Objectives

Our goal was to make our fans feel like a human, not a robot, was running the account. We know that MLB superfans already follow us, so our objective this season was to bring in the casual and even non-baseball fans. To do this, we felt we needed to reinvent the game a little bit and make sure our content stood out from what people would expect a league account to produce. Filled with movie quotes, song lyrics and the occasional pop-culture meme, we exceeded even our own expectations.

Strategy and Execution

• Humor

  • We know that a common perception is that brands can’t be funny, and we certainly aimed to prove that notion incorrect. We hit our fans with unpredictable comedic captions, while attempting to capture the truly unique and potentially viral moments in a long baseball season. 

• Comments section and Interaction with fans

  • We also always find time to interact with our followers in the comments, so whether they’re trolling us or praising the account, it’s all fair game to us. Choosing the right comments to engage with to get maximum exposure is a big part of the game. An example would be: Fan comment “MLB I will give you $20 if you respond!” MLB: “We accept venmo.” This type of response tends to get attention within the comments and encourages fans to get in on the conversation within the conversation.

• Relevant topics driving content creation

  • For example, when Giannis Antetokounmpo won MVP for the Bucks this past season, we made a graphic of Giannis with Christian Yelich (MLBs 2018 MVP) titled Milwaukee's Best, this was a great way to bring our league into a conversation we usually wouldn’t be involved in. Similarly with Mike Trout’s 3rd MVP of the decade, we decided to compare his dominance to the other great athletes of the decade across various sports.

• Boutique accounts

  • To broaden our reach and create more focused communities on Instagram we launched several boutique accounts during the 2018 and 2019 seasons 

    • @PitchersNation, @GloveWork, @MLBVault, @MajorLeagueLife 

Results

MLB IG has the highest engagement rate of any of the sports league accounts at 2.7%, nearly double the next best sports league at 1.4%. (Statistics from Crowdtangle)