The World Series of Social Media

Oct 28, 2014

October means baseball season. For the city of San Francisco, it means #OrangeOctober.

Baseball arguments aside, you simply can’t argue with the San Francisco Giant’s winning social media strategy. But, it wasn’t always winning.

When their current social media director, Bryan Srabian, took over in 2010, the team was only using a few social media channels and lacked a consistent voice. Yep, in the city known for technology and startups (only a stone’s throw away from Silicon Valley, mind you) the Giants couldn’t create a communications strategy.

Recognizing an opportunity, Srabian and his team embraced social media to bridge the communication gap between the team and its fan-base.

Srabian’s revamp of SF’s social strategy could not have come at a better time. Their new strategy in tandem with their first World Series win since 1954 produced a social media brand envied by other teams.

The Giants leveraged this new media to create a two-way conversation between the team and its fan-base. Keeping their hashtags and voice consistent across platforms allowed them to create a coherent message and rally their fan-base beyond the walls of AT&T Park. In fact, they created a social media brand so powerful they built the @Cafe, a coffee shop inside the park where fans can go and see their tweets and posts on a video feed wall.

All this activity helped the Giants build their brand within an extremely loyal fan-base. Do you know what happens when you have a loyal fan-base? You sell tickets. What happens when you sell tickets? You have the resources available to create a winning team. This is the 3rd Giants World Series in five years.

Five years ago, the team saw both a weakness and an opportunity. They tapped into the distinct tech resources in their area and exploited their winning season in 2010. Now, that weakness is a strength. Bravo to SF for leveraging their SWOT to create a strategy that has allowed their organization to flourish.

#EvenYears and #OrangeOctober (Yeah, we have some Giants fans in the house).

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