While ballparks around the country kicked off the 2011 season, MLB had its newly acquired Facebook skills on full display yesterday.
MLB continues to demonstrate a commitment to social media by innovating ways to deliver in-game content to fans using Facebook. Yesterday, MLB posted five of Opening Day’s biggest highlights for replay. Throughout spring training, MLB live streamed one game per day for free through its Facebook account – a feature that ended Wednesday.
My observations of MLB’s latest venture confirm two things:
- MLB understands the importance of “timing” when using social media. We live in a world where news is happening within minutes and seconds – not hours and days. Yesterday, MLB was uploading in-game highlights for replay on Facebook within the hour (on avg.) of the play happening in real-life.
- MLB understands the importance of “social” when using social media. This may sound like a no-brainer but unfortunately a lot of organizations forget this. Not MLB. By simply asking a question at the end of its in-game highlight Facebook post, MLB was able to garner 391 user comments and over 1,000 “likes” (as of 10:30pm EST last night).
Here’s an example:
Similar to its spring training live games, MLB did not allow full screen viewing of the in-game highlight videos. Clicking on the video took you to MLB.TV prompting you to sign up.
MLB still has a long way to go before winning any awards – by comparison, the NBA’s Facebook page received over 2,000 comments on only 6 posts yesterday! However, MLB’s efforts demonstrate a commitment to Facebook success and fans should expect to see a lot more innovation throughout the 2011 season.