Social Media Strategy - Royal Challengers Bangalore [IPL 5]

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) was unlucky to lose the semi-final birth to Chennai Super Kings despite winning the equal number of games and having equal number of points. Like previous 3 seasons, RCB has continued its tremendous performance on the ground. Now it is time to see how well the team has performed off the field (in IPL 5) on social media.

Tools of Engagement

Apart from using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to remain in touch with its fans, RCB has also used tools like blog, forum, and debate to convert a normal discussion into an in-depth intellectual discourse. In this article, I will examine how successful the team has been with it's social media strategy and in its effort to engage fans in the social media.

On Facebook

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When one thinks of RCB, a color red comes flashing in the mind, but when you visit its Facebook fan page, this color is conspicuously missing from the theme, which on Facebook is set by the cover image, profile image, and tab bar thumbnail images. But the positives are its growing number of fans, and its rising rate of engagement. In total, RCB has 719,591 fans, of which 53,220 people are actively engaged with the page.

RCB has properly used its about section. Adding its website URL there is the nice way to remind people of the existence of the website, where in RCB case, a lot of actions happens. The App tabs are generic in nature and lacks proper use of thumbnails. Unlike other teams, RCB does not host any contest on Facebook. For RCB Fans, almost all the action is on the website. The team usage the social networking website to pull people to its website for contest, debate, and other things.

The posts are mainly visual in nature. The team has created some nice images to honor the team players. Pictorial updates about Sidhartha Mallya’s show, No Boundaries also make a good number of updates for RCB.

RCB has actively used Facebook to engage fans on Twitter, which has not used by any team we have seen so far in the series.

The team has used Facebook as an announcement medium to bring its Facebook fans to its website, where all the action happens.

Twitter

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Hash Tags: #RCB and #AaaaaaaaaaarCeeeeeeeeeeBeeeeeeeeeeeee

At the time of writing, on twitter, RCB had 63,672 fans, and a good number of them are actively engaged with the page.

The team has dispensed resource to actively engage followers on Twitter. It has taken time to reply to its followers’ tweet, which has improved the engagement.

But the branding part of RCB’s twitter profile is not impressive. No effort has been made to brand the twitter profile, but its bio has not been used in a slightly better way. The team should have included a call to action in the bio section to pull people to its website.

The good thing about RCB’s Twitter page is that there are not many meaningless tweets or useless ball-by-ball updates. Instead of using Twitter as an announcement engine, the team has used it as an engagement device. Even the language used in the updates about the match is that of a fan. But what is clearly missing is tweets related to contests, debates, or other actions that take place on the website.

On YouTube

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With 2,521 subscribers and more than 2,238,000 video views, RCB is going strong on YouTube. RCB has created some exclusive videos and animations to keep its fans engaged.

But the videos that have attracted the most eyeballs are the ones from the after-match parties, and birthday parities, etc. These videos gave an insider’s peek into off-the-field activities, so those videos were lapped by the audience.

Videos of Sidhartha Mallya’s show, No Boundaries also got a good number of views.

In terms of variety in its video content, RCB has outranked all the teams that we have covered so far. The closest competitors for the team in this are Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab.

The only thing RCB has missed, in terms of video content, is the promotion part. It didn’t promote its videos effectively on Facebook and Twitter, where majority of engagement is happening for RCB. The YouTube Video section on Facebook page should have been nicely designed and a proper thumbnail should have been used.

Website

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Taking an exception, I will spend some time to talk about the website of RCB because it is where all the action happens. Unlike other teams, RCB has made a proper use of its website.

The website is the culminating point for all the social media efforts of RCB. It is where all the engagement happens through contests, debates, blog, forum, fan blogs, RCB Rewards, etc.

Conclusion

Social media activity of Royal Challengers Bangalore is a classic one. It has followed the dots and connected all of them to the website. Only thing missing from the mix is the interconnectedness of social media channels among themselves.