Indian Premier League and Social Media

India is a Cricket  Crazy country with millions of followers. Considering the recent cricketing seasons of the World Cup where India won the trophy and Indian Premiere League 4th edition, it has become quiet a case in itself. IPL being the biggest tournament in India and almost one of the biggest around the world, it was no surprise that they would use Social Media in order to increase the viewership.

These social media campaigns and activities of the different teams and the whole tournament managed to gain quite a lot of attention not only in india but also around the world. 

 

Online Streaming

The matches were broadcasted live on youtube,with youtube being their official sponsor during the 3rd edition of the ill,however for the 4th edition they switched to indiatimes.com which enjoyed more hits due to their additional features such as customizng features,match videos,highlights,score cards, etc and also due to the increase in internet users in 1 year.

 

Twitter

IPL made extensive use of twitter ,  where tweets were broadcasted LIVE on TV during the matches. It was a good strategy of reaching out to a credible mass where announcements were made regarding following & tweeting to the official twitter handle of IPL.

 

 

Facebook 

Facebook being the No. 1 Social Network in India, there is no doubt the IPL fanfare on Facebook was going to be any less. 25 Million users and and all of them interested in cricket, it was an interesting affair to see how the awareness increased. Infact the Live streaming & official website with facebook connect lead to a lot of impression on the network. The Universal “Like” button reached places which increased the reach and awareness for IPL.

 

 

 

Statistics

• The official IPL fan page on Facebook has 774,980 active fans.

• The Mumbai Indians (one of the IPL franchise teams), have more than 1.5 million fans.

• Cumulatively IPL and Teams (Official Fan Pages) have around 3 million fans on Facebook

• The number of views for IPL’sYoutube channel so far is 972,25,776. With 99,446 subscribers, the channel is the most subscribed channel in India.

• Indiatimes being the official channel managed to source 2,41,52,839 views only for its videos. No live streaming numbers have been recorded for the same

• The IPL account on Twitter has 68,052 followers. While all franchise teams cumulatively have 1,30,549 followers

• Celebrities like Shahrukh Khan and ShilpaShetty and cricketing figures like Shane Warne and HarshaBhogle also tweet to their thousands of followers about the IPL on a daily basis.

• #IPL is the top trending hashtag in India since day one of the IPL (almost all days)

 

With Youtube live streaming, Twitter broadcasting and Facebook integration, Social Media has had quiet an influence on  IPL. Clearly the hoopla is growing year on year and one can only expect a much greater version of the IPL  on Social Media So What do you guys think??