Dana White Leads UFC Into New Media Leadership via Facebook, Twitter and XBox 360






As befits a rising new sports phenomenon, the UFC has a cutting edge approach to social media and online marketing. Dana White has almost 1.5 million followers to his personal Twitter account and the UFC itself has almost 6 million followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook.

Today Dana White appeared at the XBox 360 E3 conference to announce a new partnership between the UFC and Microsoft's XBox 360. Cage Side Seats has the White's announcement:

"There has never been a better time to be a UFC fan. As you know, we deliver the best fights in the world, and now XBOX will revolutionize how fans experience live events on television. You'll get all the best fights, and compete with your friends...only on XBOX. Let's take a look at the innovation you're gonna see this holiday."

ESPN Page 2 spoke to White about his aggressive use of Twitter and the UFC's social media strategy:

"When we go live, the fans are always saying on the Internet, 'Oh he's such an idiot. He's got the best seat in the house, and he's always on his phone or looking at the TV,'" White said. "The reason for that is I'm watching the TV screen because I'm making sure that everything looks good on TV. I'm on my phone because I'm reading Twitter."

White is not only reading. He's responding. He's aware that the cable is out in Iowa, meaning a fan can't access the pay-per-view he paid for. Or that fans traveled all the way from England only to find out they purchased fake tickets.

"Back in the old days, this is [stuff] you wouldn't know until Monday," White said. "You'd hear all these bad things that happened during your event, and you'd be like, 'God, we got to make sure this doesn't happen next time.' ... Now, as these things are happening, I have people running around fixing all the problems that are happening that I'm reading on Twitter."

White also tells ESPN that the UFC is "working on big things for the next five years and most of them revolve around social media."

My hat is off to Dana White and the UFC for their shrewd use of social media.


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Quite interested to see how the use of social media comes into play in terms of viewer-ship and money. With more exposure comes bigger sponsors and sponsorship money, so all and all the fighters are going to get paid more. Still hefty expectations to become a #1 sport - it won't beat soccer/football worldwide and even for the NFL/NBA in the US. Still though good news all around.

yeah for sure, Dana has got the whole new media-internet thing figured out, (as opposed to 99% of the media industry that still try to sell cd's or whatever they do lol). I like that they are so active on all fronts, it feels like no other sport is as friendly to its fans and has as much online activity as MMA, and UFC in particular.

Personally I think its great!

Agreed. I mean I love Strikeforce and all their fights, they have a good product. But they don't implement any forms of social media whatsoever especially looking at their Youtube page. Bellator on the other hand is using Twitter/Facebook/Youtube for their weekly hilight reel to introduce their product. But yes a lot of companies have to realise that there is a social media boom.
Look at their recent IPO with Linkedin, the company is getting huge, Twitter is gorwing and Facebook remains the biggest of them all. Truly huge!

Earth is becomin smaller by the moment, social networking globalizes us instead of splitting us in nationalities we choose where we belong globally using internet. Naturally they have to be present on the social medias. Anything else is bound to be a failure sooner or later. KOTC for example, they have the wors internet coverage I have seen for such a big promotion with such long history, and do you see their fighters being recognized or their event broadcasted? I dont...

its just another way for the ufc to make money off shit we can download for free...
if it was something free then i might go buy an xbox...
but if i have to spend money to watch ufc shit on xbox...
then i will stick with my computer and broadband and its freedomness!

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