1. 1. An Aging Fan Base: Using Twitter to Develop a New Generation of Baseball Fans Allison R. Levin, MA, JD Independent Scholar and Consultant allison.levin@gmail.com twitter.com/arl1102
2. 2. 2013 World Series Looked at top 10 hashtags that trended over the World Series Only accessed tweets using the hashtags 25k tweets total over the series Many questions remained Why did people use hashtags What about those who didnt use hashtags How did these 10 trend What could be done to generate fan support as hashtags were ineffective
3. 3. Hashtags Commination research suggests that people use hashtags for two reasons To be part of a community To resolve uncertainty Research is based on television shows, in particular reality TV My previous research indicates that with live sports fans use hashtags to resolve uncertainty Community still exists in sports but it is not really a conversation
4. 4. Mentions Mentions differ from hashtags The are tweets with an @ Speaking directly to the person They get notifications On Twitter influencers are people whose posts generate the most discussion Answering them Retweeting them
5. 5. Parasocial Relationships Concept developed out of communication research It is the relationship we develop with people or characters we are likely to never meet Develop parasocial relationships with teams and players Refer to players, managers and GMs by first names Social Media makes it easier It comes down to a sense of a relationship
6. 6. This project Build upon limitations of 2013 study Collect as many tweets as possible for the 2014 World Series Broad search terms both relating to the Royals and Giants as well as baseball in general Baseball Karma Crown Game Magic MLB postseason KC Giants World Series SF Royals Yost Bochy
7. 7. 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Total Day Pre First Half Second Half Post Game Mention only Mention and Hashtag Hashtag only None Summary Statistics
8. 8. 1. MLB 6. MLBonFox 2. Royals 7. ESPNStatsInfo 3. SFGiants 8. MLBFanCave 4. SportsCenter 9. MLB_PR 5. Buster_ESPN 10. AlexPavlovic Overall Mentions These users engaged Twitter followers by sharing History and statistics Videos with behind the scenes information Player stories, interviews and contests that built upon fanaticism These users also had followers comfortable enough to comment and complain
9. 9. 1. Royals 6. MadBum 2. WorldSeries 7. Giants 3. TakeTheCrown 8. KC 4. SFGiants 9. postseason 5. MLB 10. OctoberTogether Overall Hashtags The hashtags are used to show the user is part of a community Both 2013 and 2014 projects demonstrate that Fans of the particular teams form communities around team specific sayings or the team Twitter used as a hashtag Fans of baseball tend to use more general hashtags
10. 10. Game by Game Observations Broadcaster names will trend as hashtags when fans are unhappy and the outlet will trend as a mention Authors with interesting takes or exclusive interviews will trend as a mention while the story is new Some players will have compelling stories Tim Hudson leading up to game 7 Auburn_Baseball was the top mention for the day and pregame WarEagle was the top trending hashtag in those same periods
11. 11. Still to Discover This data set will provide even more answers on how Twitter can be used to generate new fans Content analysis with coding of the tweets to understand the elements of the top mentioned user tweets vs. other tweets Determine the age, gender and location of the users and through content analysis with coding understand if demographics change how people use Twitter Allow MLB and others to perhaps adapt tweets to certain audiences Determine if, as the data implied, the influencers that drive hashtags are different than those who were the most frequently mentioned
12. 12. Moving Forward The project corroborates the hashtag analysis from my 2013 work as well as the work of communication scholars The concept of mentions and influencers is just developing in the literature This project indicates that influencers could use their relationship with their followers to encourage the followers to try something newbaseball The combination of influencers and hashtags can help bring in and maintain younger fans