Summary
Rajasthan Royals Admin takes on IPL biggies with lo-fi content... and wins. In a daring move, Rajasthan Royals revamped their social media strategy for the 2023 IPL season, shifting from ‘Polished' to ‘lo-fi'. Despite facing formidable rivals and limited budgets, the 'Royals Admin' team achieved an astonishing 1.09 billion views, 66% more than the previous year. Earning the title of 'The Highest Engagement Rate On Instagram Among All Teams Globally', and gaining 1.2 million followers
Challenge
Beyond the Royals' on-field performance, social media plays a pivotal role in keeping our unappeased fans engaged and keep them believing in the team all year round. So, in 2023, our objectives were threefold: Retain loyal fans and onboard new fans into the ‘Royals Family' on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and Twitter through sustained engagement and minimum media spends. Find newer and stronger ways to divert attention from the other IPL teams to us.
Objective
Rajasthan Royals is one of the oldest IPL teams, having existed since the inaugural IPL season which it won. With no trophies to their name in the 15 long years since, we were in danger of fans losing interest and excitement in the franchise and the fanbase slowly dwindling. Today, the team stands at a clear disadvantage against some of the other big IPL teams. Having won no trophies since 2008, fan's hopes of the team winning aren't high. The team has talented Indian players, but none that draw in the kind of crowds and conversations like Dhoni, Kohli, or Rohit Sharma. Even though they have international players, their availability for social media and marketing efforts in the off-season is limited. Also, other teams have much bigger sponsors and marketing spends that allow them to make a louder noise all year round through social media and large campaigns. These disadvantages stand between Rajasthan Royals and other IPL teams with fan bases that are twice and thrice ours.
Strategy
We relied on bootstrapped production, featured real people, included platform-native elements such as stickers, told relatable stories and used mobile-shot, unpolished visuals on the feed, reels and Twitter. This 'lo-fi' approach became the backbone of our content creation. We applied this treatment to all the moments we opened up to fans. Such as bonding between players over their most thrilling plays, inside jokes, banter, teasing, and their natural chemistry. For instance, by the time the players reached their hotel from the airport, fans were already commenting on their OOTD on Twitter and wishing them well for the season. Before the evening training session ended, fans were already going gaga in the comments section about a special moment between senior player Yuzi and newcomer firebrand Yashasvi. When the squad was having fun, we captured these moments on the phone and instantly posted reels on Instagram to show fans the camaraderie. In these moments, the creative spin and stellar copywriting did a lot of the heavy lifting to keep conversations going. During the season, the Admin obliged fans by capturing post-match video moments that were sometimes even more precious than the match itself. for example, heartfelt motivation speeches made by the coach in the dressing room right after a win or loss, reached the fans before the clock struck 12 with minimal edits and subtitles for aid. This ensured that even when the match results weren't in our favor there was enough and more snackable and shareable content on our social channels that kept the sentiments positive. After the IPL season, RR Admin stayed on to be the go-to expert on cricketing moments. Whenever our players were on their national duties, we created reactive content for fans that snapped up live moments and gave them their own Admin spin.
Data
In 2023, the IPL came back in full swing. After 4 hard years, both fans and the players were eager to come back to the stadiums. Fan interest in the IPL was at an all-time high, as evidenced by record-breaking viewership on streaming platforms. For RR, it was an optimistic start as well. Having come close to lifting the IPL trophy last year, the outlook for this year was positive. Our fans interest and loyalty to us was high and this was the sentiment we doubled-down on in social media. This year, we went for a much closer, completely natural treatment to all our social media content. In 2023, the creative strategy was to go lo-fi with our content and show fans as unfiltered a look as possible, of our IPL journey with the signature RR Admin wit for which we are known and loved. This gave us the ability to be far more real in expressing our personality and values – something that resonated with our fans deeply. This year, RR Admin went raw and unfiltered, fueling the trophy dream of fans while dishing out content with a twist that appealed to loyal fans, cricket fans and casual IPL
Solution
Results
We garnered a staggering 1.09 billion video views across Meta, Youtube Shorts & X, a 66% increase when compared to IPL 2022 (655 Mn). Compared to IPL 2022, leading the way for us was Instagram Reels with 853 million video views, a 187% increase. While a 30% increase on X set us at 30.5 million video views. Impressions hit 2.3 billion, increasing by 26% . Total engagements grew to 177 million, a 36% increase. We garnered 809 million impressions and 89 million engagments on Instagram reels resulting in us achieving ‘The Highest Engagement Rate On Instagram Among All Teams Globally' during the IPL period. Moreover, the ‘Royals Admin' personality and lo-fi content help us rank third as ‘The Most Engaged Sports Teams in Asia' for the IPL period. Facebook earned us the crown of ‘Third Highest Engagement Rate Among All IPL Teams', and all of this enabled us to add 1.2 million followers across social media platforms, compared to 970K in 2022 IPL season.
