by Sam Laird on Mashable
Behind strong pushes on Twitter and YouTube, WWE Wrestlemania XXVIII laid the smack down on social media last weekend, teaching a digital engagement lesson to the sports entertainment world.The five-hour pay-per-view broadcast at one point had seven of the top nine worldwide trending topics on Twitter. It generated 110 worldwide trends over the show and pre-show’s five hour period, according to Jason Hoch, WWE’s senior vice president of digital.
“We thought the week was a blast, and it was really special to hear from fans over and over just how awesome it was,” Hoch says. “It was really special for us to see fans connecting with our brand in a unique way.”
WWE reps shared a number of other Wrestlemania social stats, exclusive to Mashable:
A partnership with YouTube to deliver Wrestlemania content gained a total of more than 3.9 million views for the week surrounding the event.
Despite being a pay-per-view broadcast, Wrestlemania was TV’s most socially engaged program on April 1, according to Trendrr.
The hashtag #Wrestlemania was mentioned more than 610,000 times on April 1.
The high level of social engagement delivered record traffic to WWE.com, and a 30% increase over traffic during Wrestlemania the year before.
WWE streamed a kick-off press conference a few days before the event on YouTube and WWE.com, as personalities answered questions submitted by fans via Twitter. Stars including The Rock, John Cena and Triple H also posted original webisodes to the YouTube homepage during the week. The Rock and Cena complemented their in-ring bout with a “Twitter Face-off”, in which they got fans to battle for tweet supremacy using the hashtags #Cenation and #TeamBringIt. Mike Tyson served as Wrestlemania’s “social media ambassador,” delivering fans behind-the-scenes access through social networks.
“This isn’t a one-off for us,” Hoch says. “This is just continuing to build on the foundation we’ve created.”
WWE ranks among the sports world’s digital leaders. Its Facebook page boasts more than 8 million fans, which Hoch says trails only the NBA on that network. The @WWE Twitter account has more than 1 million followers, and stars such as Cena and The Rock have become huge online as well.
Hoch believes Wrestlemania’s social success this year will have a ripple effect on other organizations.
“To me, it raises the bar for a lot of other players out there,” he says. “We’ve learned a lot from things like the Super Bowl and Grammys, and I think our holistic approach this year really raised the bar for a lot of organizations. But it’s just the start for us.”
