4C Insights: Astros May Be World Champs, But the Dodgers Won the Social-Media–Engagement Battle

Overall dip in engagement expected following Cubs’ historic World Series run in 2016

The 2017 World Series was one for the ages, and social media lit up like a Christmas tree in response to the seven-game Fall Classic between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although the Astros took the trophy home, the Dodgers proved the bigger brand when it came to social engagement, according to a study done by 4C Insights, a data-science and media-technology company.

4C is a big data analytics and social intelligence company offering advertising and measurement platforms. (PRNewsFoto/4C)

4C Insights analyzed social and TV data to determine key findings stemming from the World Series and released a report noting that the Dodgers drew 3,633,283 total engagements across Facebook and Twitter during the game windows of 7 p.m. – 2 a.m. ET. That’s nearly 1 million more engagements than the Astros, who came away with an impressive 2,847,155.

The World Champs did win the night during Game 7, doubling up the Dodgers 1,383,804 to 621,084.

Despite the excitement around the 2017 World Series, it should be of little surprise that it didn’t stand much of a chance against last year’s historic championship run by the Chicago Cubs. For context, last year’s Cubs — with the same social-media channels monitored during the same time windows — garnered a staggering 6,514,043 social engagements. That means there was a 56% decrease in social engagement around the Series’ winning team.

4C Insights also issued data surrounding what it calls “TV Social Lift Impact” to quantify how chief sponsors of the World Series on Fox fared in commercial campaigns run during games. The data covers each brand’s social-media engagements in the five-minute period following the start of a TV ad and compares that with the brand’s social-media–engagement rate in the five minutes prior to the ad’s airing. The goal is to establish how likely a customer is to engage on social media with a brand immediately after seeing its ad on television.

Chevrolet was far and away the king of 4C Insight’s TV Social Lift Impact metric, seeing a mind-boggling 2,057% increase in social engagements following the airing of an ad. Chevy drew 48,916 social engagements across Facebook and Twitter, with an impressive 75% of them deemed as having a positive nature.

T-Mobile also excelled, in large part thanks to its #HR4HR campaign for Hurricane Relief spot, which featured guest appearances by Jose Altuve, Todd Frazier, and other MLB players. T-Mobile saw a 532% increase in social engagement and — not surprisingly, given the positive nature of the campaign — drew 88% positivity in that engagement.

A pair of insurance companies also saw a spike in TV Social Lift Impact: Geico 355% and Progressive 101%. A noted difference between the two was Geico’s 65% positivity number vs. Progressive’s 92%, the highest positivity metric in the study.