WWE body slams their way to worldwide trends

World Wrestling Entertainment has been extremely active when it comes to promoting their brand on social media during their weekly television show, Monday Night RAW. RAW is televised on The USA Network, Mondays at 9:00 p.m. EST. It doesn’t take long before viewers are encouraged to actively participate in an online conversation via Twitter. Five minutes into the show, a graphic is posted detailing how viewers can get involved in the online conversations via Twitter using #RAW and the handle @WEE. Announcer Michael Cole verbally makes reference to the graphic on the screen saying, “You can keep up on all of tonight’s action on Twitter by following at WWE and joining the conversation using the hashtag RAW.”

Raw general manager James Laurinaitis adresses the audience as the WWE's Twitter information is posted on the screen. The Twitter graphic remained on camera for 12 seconds to open the show.

The key element that makes WWE’s social media influence so powerful is their ability to instantaneously make names and phrases trend worldwide. Minutes after the graphic is posted, #RAW shoots to the top of worldwide trends on Twitter. In addition WWE wrestlers John Cena and Brock Lesnar trend worldwide as well.

Worldwide trends seen on Twitter 10 minutes into the Raw broadcast.

The quickness of the trends are a result of two major factors. The first is the amount of viewers tuning into the program. Monday Night RAW is annually one of the highly rated shows on cable television. The second  is the viewer’s willingness to actively participate in the conversation on Twitter. These are the two major factors needed to make television show topics trend worldwide on Twitter, as seen in this article from Mashable.

Hashtag #RAW displayed throughout the show at the top left of the screen.

The WWE is not shy about when their show is the result of a worldwide trend. It’s often mentioned verbally by the announcers, by graphic on the television and on their Twitter account.

 Trending in the year 2012 often refers to this.

James Stewart is an avid WWE fan and also producer for the "Felger and Mazz Show" on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston. I asked him where he stands on  how WWE incorporates Twitter into their programs.

“My overall thought on how the WWE uses twitter is, that they use it too much. I’m not a fan of how they promote it constantly on their programming,” Stewart said. “The problem I see with their company is they are worried about the wrong things. Instead of getting something trending on twitter and telling us it’s trending, why not let it happen naturally. More people watch and enjoy wrestling worldwide than any other form of sport or entertainment. It’s easy for a term to trend on twitter when you have as many fans, worldwide, as the WWE does.”

To listen to my interview with Ruel Baird, please click here.