Maple Leafs lead NHL in social media growth

Over 30 days from June 16 to July 16, the Toronto Maple Leafs grew faster than any other NHL team in terms of percentage increase of both Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers (Data from Sports Fan Graph).

Facebook: Leafs grow 37% versus a league average of 13%

As of July 16, the Leafs had 113,570 “likes,” which put them in 9th place among NHL clubs, but they are the only club to grow its base by more than 30% in in this 30-day period.

Twitter: Leafs grow 18% vs. a league average of 8%

Leafs ranked 8th in NHL in total Twitter followers with 15,307 as of July 16, but Leafs were one of only 8 clubs that grew their Twitter followers by more than the league average of 8%. Canadiens have nearly 60,000 followers, but grew by just 7% in this 30-day period.

I asked Maple Leaf Sport’s Director of Digital, John McCauley, about the Leafs league leading growth. Here’s what he said:

“I think the reason is everyone was expecting big news to happen at the draft and/or free agency … and it did. Plus we promoted a big THANK YOU on mapleleafs.com to our fans for allowing us to hit 100K mark on Facebook. That combined with our regular amount of engagement seems to have given our account some buzz.”

McCauley went on to say: Just launched a big contest last week that should keep our growth going … search #cokezerofansfirst on Twitter. Big winner. Here’s a link to that promo

John will be among our speakers at the upcoming Sports Marketing 2.0 VIP Summit in Atlanta on October 21.