WWE Makes Heavyweight Social Push for WrestleMania 29
The promotional campaign includes efforts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Pheed.
The promotional campaign includes efforts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Pheed.
Media and entertainment company WWE is making a heavy social push to engage wrestling fans in the week leading up to its WrestleMania 29 event on April 7 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
On Monday’s broadcast of Monday Night Raw, for example, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon officially joined Twitter. By Tuesday, he had 90,000 followers. According to WWE, McMahon will reward his followers by making a “big announcement” via Twitter on Friday. The announcement will be tagged #bigreveal.
In addition, WWE will host three interactive Hide and Tweet contests in the New York and New Jersey area, giving fans the opportunity to win tickets to sold-out events.
Starting Tuesday, @WWE’s 2.3 million followers can find clues revealing the whereabouts of tickets or enter WWE’s hashtag contest for a chance to win free online codes for the pay-per-view broadcast.
Tuesday’s #HideAndTweet clues led followers to WWE Diva Kaitlyn at Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J.
WWE has also named celebrity social media ambassadors, which it says will tweet from various events throughout the week. These celebrities include Charlie Sheen, Jimmy Fallon, Larry King, Seth Green, Perez Hilton, Piers Morgan, Michelle Beadle, Maria Menounos, Mike Tyson, Snooki, Lil Wayne and Jenny McCarthy.
What’s more, WWE will host an online Hospitality Center, offering real-time support to fans who post event-related questions to @AskWrestleMania.
On YouTube, WWE has posted “Coming Home,” or what it says is its first major WrestleMania crowdsourcing initiative and features photos sent by thousands of international fans who were encouraged to pose in front of landmarks and hold signs displaying their mileage from MetLife Stadium.
As of Tuesday — the same day it posted — it had about 300 views.
For WWE’s 11.7 million Facebook fans, its Superfan Showdown app lets players compete in interactive trivia challenges, polls and puzzles. Fans earn points, climb the leaderboard and accumulate WWE Cash, which can be used to purchase virtual goods like limited edition badges, rare Superstar trading cards and never-before-seen WWE video content.
And there’s plenty of streaming content to boot.
The WrestleMania 29 press conference at Radio City Music Hall will live stream on YouTube, Facebook and WWE.com on April 4. It will feature fan questions submitted via Twitter and answered by WWE Superstars like John Cena, The Rock, CM Punk and Triple H.
WWE will also host a live pre-show on April 7. In addition to the simulcasts on YouTube, WWE.com and Facebook, coverage will stream on Yahoo! and AOL. The online-only broadcast will feature a live WWE Twitter ticker and a text-in-to-win campaign that will award 30 fans with a trip to WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans.
WWE says it is streaming WrestleMania 29 across all Apple, Android and Windows 8 devices and Kindle Fire tablets. It will also be available on Xbox consoles and Samsung Smart TVs.
And in anticipation of WrestleMania 29, Yahoo! Screen and AOL have launched channels featuring video content of WWE Superstars.
WWE is also providing blogs and news sites an embeddable content widget that delivers news, photos and videos of events leading up to and through WrestleMania. And WWE says it will integrate Pinterest, Tumblr and Pheed into its WrestleMania 29 social media coverage as well.
In order for fans in attendance to access all of this content, WWE says it will bolster the amount of mobile bandwidth and access points at MetLife Stadium. That includes re-positioning Wi-Fi and cell antennas, providing ten times the bandwidth typically available at the stadium and adding new hardware and a mobile cell station.
A WrestleMania rep was not available for comment.