The Braves drew more than 20,000 fans in total to its Aug. 14 "#BravesBash," a wide-ranging social media effort involving interaction between players and fans on a variety of digital platforms. A live streaming event on the club's Facebook page drew more than 13,000 fans, while a crowd of more than 2,200 listened in to a conference call with broadcaster Jim Powell and a series of players. More than 100 Skype video calls between fans and players were made and received, including one with the MLB Fan Cave, while more than 3,000 individual tweets were sent out with the #BravesBash hashtag. The total reach for the #BravesBash event on Twitter, compiled by multiplying the number of tweets by the number of followers those tweets reached, was 438,993. Braves Exec VP/Sales & Marketing Derek Schiller said the club plans to revive #BravesBash next year. "We believe this was successful enough and we learned enough that we'll want to do it again," Schiller said. "We're really pleased with how many people engaged with us, and what really made it work was having the participation of players and having all of these channels going on at once. If it was just Twitter or just Skype or what have you, I don't think it would have worked nearly as well." #BravesBash was also positioned as a fundraiser for the Atlanta Braves Foundation, and the final tally for that is still being compiled as several merchandise auctions part of the effort remain live this week.
