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Update 1:  Royal Challengers of Bangalore hold meets of their fans in different cities. We found it out on twitter at http://twitter.com/kaex88/status/5673655535

IPL 1.0 was a huge disappointment for the Royal Challengers of Bangalore, from being called a test match side to coming 7th in a league of 8 teams they had to endure it all. Being the second costliest team, they had to do something out of the box to brand their team and they did. In contrast to their image during the debut IPL,  there was a huge buzz  over this Royal Challengers team even before  IPL 2.0 started. What stimulated this turnaround in response? Curiosity got the better of us  at Microreviews and we started our treasure hunt for the truth behind their branding strategy for IPL 2.0 and beyond.

With a glamorous owner, in Vijay Mallya, and a stunningly beautiful diva, in  Katrina Kaif, as their brand ambassadors topped with the sexiest cheer leaders, they had it all in  IPL 1.0. The only downside to it was the branding. Obviously, their performance was a major factor for the same but there had to be other reasons. Even after having a disappointing  IPL 1.0, Shahrukh Khan was able to create a great compelling brand out of Kolkata Knight Riders. So, there was a lesson to be learnt and the Royal Challengers of Bangalore didn’t disappoint.

By targeting the people who influence cricketing conversation going around the country, the Royal Challengers hit the nail on its head. We’re referring to people who follow cricinfo like their Bible and ones who would share every piece of cricket information they get on their Facebook profiles and twitter micro-blogs. In other words, the Royal Challengers went social!

Website: If we have a look at the website of all  the IPL teams, the website of RCB at  http://www.royalchallengers.com/ stands out. Royalty oozes from every inch of the site. With  regularly updated team news and  individual pages for every player, its a great job done. The team profile page as well as the player’s profile page has a fan-count and an option to become the fan of the player. There is information related to their non-cricketing activities and more.

They also have a page for their sexy mischief girls ( Their Cheerleaders) with lots of videos and pics uploaded on the page.  A well branded blog handled by a lady, Nidhi at http://www.royalchallengers.com/blogs, sits like a jewel on their crown.

An additional attraction is their brilliant photo gallery at http://www.royalchallengers.com/photos. I love the way the photo gallery has been presented. After having spent quite sometime on their website, I still feel there is a lot to be explored. The user engagement of the website is brilliant and kudos to their Social Media and Web Development team for having done a brilliant job.

Facebook and Twitter Presence: Royal Challengers of Bangalore have done a fantastic job with their Facebook page and a very engaging Twitter profile. They seem to be maintaining their facebook page and twitter profile in tandem, running lots of competitions on them( we saw the winner announcement) and uploading photos and videos. The conversation on twitter also seems two way, or multi-way to say the least. Royal Challengers of Bangalore are doing a very professional job at creating conversations around them rather than just . This is unlike the other teams who have not used twitter at all. In some cases, even the  facebook page is being misused for job postings, in spite of having many more facebook fans.

Youtube Presence: The royal challengers of Bangalore  have an intelligently branded you-tube channel . Although, there aren’t too many videos on the channel it has been maintained very professionally.  The other IPL teams seem to have forgotten this medium as well.

With Brands like Sachin Tendulkar( Mumbai Indians) and M.S Dhoni( Chennai Super Kings) waiting to be used in the social media horizon, it’s time the other IPL teams start understanding the nature of conversations on the Internet.

Wishing all the IPL teams , a best of luck from the the Microreviews Team.

The over- all Social Media presence of Royal challengers is decent,but there is still a scope for improvement as far as the branding on Twitter and Facebook go. The other IPL teams are seemingly oblivious to the Internet as a buzz creating medium just after creating a website for themselves. There is a lot of learning  for the the other IPL teams as far as social media goes. The bright side is that social media is still nascent in this field, but teams like the Royal Challengers have set the standards for the others to beat .

For social media help, I would recommend people to get in touch with Aditya Prakash and Prasaad K S on twitter.

You can also email them here and here.

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