UFC Marketing Research

                            Social Media Marketing

 Social Media marketing uses a variety of platforms to promote a certain event. In the case of the UFC fight, we can analyse the social media platforms of the company, of Dana White and the fighters. Through that, we can estimate how many viewers they have and how big is the impact of the social media on event promotion.

 The immense success of UFC's Social Media Marketing Tools, has helped expand the further in other countries such as Brazil, Japan, Australia, etc.

 You can see in the previous post in regards of ''Traditional Marketing'', a few screenshots of press conferences. They were retrieved from UFC's YouTube channel, which shows the marketing combinations used. Due to many people not being able to travel abroad for every event, the YouTube channel makes sure to keep the fan base and the reporters/journalists updated with the event.

 The Marketing Tool that every event organization uses today is the ''Marketing Mix'' by Booms and Bitner (1981)

 It is also known as the ''7P's of Marketing''. It covers all important aspects which the event organizers should work on to execute it successfully.

 The Process: It includes setting all the objectives for the event

The Promotion: Using different marketing strategies (as listed above) to promote the event and gather a bigger audience

The Place: Finding a venue for the event, which should be easily reachable, with a good reputation.

The Price: Setting all the prices for merchandise, tickets, etc. as well as calculating all expenses and income.

The Product: In this case the ''product'' are the two fighters which will fight against each other. They are world famous, with a big fan base and social media following.

The People: Target audience research and Target Market must be made in order to know how to promote the event in the most successful event.

The Physical Evidence: The event itself. Will it be success? Who will win? How many people will come and what will their feedback of the event be? All of these questions are asked before the event and answered after. 

Dana White Twitter 2018

Dana White's Twitter specifically is focused on promoting all upcoming events. His posts are more professional than personal. As a multi-millionaire and owner of UFC, it is mandatory for him to keep his followers updates and interested in the upcoming events.

As for Tony Ferguson, aside from personal posts, he focuses on showing his training progress and showing highlights from former fights. It helps boost his social media following. 

Tony Ferguson Twitter 2018

Khabib Nurmagomedov on the other hand, in a press conference in 2017, he stated that he avoids sharing his personal life on social media. He wants to keep his family away from the media's eyes, so he focuses on showing off his job and how his condition improves through the years. 

.UFC 219: Khabib Nurmagomedov Post-Fight Press Conference - MMA Fighting

Khabib Nurmagimedov Twitter 2018

 According to Dana White himself, ''Twitter is the greatest Marketing Tool in the history of the world''. He has over 2 million followers and posts regularly fight events and updates. He is known for his constant interaction with the fan base and sometimes engages in conflicts with MMA fans on different topics.
 But according to social network sites worldwide as of January 2018, Facebook is considered the biggest social media platform, followed by YouTube, WhatsApp, etc.

social network sites worldwide  (January 2018)

 So in order for Dana White or any UFC member to follow the social media trends and to make sure their following grows, the Facebook pages are even more prominent. With over 8 million followers, the page is considered the most popular business page on Facebook.

 As you can see in the chart above, YouTube is the second biggest social Media Platform. YouTube has over 1 billion followers and Dana White makes sure he keeps his fans posted on every event, such as the Ferguson vs Nurmagomedov. Clearly Dana White understand the meaning of social media marketing and the marketing tools.
 UFC's YouTube channel has over 4 million followers and each video gains between 200 thousand and 3 million views.
In order to make profit from the YouTube channel, all videos has an add shown before the video itself. The adds are usually between 5 second and 2 minutes. 

                                                         UFC YouTube Channel (2018)

 But it's not all about Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. According to the Marketing manager of UFC Shanda Maloney, "Keep up on new platforms and understand that your audience is engaged on those platforms. If you are going to have a voice in the space, create content that is unique to that platform/audience. Don’t assume the best practice is to push the same content across every platform.”

Another technique used by Shanda Maloney is looking deeper into the social media platforms of UFC. Not just the amount of followers that the fighters, the managers and the company get. It is about researching further into the data and figuring out what exactly does the target audience want to see and loves seeing. What type of content should be posted more regularly and more importantly what to avoid posting.
 One of the reasons why the UFC's social media is so successful is because the marketing managers put the audience in the fighters' shoes. They establish an emotional connection between the fans and the product (the fighters). That is where the photos, videos and live streams come to use and create that feeling and effect.

                                Public Relations

''Public Relations is about reputation - the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about 

you.''

Chartered Institute of PR (2018)

 According to ''AXS Contributor'' and ''PR Weeky'', in 2016 the new Director of UFC's Public Relation department Lenee Breckenridge has been doing an excellent job and is considered the most recognisable and highest-payed journalist in the MMA industry. Compared to previous PR Directors, her approach towards the 

media and fan base is more gentle. She has handled many controversial topics with grace and has been able to use many fighters' platforms to increase their following and fame. In the past she was able to secure many podcasts and interviews, as well as brand-building efforts for the organisation's athletes.