How the Champion San Francisco Giants Scored with Social Media

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the corporate offices of the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Tucked away inside AT&T Park, it is the homebase of the Giant’s organization and their director of social media, Bryan Srabian. I sat down with Bryan and Cory O’Brien from Swirl Integrated Marketing to discuss how they worked together to integrate social media for the first time during the exciting 2010 MLB season. You can listen to the 30 minute interview is below.

Interview w/ Director of Social Media for the San Francisco Giants by secretsushi

Some insights from the interview:

• The Giants relied on Swirl (their agency, not an app) to help them explore their initial strategy and provide guidance when they first started
• Bryan worked with Cory and the Swirl team to first listen and identify what fans were already saying and doing on the social web before diving in
• They chose two of the most active social networks, Facebook & Twitter, to focus their limited resources on
• They used social media content, such as photos of things happening in real-time, to share the experience of being at the game
• Bryan and others at the Giants organization do the lion’s share of monitoring and fan engagement themselves
• Engaging with fans in real-time using social media keeps the Giants directly on the pulse of what fans are thinking
• Twitter has become an essential tool to engage hardcore fans who use it as an information source for photos, links to stories, announcements, etc
• Social media is used as an extension of their existing traditional marketing efforts
• They shared unique offers and hosted special events marketed via Twitter so they could track its success separately from other marketing efforts
• Swirl and Bryan worked together to adjust their game plan to fit within MLB regulations
• Bryan is a big fan of the Giants and he allows it to shine through when he engages fans

Follow the San Francisco Giants on Twitter, Facebook, or check out their website to see what they are up to as they get ready for the 2011 MLB season.

Who is your favorite sports team and do they use social media to interact with fans? How are they getting fans excited and engaged? Let us know in the comments.