The Maple Leafs & #CokeZeroFansFirst Doing Social Media Right

With the NHL regular season kicking off today, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight an excellent social media promotion done during this pre-season by the Maple Leafs and Coca-Cola. I’ve been a huge Maple Leaf fan for as long as I can remember, and yes I know it’s been a while since they’ve done anything in the post-season. But that’s not the point of this post, and no I don’t need Habs or Sens fans commenting on the lack of Leaf playoff success in recent years, I get enough of that from my friends.

It seems like everywhere I turn online I’m reading about how social media is allowing companies and brands to leverage the communities built online to drive business. From large media companies like CNN‘s Twitter engagement to Starbucks and their Foursquare deals for Mayors. It seems just about everyone is trying to engage with consumers, partners, employees, and other key stakeholder through social media. Few do it right, and as we’ve seen by the latest firestorm over the new logo redesign by the GAP, it’s easy to have things go south in a hurry. Ironically, GAP is now appealing to those same people online who scolded them in the first place by attempting to crowdsource a potential new logo.

Sports and Social Media

Back in May I had the opportunity to attend SportsConnectTO, an event that brought together Toronto’s sports teams and the CFL to discuss how they are using social media to engage with fans. It was at that event that I had the opportunity to listen to @BigThinkerJon, or Jonathan Sinden talk about how his team at MLSE is engaging with fans through social media. While no one necessarily had the key to the war-chest of opportunity that social media presents, Toronto’s sports teams certainly take the new medium seriously.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to engage with the community online, and even the most simple initiatives or campaigns can produce great results and lasting impressions with customers. As I heard from the panel at SportsConnectTO, one common theme emerged, simply listening to fans on Twitter is something that they’ve really started to do. For instance, The Toronto Blue Jays always had fans curious as to whether or not ‘the Dome’ would be open or not. So they began to tweet about it before every game. Not groundbreaking, but certainly satisfying a number of fans who always want to know whether it will be open or not.

#CokeZeroFansFirst and The Toronto Maple Leafs

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, any Toronto sports fan knows how expensive and difficult it can be to get a reasonably priced Maple Leafs ticket. That’s why Coca-Cola introduced the Coke Zero Fans First Game to ‘recognize the outstanding support of Toronto’s fans’, by purchasing every seat in the building to a Maple Leaf pre-season game and giving tickets away through various promotions. The 2010 pre-season game was the third installment of this initiative by Coca-Cola and the Maple Leafs, and I was lucky enough to attend, all by answering a question that was posed on Twitter.

Why @BigThinkerJon Has This Social Media Thing Figured Out

As I combed through my Twitter stream in late September, I came across a post by @BigThinkerJon asking a simple question about “How was Twitter changed ur Sports watching experience?”

Of course, being the Leafs fan I am, I immediately answered. Sure enough I won three tickets to the Leafs v. Sens Coke Zero Fans First pre-season game. Even though it was only a pre-season game I was pretty pumped, and to top it off there was going to be a two hour tailgate party before the game, and who doesn’t love a tailgate party?! For the next few days I tweeted about my tickets, told my friends and family, had a blast at the game (even though the Leafs played terrible), and continued to spread the word of my experience at the game after it was all said and done. There’s no doubt Coke got their money worth out of the campaign, and it’s through initiatives like a Twitter contest, that truly brought this fan closer to the teams, players, and personalities that we watch on TV most nights of the year. The amount of impressions on Twitter that Coca-Cola received for that week was no doubt through the roof. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I saw the word ‘Pepsi’ on my Twitter stream, and every time I think about the Maple Leafs, the #CokeZeroFansFirst hashtag flashes in my mind. Brilliant!

I just wish the Maple Leafs would hold a tailgate before every game on Saturday. Maybe if we tweet at BigThinkerJon enough we can get MLSE to open up the war-chest a throw a few more of those parties in that shiny, new Maple Leaf Square!