How Your Favorite Arena’s Compete On Social Media
What’s life without a little bit of competition? I mean, who doesn’t love a little healthy rivalry.
Now, if you are one of those people who is always like, “I see no competition.” You are living in la-la land.
Competition is inevitable.
Just think back to grade school when you wanted to be the line leader, so you raised your hand before the kid next to you so that you could be leading the class to lunch. You were competing with the kid next to you whether you thought you were or not.
Now that we are on the same page, let’s get into brand competitors.
It is defined as the rivalry between brands that offer similar services or products to the same target market audience.
These companies typically have the same goal to have a higher market share, increased revenues, increased profits, and more growth than others in the same industry.
Believe it or not, brand competition is occurring all the time all around us. It usually takes place in three different forms.
Some brands are in Direct Competition with other companies who offer the same product or service and are in the same target market.
An example of this would be McDonald’s and Burger or Apple and Samsung.
There is also Indirect Competition which is when companies who have similar products or services and target market compete but have different goals, strategies, and solutions.
For example, Subway and Domino’s are indirect competitors because even though they target hungry customers who want quick service at an affordable price, they offer different fast-food options.
Therefore, they have different goals and strategies.
The final form of brand competition is Replacement Competition which can be tricky because it’s when your consumer engages with another product instead of yours even though they were once loyal to you.
An excellent example of this would be a person who was previously a loyal digital camera consumer and now has replaced their camera with a smartphone instead.
Don’t worry. I’m guilty of this too.
WHEW! Now that we have gotten the boring stuff out of the way, we can have a little fun.
As an entertainment junky and loyal employee of the industry, I find myself often looking at competitors within the field. I always want to see what others in my industry are doing and how I can help my brand improve.
With that said, my current role as a Copywriter at Madison Square Garden has inspired me to analyze and investigate what our competitors are creating on social media.
Three competitors in particular that I currently stalk online are the STAPLES Center in Los Angles, California, the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, and the United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
Each of these companies is famous arenas in major cities and are home to NBA and NHL teams.
They also are known to host major events starring famous artists, comedians, actors, and more. These arenas have a similar target demographic that varies based on the event.
So, let’s break each of them down.
STAPLES Center — LA
The STAPLES Center is active on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They clearly have a good following on each of its platforms.
Their goals for social media seem to be to build brand awareness, drive traffic to their website, and grow revenue. You can tell this through the type of content they are producing.
They are consistent with their content on all pages by promoting upcoming shows, games, etc., which helps boost brand awareness.
They include links to their website, which shows they want to drive the consumer to their website and encourage them to make a purchase.
The types of content they post are typically promotional images, national holidays, and some promotional videos.
They are consistent with their branding with the same logo image as their profile picture. Their voice is the same across all of its platforms, informational with hashtags and emojis.
Even though they have a big following, their engagement is low, with inconsistent comments, likes, and shares on Instagram and Facebook. The engagement is low on YouTube as well, with an average of fewer than 500 views on most videos.
However, the high number of Facebook check-ins is proof that the arena is one of the most popular venues in the area.
In addition, their content is informational rather than relatable, which could explain why their engagement is low.
Amway Center — Orlando
The Amway Center is active on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They have a decent following across their platforms.
Their goals for social media appear to be similar to the STAPLES center, which is to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to their website and grow revenue.
This can be seen through their content that includes links to purchase, new job opportunities, and announcements for upcoming events.
The Amway Center is consistent with its branding on each of its platforms, with the same crowd photo header on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. On each page, they promote shows, jobs, events, etc.
The types of content they post are typically promotional images, post-concert pictures, job fairs, and some promotional videos.
Their social media presence and voice can be defined as fun and exciting. They use emojis, fun memes and often share birthday shoutouts to stars who are coming to the arena soon.
However, similar to the STAPLES center, they have a low engagement rate. Compared to their followers, they have little to no comments, likes, and shares across all of their platforms.
Even though they use emojis, their content is also informational rather than relatable and humanized, which could explain why their engagement is low.
Although most of their posts are consistent with images, hashtags, celebrity tags, and links to tickets, their audience is not motivated to engage with their content.
United Center — Chicago
The United Center is active on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. They have a solid following across their platforms.
The United Center is verified across all of its platforms, similar to Madison Square Garden. They have a different cover image on each platform, which shows that they treat each page differently.
The United Center’s goals for social media seem to be to build a sense of community, increase brand awareness, drive traffic to their website, and grow revenue.
You can tell this through the type of content they are producing. They include relatable content to encourage consumers to engage, links to push consumers to their website, and promotions to shows to grow revenue.
The types of content they post are typically promotional images, carousels, contests and giveaways, past show highlights, and promotional videos.
They are consistent with their branding with the same logo image as their profile picture. Their voice is the same across all of its platforms, conversational with celebrity tags and emojis.
The United Center also has higher engagement compared to the Amway Center and the STAPLES Center.
Their pages are more personable rather than only posting event flyers.
They also share videos of upcoming videos to boost engagement. This method seems to work for them on Instagram and Facebook, but not on YouTube since they are relatively short. This can be seen in the number of views on each platform for the same video.
The United Center also offers its audience incentives like jersey giveaways and tickets if they engage with their pages. This has proven to be effective based on their followers and engagement compared to the other venues.
With all of this in mind, I can use what is I’ve learned from each brand to help MSG improve its social media. Let the games begin!
Happy Competing!
