Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

MLB Season Preview

Teams Increasingly Make Video-Sharing App Vine Staple Of Social Media Initiatives

With MLB teams increasingly looking to up their social media game, Twitter’s year-old video sharing app, Vine, could be in for a big season in the sport. The app allows users to send a six-second, compiled video loop of different snippets in time. Since its debut, the app has become a staple of many sports teams’ social media arsenal due to its simplicity, ability to seamlessly show different moments around games and its propensity to produce viral content. Social media managers across the league are looking not only at ways to get more creative with the app, but potentially boost revenue with it as well. Royals Dir of Digital & Social Media Erin Sleddens said, “Since last season was really the first year in which Vine was available, it was kind of an experimental year with it.” Up to this point, overarching themes that many MLB teams have been using for Vines include highlighting off-the-field events, catching players in their pre-game routines such as batting practice and showing other behind-the-scenes moments. MLB’s official Vine account, for example, shared a Vine earlier this month in which a baseball was captured at landmarks all around Sydney ahead of the Dodgers-D-Backs series. The postcard feel of the video helped it become the league’s second most retweeted Vine.

SUPPLY & DEMAND
: Vine has become an ideal medium to share the behind-the-curtain scenes fans increasingly demand. Giants Dir of Social Media Bryan Srabian, who adopted Vine for the team right after its initial release, said, “That’s what has been the most popular way for us in capturing those moments that might be that one or two hours before the game, might be behind-the-scenes at Spring Training, might be a way for us to unveil a bobblehead or something else in the office.” Another attractive aspect of Vine for teams is that its videos are so short that, at six seconds, it appears to have hit a timing sweet spot in a world in which attention spans tend to be short. Yet another attractive aspect of Vine is its seeming penchant to elicit higher rates of social interaction. Srabian said that he has not specifically tracked interaction rates to see if one social medium has attracted more than others, but added Vine is “not only easy for us to upload and share; it’s easy for the fan to consume, so it would make sense that they have a higher rate.”

INTEGRATED PLANS: MLBAM Social Media Coordinator Erik Reitmeyer has been behind many of the league’s more popular Vine videos, including its viral first in which he took a baseball completely apart. He said now that Vine is becoming more of a mainstream app, the organization will be looking to further integrate it into MLB’s and teams’ homepages this upcoming season. He added, “This way, our fans that don’t have a Twitter or don’t have a Vine can still see our content.“ Sleddens predicted scripted Vines may be a theme this season and added of the Royals’ upcoming strategy, “We plan to continue to use it for creative storytelling, maybe personalized messages from players and other behind-the-scenes stuff to connect fans with the team.” Srabian said of the Giants’ plans, “There’s a huge opportunity in that it’s a very interesting kind of viewer that looks at Vine. There are a lot of different ways that you can tell a story on it, so we’ll go a little off brand and just experiment.”

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/31/MLB-Season-Preview/Vine.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/31/MLB-Season-Preview/Vine.aspx

CLOSE