WWE Pushes the Social TV Envelope at WrestleMania

WrestleMania has transformed itself from a small wrestling event to an international media spectacle. In its 28th incarnation, held at the beginning of this month, there were no signs of it stopping.

World Wrestling Entertainment did something unique last year – it announced the main event for WrestleMania over a year in advance. The big match featured Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a huge cross-over star, and John Cena, the current flag bearer for the company. Recognizing the challenges of trying to keep interest for the match a year in advance, the WWE turned to social media.

So far, their engagement strategy appears to be working. The WWE feels like they are more up-to-date and engaged. In many cases, WWE wrestlers were actively retweeted, followed and engaged by fans. One stat that is very telling was the number of followers and likes they have on Facebook and Twitter.

The numbers behind this are impressive. Between all of the stars’ accounts, they have over 60 million Twitter followers and 20 million Facebook likes. In 2011, they received over 1 billion views on their YouTube channel (those are Justin Bieber-like numbers, folks). Aside from social statistics, the actual event WrestleMania broke both attendance and gate records at the Sun Life Stadium with over 78,000 fans. However, the real telling statistic will be Pay-Per-View buy-rates and how many the WWE is able to generate. Like all live PPV events, the WWE fights piracy from multiple live streaming sites online. The expectations and pressure are high, especially bringing back The Rock in such a marquee match to help raise buy-rates.

This year at WrestleMania, over 110 individual terms trended during the event. The #Wrestlemania hashtag was mentioned over 600,000 times delivering nearly a billion potential impressions with a reach of over 130 million people.