10 Ways WWE Has Made Twitter As Important As RAW
2. Judging Their Success
If you've ever listened to or read the transcript of WWE's quarterly earnings conference calls with their shareholders, you'll be familiar with the fact that WWE loves to tout their social media presence. More so than almost any other metric, WWE puts such an emphasis on the number of social media followers, views, likes, favorites, etc. despite these indicators having no direct tie-in to the company's revenue.
The company's hope is that the more Twitter followers they have, the more products and WWE Network subscriptions they'll sell. By promoting the impressive social media numbers that WWE has, the company hopes to appease shareholders. Revenue streams like ticket sales, pay-per-view buys, and Nielsen television ratings have been declining year-over-year so instead of harping on these declines, it sounds good to spin and tout the positive news behind WWE's social media metrics.
The previous key performance indicators like ticket and merchandise sales, buyrates, and Raw's television ratings would directly increase revenue and potentially drive up advertising and television rights fees. Twitter has yet to provide that type of a return directly, but WWE still remains focused on increasing their social media footprint and promoting it as a vital judge of their overall success.