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The Social Leaderboard is back for Australian Open 2013, with the addition this year of some new features allowing fans to help their favourite players to the top of the leaderboard.
A new feature on australianopen.com’s Fan Centre last year, the Social Leaderboard contains 20 players – 10 male, 10 female – and is popular with fans, who gain points whenever fans use Twitter hashtags relating to their name or like content associated with them on australianopen.com.
Players accrue points for their positions on both daily and overall leaderboards, facilitating a great level of interactivity for fans and indicating which players are the most popular among fans on social media.
Australianopen.com’s social media coordinator Daniel Lattimer says the Social Leaderboard – which last year was topped by Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova – was well-received by fans in its inaugural year.
“It gives us a better insight into what fans are talking about and what they're experiencing during the tournament,” he said.
“It’s a showpiece for all our social media efforts. It’s about recognising that there are also many fans who are into the personalities in tennis and the colourful side of the sport, and to enhance their experience of the Australian Open while providing another unique experience via social media.”
The Social Leaderboard returns this year with a few enhancements.
Extra hashtags have been introduced to capture more of the conversation surrounding the players, including team-based hashtags such as #teamfederer and #teamvika, to promote more tribal support for players among fans.
Another is the “social sentiment” graph, attached to each player and tracking the levels of both positive and negative sentiment on twitter, which is determined by keywords.
“Someone like Victoria Azarenka already uses the ‘#teamvika’ hashtag, so this has been a case of us following the lead of the players to add to the fan experience,” Lattimer explained.
“This is the second year we’ve done it and we’re looking to keep enhancing and improving it, to better follow trends in the social media world surrounding the tournament and the players.”