How Wimbledon 2011 Played Out in Social Media Social Media Makes Tennis Tournament Easily Accessible The start of the 2011 Wimbledon Championships in late June heralded a whole new era of „open‟ tennis, making the tournament as well as the players easily accessible via social media. Rewind a few years back, when viewership of sports events was restricted to television screens and discussions to living room conversations; the growing use of social networking made this year‟s Wimbledon Championships one of the biggest events in web history. The players and fans, both, took tennis to a whole new level with a healthy dose of Facebook posts and Twitter comments. Here‟s a brief overview of how social media extended the reach of the world‟s most prestigious tennis tournament: Despite being associated with history and tradition, Wimbledon, this year decided to move with the times by taking its online presence to the next level through its Facebook and Twitter pages. This year‟s „Wimbledon-on-Social‟ wave was started by Andy Murray who teamed up with his racquet sponsor, Head, to launch the „Get Closer‟ campaign on Facebook and YouTube. The viral campaign encouraged fans to interact with him during Wimbledon. In addition to the +694,429 „likes‟ on Facebook, the official fan page functioned as a hub for all the Wimbledon activity online and gave users insight to the tournament. A huge number of pictures and videos were uploaded on Facebook, besides several contests that allowed fans to win tickets by simply „liking‟ the page; a smart marketing strategy. The build up on Twitter increased as the tournament progressed, especially during the Novak Djokovic vs. Rafael Nadal final. Although the event initially attracted a small audience, it gained traction online, especially with the elimination of Roger Federer who was expected to qualify for the finals. Real-time access to everything surrounding the tournament was made possible through live video and radio streaming. People could access matches via iPad, iPhone and Android apps and follow play-by-play feeds of the tournament on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook from the start to finish.
The Social Media Buzz Geographic and Demographic Break Down (”Wimbledon”) Analysis by Position² Brand Monitor, for the time period between 5th June 2011 and 5th July 2011, shows that: The UK, as expected, witnessed the highest social media buzz at 44%. This was followed by Australia at 24% and US at 15%. The gender distribution chart leans heavily towards the male population (71%); the women, at 29%, were not as enthusiastic about the tournament as their male counterparts. The +65 age group was not very active in their discussions pertaining to Wimbledon; this reason for this could be because of their social media presence, which is not as much when compared to the 20-35 age bracket, which accounted for the maximum discussions (45%).
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Volume Analysis and Top Media Break Down The analysis of conversation volumes shows some interesting results:
Although the final match between Djokovic and Rafael Nadal was played on 3rd July, the quarter finals between Nadal and Mardy Fish, played on 29th June, saw a spike in conversation volumes, with 22,775 posts registered on a single day. Š Position2, Inc.
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News, followed by discussion forums recorded the maximum buzz at 35% and 28% respectively. While blogs also witnessed a fair share of discussions (21%), Twitter (10%) and Facebook (7%) did not record as much buzz as expected.
Key Players’ Analysis, Male Novak Djokovic (Wimbledon 2011 Champion) Conversation volumes for Djokovic, naturally, peaked on 3rd July during the final match (13,890 posts). The total posts for the Serbian champion were 88,716. The conversational tonality for Djokovic was mostly neutral (77%); this could be because the discussions and news reports mostly focused on match related updates rather than exchange of opinions. Negative conversations were marginal at 4%, while 19% of the conversations were positive (mostly in praise of the final match and Djokovicâ€&#x;s performance).
Rafael Nadal (Runner Up) Nadal recorded the maximum buzz (14,827 posts) during his play-off against Andy Murray on 1st July. Total conversations pertaining to Nadal were reported to be 136,463. The sentiment analysis for Nadal leans heavily towards neutral at 77%. Similar to Djokovic, the positive sentiment for Nadal was at 19%, while 4% of the conversations were negative.
Roger Federer The total posts for Federer recorded over a period of one month were 48,092. His quarter finals against J. Tsonga recorded the maximum conversations at 7,903. At 48%, the highest buzz was centered on news, while Twitter accounted for 20% of the discussions. The negative sentiment for Federer was negligible at 4%. The tonality of most of the conversations regarding Federer was neutral at 69% (mostly news feeds and tournament updates).
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Key Players’ Analysis, Female Petra Kvitova (Wimbledon 2011 Champion, Ladies’ Singles) The total number of posts for Kvitova amounted to 68,734. Her final match on 2nd July, where she played Maria Sharapova, recorded maximum conversation volumes at 26,081 in a single day. Twitter registered the highest share of voice at 37%, closely followed by news at 32%. The tonality of blog conversations was largely neutral (47%). Positive conversations at 39% included comments that admired Kvitova for „having the qualities of a lasting champion‟ and so on.
Maria Sharapova (Runner Up) Of the 119,325 total posts for Sharapova, 27,827 were reported on 2nd July (as expected) during the finals. As in the case of her opponent, fans mostly discussed Sharapova on Twitter (53%), followed by news (20%). The sentiment tone (blogs only) for Sharapova was largely neutral at 51%. 30% of the conversations were positive in tonality, while 19% were negative.
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Conclusion What made the 125th Wimbledon Championships different from the tournaments hosted earlier, is the massive online buzz the event recorded. The organizers, players, and fans, took this year‟s tournament to the next level with their discussions, play-by-play updates and comments on various social media channels. For the officials at Wimbledon, expanding the reach of the championships beyond tennis courts and television sets was the goal; and this, we believe, is something they more than managed to reach. While the organizers worked on the Wimbledon.com site to make it “a year-round destination and present it in an engaging and dynamic way to communicate with the global tennis community”, the players themselves made efforts to „connect to fans‟. Among the top players that were highly active on social media were Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, and Sharapova, who interacted with fans on Facebook and Twitter. Here‟s something interesting; our analysis shows that winners do not always occupy the top spot on the popularity scale. In the case of the men, as well as the women, although both Djokovic and Kvitova were crowned the champions, it was the runners up, Nadal and Sharapova who were most popular on social media. What also stands out is the neutral tonality of most conversations. After studying several posts, we conclude that people were more enthusiastic about updating each other instead of criticizing or overtly praising the players. That said, social media has had a great year at Wimbledon 2011, helping fans to access their favorite sport in a very different way. While this year‟s event was reinvented in the digital space, we are eager to see what role social media will play in the next Wimbledon Championships and if it will be just as influential or more.
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About Position2 Position2 is a Search and Social Media Marketing firm that delivers continuous growth for our clients using our proprietary “Surround and Intent” Marketing Methodology, delivered by our products. Our proprietary methodology is a result of years of experience in working with diverse clients to deliver customer acquisition goals through search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM), and Pay Per Click (PPC) and online media advertising. Position2 was founded in 2006 with funding from Accel Venture Partners, and has offices in Palo Alto, Bangalore and Mumbai. Position2 is a certified agency with Google, Yahoo, Bing and is also part of the Google Adwords advisory council.
Position2's flagship product is Position2 Brand MonitorTM, a platform that allows users to listen, discover and engage with social media conversations in real time. With a team of over 100 professionals, Position2 also provides expertise in online marketing solutions: SEO, PPC, Media and Advertising. Position2 works with leading global brands:
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