The San Francisco Giants are a team like no other. They march to their own beat and don’t let others influence them. They certainly represent and embody the city of San Francisco very well. The Giants use this same approach when it comes to social media.
There are several sports teams out there that do not like their athletes using social media and even refrain them from doing so. The Giants see it as a way to interact with fans and let their athletes get closer to the fans. During the 2012 season, the Giants organization made use of Twitter to try and get guys voted onto the All-Star team. Through the use of hashtags like “kungfupanda”, the campaign was quite the success. Pablo Sandoval ended up winning a starting spot over New York Mets third basemen David Wright. San Francisco, with a population of 800,000, was able to outvote New York City which has a population of 8 million. The use of Twitter is only a glimpse into what Srabian has done with social media.
Srabian described the way teams were marketed in the past as “corporate”. They had the feeling of a “30 second commercial format” and he wanted to change that. Srabian wanted to make the overall feel younger and more energetic in order to draw in younger fans. Knowing that social media was a major opportunity to reach these younger fans, Srabian jumped at it. For an example, Giants athletes appeared on a Youtube video with “Youtube sensation” Keenan Cahill that has nearly 3 million views. It has even been played on the scoreboard at their stadium for all of the fans to enjoy.
Srabian knows that he must go above and beyond to make sure the fans have access to the athletes and social media. This is why their stadium, which is one of the nicest in the MLB, has Wi-Fi capability for 12,000 people. This allows fans to go from being just spectators, to participants. By instagraming pictures from the game, they are sending virtual post cards to every one of their followers. These fans are creating their own stories and the Giants are capitalizing and engaging with them. All of these things help to create an atmosphere like no other. While I am writing this right now all I can think about it being at a game. Enjoying a nice cold beer, eating some garlic fries, and watching classic Giants “torture” baseball sounds just amazing. It is Srabian that has created this overwhelming atmosphere and it is the reason why Giants home attendance is back at the top of the league.