IndyCar Sees More Twitter Integration, Hashtags, Driver Engagement in 2012

IndyCar fans can expect Twitter handles on race broadcasts, much stronger at-the-track Twitter presence and a set of event-specific hashtags in the 2012 race season.

The series is also trying to provide teams with resources and expertise required to engage fans through expanding social media avenues including Twitter.

Twitter, launched in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey (@Jack), spent its early years as a curiosity. By 2010 the use of Twitter had come to IndyCar. The response to early adoption by some IndyCar Twitter pioneers ranged from tepid to skeptical. (My five-part series on the rise of Twitter in IndyCar from January 2011 starts here.)

Today Twitter is growing at an amazing pace with half a billion registered profiles, 100 million in the USA alone. As of February 2012, Twitter users were sending a combined 175 million 140-characters-or-less "tweets" every day, with the most popular events like the Super Bowl generating tens of thousands of tweets per second.

Twitter has also proved to be extremely popular among people with a specific interest, such as sports. In IndyCar and NASCAR most drivers have Twitter accounts, along with journalists, bloggers and fans, all interacting with each other. Danica Patrick paces the field in NASCAR with more than 500,000 followers. Rubens Barrichello, F1 veteran who will drive in IndyCar this year, has more than 1.5 million followers. (What are "followers" and how does Twitter work? Learn more here.)

Kate Guerra (@kateguerra4), public relations coordinator and manager of social media for IndyCar (@IndyCar), said last week NASCAR (@NASCAR) may have made a big social media splash in Daytona, but IndyCar also recognizes the value of social media like Twitter to engage fans and has been building its Twitter efforts since late last season.

Guerra said last fall IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard (@RBINDYCAR) and COO Mark Koretzky “said to me we want you take over our social media and we really want you to just go for it. We want you to do anything you can to help us out. We want you to reach out to everybody in our atmosphere -- teams, drivers, sponsors, tracks, local social media influencers and more. We set goals where we want to be every month.”

Guerra said she was a little surprised at the attention generated by Brad Keselowski (@Keselowski) tweeting from the track during a red flag period at the Daytona 500.

“I believe the exact same thing would happen if it was an IndyCar race,” Guerra said. “Someone who has a lot of personality like Hinch (@Hinchtown) would have pulled out the phone and started cracking jokes, so I don’t feel like (the Daytona 500 tweeting) really pushed teams and drivers over the edge (re: using social media). But at the same time it stirred a movement in our fans they started asking questions.”

IndyCar has four primary social media thrusts planned for 2012.

First, more integration of Twitter handles into race broadcast. Guerra said after she saw how SPEED integrated Twitter handles into graphics during the Rolex 24, she met with producers for ABC and NBC Sports who were very willing to do something similar on all IndyCar broadcasts.

Second, Guerra hopes to create “hashtag communities” for each race. “Hashtags” are words or phrases that start with a “#” and are inserted into tweets that serve as links to all tweets that include the same tag. For example, leading up to and during the IndyCar race at St. Petersburg, tweets that include the event hashtag -- #gpstpete – will be collected under that tag. By clicking on the hashtag in your Twitter stream, you’ll go to a listing of all tweets that contain that hashtag.

“They really create a sense of sense of community,” said Guerra. “People who click on a hashtag see everything anyone is sharing on it and at the same time see who is sharing their opinions. It’s really a great place for IndyCar fans to interact with each other about whatever certain event we have going on. Hashtags were something that were asked for and demand by our fans. They are out there now and have been shared with our teams and drivers and tracks. It’s almost like creating a forum, but it’s on Twitter which is such a user-friendly medium.”

Third, IndyCar and Guerra continue to offer help and guidance to teams and drivers who want to up their game on Twitter. In that regard, Bernard invited Omid Ashtari from Twitter to speak to teams and drivers during the State of IndyCar meetings last month.

Guerra said Ashtari’s talk stirred many inquires of her from teams looking to increase the effectiveness of their use of Twitter. Guerra expects Ashtari to be involved in talks with IndyCar's television partners on ways to best optimize the use of Twitter during broadcasts.

Guerra said she checks with teams frequently to ask how they are doing on social media and offer any advice and support she can. "It's us (IndyCar) telling them (teams) that this is something we are serious about and something that we want you to be serious about," said Guerra, "but at the same time I don't think we have to tell them that. They know how influential it is and they are becoming more aware of how much they need to use it and what it can do to benefit themselves and also the fans that follow them."

Teams and drivers are also starting to incorporate their Twitter handles into their uniforms, car paint schemes and more. Examples include the Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing hauler that features a HUGE “@SFHRindy” on the side to EJViso (@EJViso) doing things to rapidly increase his Twitter followers.

Fourth, IndyCar is trying to increase its at-the-track Twitter presence. “I feel like the second people step onto a track they should be absolutely surrounded by everything social media,” said Guerra. “Whether in our fan village or at autograph sessions when there are massive lines and people playing on their phones. All the name plates we have and use for autograph sessions will have the driver’s twitter handle right underneath the name. It’s little things like that that people tend to underestimate that I feel like could make a huge difference.”

Guerra said drivers and teams appear convinced that Twitter is a legitimate and growing way to connect to fans. “I really feel they just want IndyCar to be more popular, and of course they want their driver to become more popular through that,” Guerra said.

The newness of IndyCar this season also gives drivers an opening to reintroduce themselves to fans. “It’s almost a new sport,” she said. “There’s so much new -- with the car, with the engines, with some new drivers -- they may want to rebrand themselves and really make this a reintroduction to the sport this season. Nobody has said that specifically, but I really feel they really want to grow and help us grow.”

Guerra also said for some drivers and teams the maturation of Twitter has changed their view of it from novelty to important tool for connecting with fans. In that area she said racing has an inherent advantage over many sports.

Racing can take fans virtually onto the track with tweets minutes before the drivers get into their cars, whereas athletes in sports like the NFL and NBA can't get fans so close to the field of play, she said.  Nor do you get into the "locker room" -- which in racing equates to the garage area -- in other sports.

Growing familiarity and awareness of Twitter may also encourage more frequent and meaningful use by drivers, Guerra said. Whereas when Twitter was very new, it may not have occurred to drivers to tweet something, now that it is more familiar drivers may think to share interesting things in their lives more often.

And Keselowski’s tweet, while maybe nothing that an IndyCar driver wouldn’t have done, certainly gave everyone a case study in the power of Twitter. By tweeting from his car during a raging jet dryer fire and immediately after a race-ending accident, Keselowskyi’s follower count ramped from about 66,000 before the race to more than 200,000 after the race.

Race car drivers' nature may also help fuel Twitter growth. A driver who has half the followers of another may feel the need to pick up the pace. "As you well know, drivers are a very competitive breed," Guerra said. "So, yeah, it's even a little bit of that I feel. I haven't heard any Oh, man, let's see who can get to 50,000 followers first,' but maybe it's something I could push needle on."

Guerra said she and others are determined that IndyCar will also ride the wave of Twitter s well. “It’s definitely something I am working very hard on,” she said, “something that is very important to me. It has always been a dream of mine ever since I realized I wanted to work in sports that I handle a league’s social media.”

2012 IndyCar Race Official Hashtags

Event	Hashtag (#)
Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (@GPSTPETE)	gpstpete
Honda Indy Grand Prix of AL (@BarberMotorPark)	HIGPA
Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach (@ToyotaGPLB)	TGPLB
Sao Paulo Indy 300 (@IndyemSaoPaulo)	saopauloindy
Indianapolis 500 (@IMS)	Indy500
Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix (@DetroitGP)	detroitgp
Firestone 550K (@TXMotorSpeedway)	Texas550
Milwaukee Indy Fest (@MKE_IndyFest)	indyfest
Iowa Corn Indy 250 (@IowaSpeedway)	Iowa250
Honda Indy Toronto (@HondaIndy)	hondaindy
Edmonton Indy (@edmontonindy)	Edmontonindy (might shorten)
Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio (@followmidohio)	midohio
Streets of Qingdao	Indychina (might change to add creativity)
Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma (@InfineonRaceway)	IGPS
Baltimore Grand Prix (@BaltimoreGP)	BGP2012
Auto Club Speedway (@ACSupdates)	TBD

 

 

Comments

[S0CSeven]

I'm sorry, but by eyes just glazed over.

I suppose I'm now atypical of what the average fan is supposed to be. I don't want to tweet, chirp, fart or phone the ex-wife during a race. I just want to watch the race.

Randy, if you want to enhance my viewing experience do the following:

Reduce the number of commercials by 75%. Nothing but nothing ruins the continuity of a race like having more commercial time than race coverage. I didn't think it was possible to ruin a race like ABC does to Indy until I saw this years FOX commercialfest at Daytona.

Accept that race coverage is a good thing.

Pit stops are NOT race coverage. I've seen a tire change before. Once is enough. Lets watch fighting for position, driving skill & all that.

Interviews with wives, the neighboring farmer, blimp pilots, and assorted other trash are also NOT race coverage. It's just crap that interrupts the on-track flow. Save it for the pre-race show.

On the last lap, when 2 guys are fighting it out I do NOT want to spend 20 seconds watching their wives in the pits. It's called a 'reaction shot' & the directors think it's artsy..... but it's just crap that drives people insane.

I have more but I'm going for a walk on the beach.

Sorry about the thread drift Pressdog but at some point the voices of people who don't give a darn about social media at the races have to be heard.

Sux to be old and cranky.

[pressdog]

I don't mind the comment, SOCSeven and I hope you have emailed them to Randy et al. Just recall it's rarely an either/or proposition. It's very possible to integrate Twitter into broadcasts et al AND do everything you mention above if desired. If integrating twitter handles into graphics completely consumes the networks leaving no energy to make other changes, well then we're screwed no matter what.

[redcar]

#marketinggimmick #middleschool #fad

[Ralph Balf]

One caveat.. bad news spreads fast, too. Vegas tv rating tripled within 30 minutes after Wheldon took flight.

[KenSpi]

@S0CSeven: Sorry, I'll get off your lawn.
@Ralph: It was also used extensively at that race for communication. For better or for worse, the tweets from Ms. Judd (and subsequent retweets from everyone and their dog) immediately after the event gave us hope and prevented us from losing our sh*t. I think we all needed the time between the accident and formal announcement to get ourselves together. I preferred to keep hope rather than wander for an hour thinking "WTF?".
Personally, I appreciate Twitter and its use as a tool to get word out that a TV or radio broadcast might otherwise not be able to. Yes, it would be good to get better broadcast coverage, but its *impossible* to get every comment from every team on the air. Twitter enables that in a different broadcast medium.

[Tim in Independence]

Great article p-dog, duly posted on TF.

[S0CSeven]

Ok, so how do I email 'Randy et al'??

[Titus Pullo]

It's great that Reubens Barrichello has 1.5 million twitter followers. On the other hand, Soleil Moon Frye has 1.4 million and her acting career basically consists of "Punky Brewster" 25 years ago.

[Relationship Issues With Ning Club]

I know through time, space, compassion and attention I will come through this grief recovery process with the wonderful memories of my mom, with her estate wrapped up in a teal bow and with closure for her amazing life.