facebook anaylsis

Pittsburgh & Philadelphia
The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles are the two Pennsylvania teams in the NFL. The Steelers are six time Super Bowl Champions and they have a history no one can touch. The Eagles have rocky seasons but they normally end up in the playoffs under the reign of Andy Reed. Both of these trams have a lot of history to them, but these teams also have the most loyal fans. In 2008 ESPN ranked the NFL team’s fans and the Steelers we’re number one with the Eagles trailing at number four out of thirty two teams. (Mosley 1). Both teams are experts in the social media and they are all over the internet and television. To keep in touch with their fans they use many social networks sites such as facebook and twitter.
Facebook is a social networking site where people in the world can create a profile and keep in touch with their friends. They can upload pictures, and post anything they want their “friends” to see on their profile. There are over 800 million active users on Facebook and over 50% of them check every day. (Facebook). Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites among its competitors such as twitter and myyearbook. Facebook has a higher popularity then both of those sites, but twitter is slowly catching up to facebook. On facebook people can follow pages that can include businesses, professional sports teams, and pretty much anything you can think of. Many professional teams are using facebook to keep in touch with their fans better. When a fan “likes” the teams facebook page, they have unlimited access to what the team would post on their page. Also, when a team posts on their own site or updates their status, it will pop up on the fans newsfeed. Facebook has changed the idea of social networking and has dominated that field.
The Steelers and Eagle’s both have official facebook pages. The Steelers have currently 3,737,648 people who follow them and the Eagles have 1,526,515 people who follow them. Even though there is a two million gap between both teams, both teams have managed to reach about one million more fans than they might not have been able to without facebook. Their Facebook’s have everything on them that all the fans can enjoy in one click of the mouse or touchpad. Their Facebook’s contain many things such as their walls, information, friend activity, fan zone, photos & videos, and upcoming events. (Facebook)
On the Steelers and Eagles Facebook’s they have a wall. A wall on facebook is essentially where you update your status and post comments. A status is a statement of sentences on anything that the owner of the facebook wants to publish to their friends. Once they submit their status, it is available for everyone to see that has access to their page and people can comment it and like it. For example, on Dec 21, 2011 the Steelers posted on their wall, “Steelers Christmas Carols Part 3 is now available! Stay tuned for Part 4...” and included a link that lead them to the video. The Steelers so Christmas carols every year and a way to get it out, is they use facebook to tell their fans about it. About 1,159 people liked that post, and 94 people commented on it. Many of the comments we’re about how silly the team was and that it is a good thing that the Steelers did not take signing up as their day job. Normally the team’s posts will include a link that leads them to the team’s official website. An example of a post without a link would be the Eagle’s post on December 19, 2011, “What was YOUR favorite part about yesterday 's game? Besides the win, of course...” All the post included was a picture and they we’re wondering what the fans thought about the game. There we’re about 1,167 likes and 723 comments. The fans we’re commenting about all about the game and the in the Eagles had over the Jets. The wall allows both teams to express what they want and also allows instant feedback from the fans to know what they can improve.
On facebook another feature that it has is a page where you can put information about yourself and if you are a team you can put information about your organization. One the Steelers facebook, on the information tab, they put how they started in 1933 and that the facebook is administered and monitored by the Pittsburgh Steelers. They also included their website and their twitter name so fans can reach them on other parts of the web as well. If the fans wanted a full history they could go to the Steelers main website, and the link is provided on their facebook. On the Eagle’s information tab they included that they started in 1933 and that they are administered and monitored by the Philadelphia Eagles. They also included their main website link as well as their twitter name. The teams did not put down a novel of information down because their team websites already has all that information. The purpose of facebook is to help fans get to the Steelers main page and keep in touch with the fans. The information is only a little piece of facebook, but it is where team scan put their contact information and anything else they would like it put down.
Facebook also has a unique feature called friend activity. When you click this tab you can see which of your friends talked about that organization or did something that pertained to that organization on their wall. If you type the main word of the organization it pulls up what your mutual friend said or what they did on facebook that pertains to the team. For example, on the Steelers page, when I looked at this tab I saw one of my friends, Jess Croll, Liked one of the Steelers posts and another friend, Trenton, Posted a picture of the Steelers from last Sundays (December 18th) game. This feature is showing what your friends on facebook are saying about that organization. One the Eagles’ page I can see that my friend Zach posted on his wall, on December 18th,” Go eagles! So we need to best the boys next week ... Giants will lose to jets because they will be upset from losing against us WE R STILL IN THIS!” This feature just shows everything that your mutual friends say about the organization. With this feature you can see which of your friends are affiliated with the sport. This helps show you that because then you have other people to talk about your favorite team that you did not know of.
The next unique feature that facebook has on the teams is the “Fan Zone”. This is an area that is all about the fans and all for the fans. On the Steelers page they have everything from gifts, merchandise, polls, quizzes, and comments form fans all over facebook. The latest post form a fan was written by Teigan Gray and he said, “Steelers will rule NFL #34”. This is where fans can openly write about the team for everyone to see. You do not have to know who the person is how posted the comment, and you will see it when you go onto that site. This is the tab where you can go for all your fan needs. The Eagles site is very similar to the Steelers. Instead of having a “Welcome to Steelers Nation” picture at the top, there is a “Congratulations LeSean McCoy picture for his new record on it.
The last feature it offers its fans is that it has photos, videos, and upcoming events on their site. They have the schedules of the game and where they are for all the fans to know whenever they look at it. They also have videos of clips or anything the team chooses to put their about their team. They also offer many pictures of the team and the teams players. Instead of going to Google and just typing the teams name in the search bar for these things it is all in one place. You don’t have to search all over the internet; you can go on their facebook for this. Many fans share the pictures and videos that the teams put on their facebook. It is an easier way for the fans to access all of these things.
Personally, I have not submitted content on other organizations facebooks. I personally do not do much on facebook, other than to keep in contact with friends. If I was more internet savvy, I would probably be all over their facebooks and seeing what they had to offer, and participate in them. Facebook to me is just another annoying thing that people can advertise their lives with. Some of the people I am friends with, I do not even need to talk to them, and I know their whole life. This is another huge reason I do not use facebook that much. It is a great networking site, but it is not for me.
Although I do not use it, people submit things on facebook all the time. Take my mother for instance, she needs to update her status all the time and post pictures of everything. No one in our family understands or knows why she does this, but she gets a sense of excitement form doing all of this on facebook. I also think people post things on facebook because they can act “tough” overt the internet and say whatever is on their mind. When people are face to face, they think twice about that they want, but when they are on the internet they do not think and just post whatever they want. I believe people get some sort of excitement and whatnot over posting things on facebook.
There are over 800 million active users on Facebook and over 50% of them check every day. Because facebook is such a popular social media site, many organizations will choose these to reach their target market. There are also more than 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages). That 900 million consists of sport organizations which are available for all facebook users to view, like, and comment on. I believe people use facebook for their organizations because it is a cheap and easy way to reach their target market. They can keep their fans up to date on the latest news and the organization can get feedback instantly since people are very critical over the internet. How an organization responds to the criticism will say a lot about them in the fans eyes. Facebook can help organizations keep a good name to them if they use facebook in a smart and good way.
The gratification people get is the satisfaction of being able to look at other people’s lives without even having to communicate with them. Another gratification they can get is entertainment. Facebook is full of entertainment from things such as gossip, news, and games. People who use facebook love to just sit there and creep on all of their facebook friends and they get satisfaction and gratification in doing all of this.
Sport organizations can utilize their facebooks by making sure they have many things for their fans to do. Once a fan is bored they may not want to come back. If you keep thinking of new and innovative ways of things to then the fans will stay. An existing customer is your best customer. They just keep coming back and back to the team’s facebook. They eventually then can bring new people onto the organizations site. They also can put more pictures and they can also put more videos and clips on there to keep them to go to their facebook instead of Google. They can also put more history and more stats on their facebook. Instead of gearing it towards trying to get the fans to their official website, they can put more on their facebook. The more you put, the more interested a fan will be.
Sport organizations can benefit from social media in that they can reach all the fans they have not yet already. They can make a whole new target market and they can try and fill the gaps on their market. They can get instant feedback and they can also try and make more profits. They can gain more profits by having all these new people buy gifts because they saw it on the facebook page instead of a knock off retail store. They can benefit by just purely bringing in new people to their market and expanding their market so more people can know about them. Also facebook is a form of free reminder advertising. If you are a fan you are constantly reminded of the team with their posts and it costs nothing to have a facebook.
In conclusion sport organizations should use social media because it can do nothing but benefit them. They get their name out there in a free and fast way. They also give their fans a chance to interact with the team and make them feel included in their organization. When they use social media they can connect with people who are the typical couch potatoes and do nothing but sit on the internet all day and watch television all day. Social media helps reach all of those people. Social media is an excellent way to help advertise your business, and get in touch with all of your fans.

Works Cited
Mosley, By Matt. "NFL 's Best Fans? We Gotta Hand It to Steelers (barely) - NFL - ESPN."ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. .
"Statistics | Facebook." Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More. Web. 26 Dec. 2011. .

Cited: Mosley, By Matt. "NFL 's Best Fans? We Gotta Hand It to Steelers (barely) - NFL - ESPN."ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports. Web. 09 Dec. 2010. . "Statistics | Facebook." Welcome to Facebook - Log In, Sign Up or Learn More. Web. 26 Dec. 2011. .