US news network ESPN works with Twitter to drive both the distribution and conversations about the articles and videos that it produces. Whether it's the ESPN staff editorials after a big game or new video snippets coming from the SportsCenter team, Twitter helps ESPN spread the conversation to people everywhere. With the’ Web Intents’ campaign, ESPN readers sent over 1,250 Tweets a day, resulting in 15 clicks per Tweet back to the site. The five ESPN Local sites also became one of the top local sports destinations for fans in each respective market.
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Brand: ESPN | Country: US | Sector: Broadcast | Objective: build brand engagement | Format: Twitter
Implementation
• For each article ESPN shows a visitor, they have implemented a scrolling/following sidebar that contains its Twitter sharing widget. As a user scrolls through an article, the container follows the position on the page. At any point, a user can click the Twitter bird logo to invoke a Tweet Intent to enable a customized sharing experience. A Tweet box with text pre-loaded by the ESPN editorial staff pops up, enabling a user to quickly share the news with their followers.
Each video ESPN hosts also contains a play/pause progress bar that also shows a Twitter logo that is powered by theTweet Intent technology. If a use wants to share the video, a simple click of the Twitter logo brings up another compose window with the suggested text of a Tweet from the ESPN team.
ESPN also has created customized MLB and NFL widgets for their site to show the Twitter conversation from its top writers. The widgets are powered by the Tweet, Follow, Retweet, and Favorite Intents. Users see the top Tweets from ESPN writers and can interact with them directly on the page.
Impact
Over a 30 day period, their website sent over 40,000 Tweets, averaging over 1,250 per day. 10% of all Tweets with ESPN links sent globally were generated using the Tweet Intent. During that same period, all Tweets that contained links to ESPN resulted in an average of 15 clicks back to the site.
From the ESPN Media Zone website:
• ESPN.com led the sports category in 2011 in average minute audience (77,000 users, up 10% vs. 2010) and with 3.3 billion total minutes per month.
• It captured 32 percent of all minutes spent with sports sites and averaged 41.8 million visitors per month (up 8%, comScore).
• Fans watched nearly 1.9 billion videos in 2011 (Adobe/Omniture), 39 percent of all sports-related video streams, up 41 percent (Adobe/Omniture) and 253 percent more than the streams of its closest competitor (Nielsen VideoCensus).
• The five ESPN Local sites are also among the top local sports destinations for fans in each respective market.
• At its two-year anniversary in April 2011, the sites on average collectively reached 8.7 million unique visitors and generated 77.2 million minutes per month (comScore unified measurement, Sep 2010-Mar 2011).
• 2011 saw the launch of Grantland.com, the new home for Bill Simmons featuring sports and pop culture content. In six months, it has attracted a loyal audience of nearly 2.3 million visitors who generate 27 million minutes per month.
