Over the past couple of blogs, we have been championing the use of Facebook as a way to get businesses to higher levels of popularity. Needless to say, social networking websites are all the rage these days, as they seem to be the go-to destinations for most people who are looking to communicate with others across the globe.
Used for both personal and business reasons, Facebook has helped individuals become quite popular. Twitter isn’t much different. In fact, the more followers one has on Twitter, the more that person is considered a success story. Just a couple of days ago, business reporter Morgan Campbell of The Toronto Star wrote an article detailing how Twitter has helped Toronto Blue Jay star, Jose Bautista take his career to the next level.
Baseball fans are well aware that Bautista took his career to new heights just a couple of seasons ago when he set the Major League Baseball record for most home runs in the 2010 season – he hit 54! His 43 homers hit in the 2011 season was enough to make him the league leader two years in a row.
However, as Campbell pointed out in his article, Bautista has just made his way on to Bloomberg and Business Week’s “Power 100 Athletes” list. And apparently, it isn’t just his home run count that has placed him 74th overall on the prestigious list. David Newman is the VP of analytics at the marketing research firm, CSE who helped research the rankings. He insists that Bautista’s dedication to social media helps to set him apart from other pro athletes.
“I follow Joey Bats on Twitter,” mentioned one of our esteemed Synergy sales reps today – also a big Blue Jays fan. Referring to Bautista’s twitter moniker (@JoeyBats19), our rep is a perfect example of how fans are able to enjoy learning more about their favourite athletes. They hear from them directly on Twitter.
Campbell points out that Bautista is nearing 150,000 followers on Twitter and is in and around the 55,000 “like” mark on Facebook. Said Newman: “Social media is such an essential extension of the brand and that connection with the sponsor. That’s why it was so critical to see what kind of (crowd) is following a particular athlete.”
It goes without saying that Bautista is one of Canada’s most well-known baseball players mainly for being a star on the Toronto Blue Jays. His superstar status was perhaps, cemented this past Monday when it was announced that he would be gracing the cover of the Canadian edition of the new Sony baseball video game, “MLB ’12: The Show.”
Fans caught wind of this a couple of weeks ago when Bautista tweeted that a surprise announcement was coming following a photo shoot for the video game. Clearly, tweeting is helping Bautista’s reign as baseball hero, especially in Toronto. Fans may also follow Toronto Blue Jays Ricky Romero (@RickyRo24) and catcher J.P. Arencibia (@jparencibia9) on Twitter. Congrats Joey Bats!
