Social Media Strategy › Case study – Super Bowl Social Media Command Center Social Media Strategy › Summary

15.9 Case study – Super Bowl Social Media Command Center They sent tweets about handy downloads for watching the game and also posted useful information
about things such as open Wi-Fi networks in the stadium.

15.9.1 One-line summary The team managed to identify and respond to several safety issues even before the official
organisers knew about them. They were also ready with a crisis communication plan in case of a
The organisers behind the Super Bowl, the most watched sporting series in the world, used social large-scale emergency.
media to monitor and manage massive crowds.

15.9.4 The results

15.9.2 The problem
The overall campaign was a huge success. Sentiment about the Super Bowl had a positive to
Social media monitoring isn’t just for brands and products – it can be just as useful during live negative ratio of 3 : 1 (It’s unusual to see one higher than 2 : 1). The Command Center also
events. Take the Super Bowl, for example. It’s one of the most watched sporting events in the achieved a daily average of 3 500 retweets and 2 500 Twitter favourites or Facebook Likes. They
world, with over 100 million viewers. It’s also a massive real-world event, where 150 000 people even managed to beat the National Football League’s Klout score!
crowd the city of Indianapolis for the day.
The potential benefits of a system like this are great – from better public safety and smoother
crowd management, to branding and social engagement.

15.9.3 The solution Simply monitoring what people say can provide an incredible amount of useful, immediate
feedback – something that’s essential in this fast-paced digital world (Laird, 2012).
In order to monitor and manage these massive crowds, organisers came upon the idea of creating
a ‘Social Media Command Center’, and hired a team from communications company Raidious to
handle it. Working out of an office in the city centre, a big team of strategists, data analysts and
volunteers monitored social media conversations for two weeks before and during the event. Their
15.10 Summary
motto was ‘monitor, moderate, publish’.

Social media can be used strategically in a number of marketing and communication challenges:
The command centre monitored around 300 keywords from Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube and
a series of Twitter hashtags. They responded, gathered data, and kept track of sentiment and
• Community management
congestion, reaching about 49 000 people in the area. Through retweets and shares, they reached
around 1 million impressions a day. In total, that translates to about $3.2 million in marketing • Support and customer service
value. • Reputation management

The team focused on responding to fans who needed advice or help while attending the event. For • Search engine optimisation
example, they sent out links to parking information to drivers stuck without a spot.
• Communication and outreach

• Advertising and awareness

• Sales and lead generation

• Insights and research

Creating a social media strategy requires careful planning, and a strong foundation that will allow
you to be dynamic.

Figure 10. A Tweet giving Super Bowl fans information on parking.

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 Social Media Strategy › Summary Social Media Strategy › References

The steps to creating a social media strategy include: 15.11 Case study questions
• Get buy-in 1. How would you describe the link between social media strategy and the social customer?
• Understand the landscape 2. How would you advise the strategists in the Social Media Command Center to respond to a
very unhappy fan?
• Analyse
3. How would you define a keyword in this context?
• Set objectives

• Create an action plan

15.12 Chapter questions
• Implement
1. What are some of the pitfalls of engaging difficult customers on social media platforms?
• Track, analyse, optimise!
2. What skills do you think are important for a great community manager to have?

3. Should all brands be active in social media spaces? What brands have less to gain from
trying to create an online community?

15.13 Further reading

www.socialmediaexaminer.com – Social Media Examiner offers practical advice, tips and
strategies for engaging on social media.

socialmediatoday.com – Social Media Today offers news, insights and analysis of social media trends.

15.14 References
Center, P. R., 2013. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. [Online]
Available at: http://pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2013/PIP_SocialMediaUsers.pdf
[Accessed 11 April 2013].

Get Satisfaction, 2013. Get Satisfaction. [Online]

Available at: https://getsatisfaction.com/
[Accessed 11 April 2013].

Figure 11. The steps involved in a social media strategy. Godin, S.,2010. On self determination. [Online]
Available at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/03/on-self-determination.html
[Accessed 16 May 2013].
Social media is a vital strategic consideration for any brand. Whether your organisation is actively
involved in social media or not, your consumers are. If nothing else, this means that there is Laird, S., 2012. Super Bowl’s First Social Media Command Center an ‘Enormous Success’. [Online]
market data available to you, if you just take a little time to find it. Available at: http://mashable.com/2012/02/07/super-bowl-social-media-command-center/
[Accessed 7 May 2013].
Organisations that make a considered move in the social media sphere will find it both challenging
and rewarding. The rapid feedback loop can often change preconceptions or even marketing plans, Nielsen, 2012. Social Media Report 2012: Social Media Comes of Age. [Online]
as the voice of the customer is amplified through social media. However, the collaboration with Available at: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2012/social-media-report-2012-social-
passionate customer stakeholders is extremely rewarding. media-comes-of-age.html
[Accessed 11 April 2013].

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