April 4, 2012 By Sam Laird on Mashable
Spring is in the air and Major League Baseball season is officially underway. Hot dogs, beer and lazy days at the ballpark are on tap for the next several months. But how do the game’s players, teams and leagues stack up on the social web?
The social media agency Banyan Branch spent the offseason from October through March collecting Twitter and Facebook data to see who dominates baseball’s digital conversation.
Not surprisingly, the agency found that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox — high profile teams in major East Coast markets — rank highest in online popularity. The Yankees have nearly 6 million followers and fans on Facebook and Twitter, while the BoSox come in second with almost 4 million. The Philadelphia Phillies, however, have the most Twitter followers with aronnd 680,000.
Which teams are most active on Twitter? The San Francisco Giants lead the league with 18,000 all-time tweets. The Seattle Mariners come in second with 16,000 posts and the Toronto Blue Jays third at 13,000.
Among free agents this offseason, megastar Albert Pujols commanded the most online buzz with 35,000 Twitter mentions. Prince Fielder, Jose Reyes and the Japanese MLB newcomer Yu Darvish also inspired a ton of tweets.
Yankee Nick Swisher is Banyan Branch’s “Most Valuable Tweeter” with nearly 1.5 million followers. Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson has him beat by a longshot for actual tweeting, though. He comes in at 13,000 posts, compared to Swisher’s 1,200.
Check out the infographic below for the full picture of baseball’s social media landscape.
Who are your favorite baseball Twitter follows? Let us know in the comments.
Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=652260
Sorce of article: Mashable
