Social Media Strategy - Pune Warriors India [IPL 5]

After starting IPL Season 5 with fabulous performances, Pune Warriors India (PWI) slipped into the dark alley of obscurity. At the time of writing, PWI had played 15 matches, out of which it has lost 11 and won 4. This dismal performance of the team has ruined the IPL party for Pune Warriors India fans and placed the team closer to the bottom of the leaderboard. The effect of the team’s performance can also be felt on the social media effort of PWI. In this article, we will analyze how effective has been the social media strategy of PWI and where it failed to make its mark.

Tools of Engagement

Pune Warriors India has its presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In the paragraphs below we will see the strength of its community and effectiveness of its social media campaign.

On Facebook

URL

At the time of writing, PWI had 132,649 numbers of fans out of which 8,684 were actively engaged with the page. On an average, PWI has secured 2,513 fans a week, but in the recent weeks the engagement has significantly gone down. On 14th April, slightly over 20,000 people were engaged with the page, which went down to 8,684, at the time of writing.

Branding of the page also has not been properly done. Through its cover image, PWI has tried to cash in on raw emotions and passion for the game, which goes with its name “warriors”.

The about section is under optimized, and thumbnail of app tabs could have been used in a far better way. Instead of Terms and condition tab, PWI should display Dada’s Army app tab. Even the vanity URL of the page is not proper. PWI should have removed .IPL from its name.

Nature of posts

In the recent weeks, the visual updates are mostly repetitive. This might have resulted in the reduced engagement with the page. PWI has hosted two contests – The Biggest Fan and Dada’s Army – but it has failed to capitalize on them. Images used in the updates related to these contests or otherwise are always the same, which might have created a perceptual blindness for the content shared.

PWI had a wonderful opportunity to use “Predict Today’s Line Up”, but it failed to capitalize on it by using the same image of “Dada’s Army” over and over again (see the update below)

Other updates were largely related to the ongoing match, which saw very little engagement.

The Facebook page of Pune Warriors India looks stale. It lacks the freshness, which is so common to the medium and inexpensive to get.

On Twitter

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Hash tags: #PWI, #GoPuneWarriors

The twitter page of PWI is nothing more than a live tweeting medium for the ongoing match with an occasion tweets about the contests they run. In total, PWI has 25,395 followers on Twitter.

The branding of the page is consistent with that of Facebook page, and as under-optimized as the Facebook Page. Unlike the teams I have reviewed in the series, the team has failed to make a proper use of the bio section, and the Twitter profile is not verified as well.

Although PWI is asking its fans to make use of its Hash tags to talk to the team, it has failed to properly use them. Engagement is minimal.

On YouTube

Channel URL

Pune Warriors has touched rock bottom in terms of YouTube usage. There has been no use of this medium, whatsoever, in the current season. Videos in the PWI channel are at least 1 year old. There has been no activity since May 03, 2011.

PWI has failed abysmally in YouTube usage. It has merely 49 subscribers and rarely any video has been viewed more than 100 times. The branding of the page is consistent with that of Facebook and Twitter.

Central Strategy and connecting thread

Apart from the branding, which is not appropriate, there is no connecting thread across social media channels. PWI has poorly used social media websites. It has failed to capitalize on the potential of the new media.

On its website as well, links to its social media profiles is not properly visible. One has to look real hard to find tiny greyed icons of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter towards the bottom end of the page.

Two contests that PWI hosts appear to be a connection between Facebook and Twitter, but the updates or information about contests are conspicuously missing from the website.

Pune Warriors India has also failed to use video as a medium to improve the engagement.

Conclusion

All in all, the social media performance of Pune Warriors India in IPL 5 is as disappointing as is its on-ground performance.