St. Louis Blues fans have a strong social media presence already. Now they can put it to good use to get more exposure for the team.
The St. Louis Blues are still a few days away from beginning their round-robin portion of the tournament. While the teams are getting their final practices in, the NHL has announced a partnership with Twitter and Disney.
In an effort to drive viewership and awareness of NHL broadcasts, Disney Streaming services will broadcast two-minute Live Look-Ins to various games during the NHL playoffs. Fans will get to choose which games those are.
St. Louis Blues fans might not have the same population numbers as New York or Chicago, but they have a strong social media game. That was not always true.
It used to boil down to cold, hard numbers. Then, Blues fans came alive over the past few seasons, especially in the playoffs, and now they tend to show up in droves for polls and forums and Twitter feeds.
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With that in mind, Blues fans can help the team out through this new initiative. The NHL is allowing fans to vote for two different Live Look-In games per night.
Blues fans can help get their team featured in these games if they bring out the vote.
Some fans might wonder why they should bother if they’ll just watch the full game on their TV. I wondered the same thing, but everything in today’s society is marketing in one way or the other.
If you vote for the Blues and they are featured in a Live Look-In game, that means it’s going out on a lot of Twitter feeds. Even if someone is not an NHL fan, they might see a sports event listed as a trending topic and want to check it out.
Since the look-ins only last two minutes, they have little to lose by seeing what it’s all about. Maybe they get hooked and want to watch the full game.
Perhaps the Blues have a really good game and that person starts following them. You never know when you might develop a life-long fan just from a random occurrence.
While it’s not apples to apples, we have all heard stories about people that didn’t like hockey until they went to a game and now love it. Maybe you pick up an extra fan or two through this new initiative.
"Starting August 1, for each subsequent week during the 2020 Stanley Cup Qualifiers™ and the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the NHL will select two game nights per week (schedule permitting) that will feature the Live Look-Ins on Twitter. On the days leading up to the selected dates, fans will be invited to vote for the game they’d like to see featured as the Live Look-In game via the NHL’s Twitter channel (@NHL). The NHL will announce the winning match up the morning of the game. During the Stanley Cup Conference Finals, a minimum of five games will be featured as Live Look-In games, while Live Look-ins of every game of the Stanley Cup® Final will be featured until the Stanley Cup® is raised."
If nothing else, it gets more people involved in game threads. The more people involved in the conversation, the more fun it can be.
Sure, you’ll get some knuckleheads that don’t know what they’re talking about. No offense, but even some of the longest tenured fans make some boneheaded comments on social media – I’m looking at all of you who blame the goalie right away.
As the playoffs go on, and we hope the Blues go further, the league will expand its Live Look-In coverage. The two minutes will always be a staple, but games will get more look-ins later on.
The round-robin, qualifiers and first round will only have the two-minute segment at the start of the first period and again at the start of the third. In round two, and all subsequent rounds, the NHL will broadcast the first two minutes of the first period and last two minutes of the third period.
The NHL and Disney Streaming Services will also partner to produce more highlight packages. The NHL is going to start doing a Top Twitter Moments as well.
This will feature some of the top tweets from “hockey personalities” and content partners. I think it would have been better for that to feature fan tweets, but it’s likely easier to censor any potential language on a post likely coming from a paid social media host.
If nothing else, we do get to see the Stanley Cup in Twitter form again. Fans using the #StanleyCup will see the best trophy in the world pop up on their feed.
It’s all fun and engagement from the NHL and the St. Louis Blues. Now, they just need to make it to the #StanleyCup Final and win the #StanleyCup a second time.