Over the past year, UFC Australia / New Zealand social media accounts have seen a dramatic increase in followers, video views and engagements.
From August 1, 2019 to August 1, 2020 the organisation’s regional Instagram account @UFCANZ generated the highest growth of followers of any other national sporting code within Australia.
The uptake saw @UFCANZ Instagram going from 13,200 followers to 251,000 – over 1,802 per cent growth in one year. Within the same period, UFC ANZ Facebook gained close to a million more followers, taking the giant leap from 747,000 to 1,704, 652 (as of Aug 1, 2020).
As a company that prides itself on content creation, UFC ANZ’s Facebook video views rose by 1259 per cent, with over half a billion minutes viewed, with engagements also increasing by 509 per cent to 7.5M in likes, comments, shares and clicks.
“These are powerful numbers” said UFC Vice President of Australia and New Zealand, Peter Kloczko. “Our recent efforts to regionalise the social media content offering across Australia and New Zealand has uncovered a growing interest in UFC locally and a passionate fanbase on par with any other major sport.”
UFC’s global social media footprint currently sits at 124M followers and is the fastest growing sport on Facebook and Instagram and the second-fastest growing sport on Twitter. In addition, UFC had 70M hours of content watched on YouTube from January to June 2020, an increase of +122 per cent compared to Jan-Jun 2019. UFC is close to 10M subscribers on YouTube, putting the organization third behind WWE and NBA. So far this year, UFC social media followers have grown +34 per cent across the board.
The UFC Facebook accounts are split into multiple regions, geo-targeting specifically to the location of a Facebook user. Content is then delivered to the user that’s targeted to that region, e.g. broadcast timings, event specifics, and content for athletes from that part of the world.
A specific Instagram account was created for ANZ in November 2018, to cater to the different time zones, emergence of top ranked athletes, and increased quantity of events in the region.
The regional account UFC ANZ across Facebook and Instagram has placed emphasis on specifically created content to cater to local audiences with a relevant tone of voice, ensuring it resonates with the target audience. Key successes have been the increased distribution of 3min+ videos on Facebook to reach wider audiences through Facebook Watch and increasing the quantity and quality of IGTV videos.
In addition to sharing from the global account, the creation of bespoke content, imagery, and interviews with athletes from the region has been a major driving force for the company. With the ability to individually tailor the content for the athletes, efforts have been focused on building their profiles, relevance, and personas that local audiences can identify with and truly want to support.
These achievements come in a timely manner as UFC is currently celebrating A Decade in ANZ – a campaign paying tribute to the organization’s record-breaking events, crowned champions, passionate fans and unforgettable memories formed over the past 10 years. The initiative stands as another example of the importance of a local content strategy allowing us to open up the archives and share beloved content from the past.
