Quinn Wilson

MIT 3373G 651

Professor Michael Stasko
March 19, 2015
Toronto Blue Jays Social Media Case Study
Rogers Communications is one of the largest communications and media
conglomerates in Canada with their biggest competition being Bell Media. Rogers
Communications founded by Edward Rogers in 1925 started out as a single radio
station, but it quickly acquired other platforms. In 1960, Ted Rogers founded
Rogers Radio Broadcasting Ltd, and the company grew exponentially from there.
Today, Rogers Communications is active in broadcasting (radio and television),
publishing, sports entertainment, cable television, retail, and wireless internet. The
company earns approximately $12-13 billion dollars a year in revenue; a large
contributor to this revenue is the Toronto Blue Jays.
Rogers Communications bought the Toronto Blue Jays for $160 million in
2000. The Blue Jays are a Major League Baseball (MLB) team who play out of
Toronto, Ontario. The Blue Jays belong to the East Division of the MLB and play all
of their home games at the Rogers Centre. The teams leading players are Jose
Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Reyes and newly acquired, Russell Martin. The
team operates with a forty man roster, with twenty-five active players. The Blue
Jays manager is John Gibbons.

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Figure 1

The Toronto Blue Jays have a strong social media presence on social
media platforms that are deemed appropriate for the organization. They are
present on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google +, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram
and e-mail. Along with the official team having social media accounts, many of the
players themselves have their own personal social media accounts that the team
leverages. Figure one demonstrates the teams top social media platforms
followers. Facebook has the most with over one million, followed by Twitter with
over 665,000 followers. Figure 2 demonstrates the Blue Jays social media

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clubhouse where fans can access the players twitter handles and the rest of the
teams accounts.

Figure 2

The Toronto Blue Jays Facebook page is, by far, their strongest account, as
it is thoroughly set up, consequently, has plenty of followers. Their Facebook page
posts on average 2-4 times daily,
and offers a wide range of posts
such as current contests they are
holding, current happenings, play
statistics and information and
relevant player headlines. A lot of

Figure 3

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detail has gone into producing the page to benefit the fans. All the major
milestones the team has achieved since being founded in 1977 are on their
Facebook timeline.
Photos and content that is posted is done in a professional manner, and all
social media accounts maintain the same language to preserve consistency across
the brand. The social media accounts do an excellent job at keeping their cover
photos, profile pictures etc. up to date with relevant information and happenings.
For example, the Blue Jays spring training is taking place right now; therefore, the
company has their spring training logo up on display (Figure 2).
Each social media platform is specific with their content. For example,
Facebook users are more likely to click through to a link posted as opposed to
Instagram users. Instagram users typically use the application to view photos and
read concise, descriptive words. Google+ users are more inclined to read longer
posts. A downfall of the Blue Jays social media is that they usually post the same
content across all platforms at the same time. If they wanted the different
audiences and a broader appeal/outreach, they should at varying times be posting
different stories and content per each social network. While, the main posts should
go on each channel, there should be certain posts specific to each network. For
example, most of their Instagram and Facebook posts have very similar captions
yet shortened on Instagram. The Blue Jays Facebook posts are usually paired
with a link for fans to click through to a different website to read more about a
certain story, contest or player information.

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The current demographic for the Toronto Blue Jays are males 35 and over;
therefore, in order to expand their reach, the organization should attempt to target
younger fans since the younger generation are the ones using social media the
most. Individuals 18 25 are the most active on all social networks. In order to
target the younger generations of fans, the Blue Jays should be leveraging their
sports broadcasting websites that display players stats and game scores.
Snapchat would also be a good option to expand their reach with younger fans.
For example, videos of game action could be shared on Snapchat, along with,
intriguing behind the scenes footage.
Moreover, the Toronto Blue Jays produce a yearlong hashtag across all of
their social media networks to engage the fans; this year the hashtag is
#cometogether. Fans and players use this hashtag to discuss the games, players,

Figure 4

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and baseball news. The Blue Jays most popular players on social media are: Jose
Bautista, Daniel Norris, Marcus Stroman, Josh Donaldson and R.A. Dickie. They
consistently engage their fans and post updates about the team; combined the
players have 1,016,200 million followers.
The Toronto Blue Jays have a large number of big name corporate partners,
such as Labatt, Pizza Nova, Home Hardware and Honda. If the companies were to
leverage, each other they would be able to get a larger reach across different
networks.
For the Blue Jays to improve their social media they could partner with
Home Hardware and produce a contest for fans to enter. The Blue Jays and Home
Hardware could have individuals enter to win a man cave makeover which could
be built with Home Hardware supplies and have Blue Jays merchandise within the
space. By putting together a campaign such as this, not only would the Blue Jays
be promoting the contest, but also Home Hardware would be on their own social

Figure 3

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accounts. The Home Hardware campaign would reach a different audience than
the Blue Jays regularly do. Below are some basic sample posts put together that
companies could use on their pages.
Additionally, since the Blue Jays are a large and wealthy corporation their
funds allow them to produce more costly campaigns and they are able to send their
fans to certain events. Annually, the Blue Jays hold a contest to send a few lucky
fans to watch the Blue Jays Spring Training in Florida. In order to attract some
younger fans or to make the contests more interactive and to leverage their
corporate partners, the corporation could produce an app for this type of contest.
For example, Osheaga, which is an Indie music festival, held in Montreal, Quebec
just released the line up for their festival in an interactive way. The company
partnered with Verizon Wireless and produced a game for fans to download for
free on the App store. Fans had to collect coins and points within the game and the
top four scorers would win free festival passes, but the catch of the game is that
with every level you passed, the fans would be able to see various artists
preforming at the festival. Figure 4 demonstrates what the game looked like. The
Blue Jays could do something similar with their fans and corporate partners and
develop an app that fans can play and the ones with the highest scores could win a
weekend in Florida for Spring Training. By developing an app, this will help target a
different fan base and hopefully gain a different, expanded audience.

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Figure 5

Finally, to further improve their social media outreach, the team could
engage their top players who are on social media in various social campaigns. For
example, most recently on the Blue Jays Instagram they did a scavenger hunt
and a fan had to go find a players bobble head to win tickets to a game. To
expand this idea, the Blue Jays players, for instance, Daniel Norris, would host a
day long scavenger hunt for the fans to participate in, and the winners would get a
set of tickets. By doing contests such as these, you are engaging the Blue Jays
organization, the Blue Jays players, the fans, and providing a game experience. It
is highly engaging for the participants and will gain attention across many social
platforms.

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The Toronto Blue Jays have an overall, strong social media presence on
most platforms and do a good job leveraging different aspects of the organization.
This case study presents a few different scenarios in which the company could
reach a different audience or improve their outreach. Social media is a consistently
growing network of applications that more and more companies are using to
promote their companies with because fans can talk interact with the brand and the
organization.