt see everyday and wanted to talk to (international calling is expensive) and hence facebook become popular . And hence there was a late entrance by the IPL teams to the world of facebook (or even twitter). In 2008, 2009 there were many (actually too many too count) fan pages for various IPL teams on facebook — none official though — but they had a lot of fans — India had caught up with facebook but the IPL teams hadn’t. In 2010 suddenly these fan pages/groups started getting consolidated — all started becoming one — leading to 10,000+ fans for teams like Mumbai Indians, Rajasthan Royals (others are still trying to keep up unusually) — why? — coz it was official now– the concept of social media pr / team had become popular — facebook was being contacted — to close all fan pages — get all the existing fans and add them to the official FAN pages.

Facebook is being used by the teams to broadcast messages and create discussions — used a lot in 2009-10 , but come 2011 the focus has changed to websites (see Website section above for why) — but still facebook is a popular platform for engagement — why — coz people are already there — it easy to “Like”, “Comment” or “Share” — or post a photo or video and share it with others — much easier process than going to a teams website and doing this. Plus hey it’s in your face — who doesn’t spend half their days on facebook.

In my opinion this will remain a popular platform for a while — but is still not used to its full capacity — teams tryin to broadcast messages and divert discussions to their websites aint helping — plus u need to engage more with the fans — discuss things with them rather than lettting them discuss with each other (or is that twitter??).

Only few teams have been able to make the most of this platform till date namely Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers, Rajasthan Royals, RCB.

Disappointments have been KKR (which prob has the most potential) , CSK and Delhi Daredevils.

PS: Recently some teams have added fans as high as 800,000+ — this is due to facebook’s new profile system where you add your favorite team to your profile (http://www.facebook.com/#!/editprofile.php?sk=sports) and automatically become a fan of their page.

3. Twitter

India doesn’t get twitter (yet!!)(it’s the same way India loves blackberry but no the iPhone — i mean cumon it’s an iPhone) — and this is why the IPL doesnt (see above how late IPL teams were to get on with facebook) — but they understand it’s important — so they repost everything they do on facebook to twitter (well some of them do) (see http://facebook.com/twitter to know how you can ;)). But twitter is about engagement much much much more than at a website or facebook level — it’s more at a personal level — connecting with the fans one by one — not as one unit — the celebs have got it (see http://twitter.com/warne888 or http://twitter.com/iamsrk) — but the IPL teams haven’t — neither should they — money and time is where the audience is — but but but they will have to one day not soon but later. I think the way ahead will be not the team but team players to interact personally with the fan for the sake (popularity/to sell) of the team.

4. Other Mentions

Future: Flaunt the logo next to your picOther mentions include http://www.picbadges.com/ and http://twibbon.com/ — these are growing platforms — trust me you will see a lot of them in the coming months — what are they — they are pride — pride to show your favorite team next to your photo (mostly your profile pick) — the ECB did it really well during the Ashes (2010) — every England fan on twitter (even @kevinpp24 and jimmy anderson) wore it — it give a sense of unity — unity of people in the twitter (or facebook) world — united by one thing their team. See http://www.picbadges.com/tag/ipl/ for a set of IPL teams that have already doing so.

Past: SMSGupshup.com/Orkut.comA popular, indian (used to be) platform for tweeting through sms was quite a rage in 2008 — but has seen a major decline since (the twitter fad came in). I would not like to say anything about orkut (the above fakingnews link says it all for me)

IPL Teams and links to their www system (taken from their respective websites)(in random order (ok won’t lie — it’s the same order on wikiepdia ha)