J480 Sports PR - Fall 2020

Organization Synopsis and Brief Analysis of Five Sources

The Cleveland Indians is a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio, that is a part of the Major League Baseball organization. The organization communicates with its stakeholders through press releases, a mobile app, a website, Media Guides, and social media accounts. All of these forms of communication work together to reach all their stakeholders, from casual fans to die-hard fans to media professionals.

The press releases that the Indians communications team puts out use just the right amount of information concisely. The press releases are in the news section of the Cleveland subsite of the MLB website. The website that the Indians use for official communications has a great layout. It is a subsite of the MLB website, so keeping up with your other favorite teams is easy. There are eight tabs with drop-downs that lead you to something more specific. The available tabs are "Tickets," "Schedule," "Scores," "Stats," "Roster," "Video," "News," and "..." The website is very well organized and easy to use.

​The official mobile app of the Indians is along the same lines as the website and within the MLB app. You can get game start and end notifications, live score updates, and many of the website's features through the app. In addition, you can switch between teams and the MLB as a whole.

​Next, I looked into the Media Guide for the Indians, which is almost 400 pages long. It has a lot of great information, but much of the data is drowned out in paragraphs. The Media Guide contains information like the history of the team and stadium, players and staff, statistics, records, etc. Overall, this Media Guide holds much valuable information for the press, but it may be able to be done better.

​Lastly, I looked at the social media accounts for the Indians. The Indians have a relatively good following and grasp of social media for each platform. Its Facebook works well for the average age range of Facebook users. Their Twitter is also great and informative. However, I think they could do better on Instagram and the latest craze, TikTok.

​The proposed changes would help promote the team, interact with fans, and overall ease of use. After looking through all of these forms of communication, all five of them could improve in some way slightly. But, the two forms of communication that deserve an audit and suggestions are the Media Guide and the social media accounts, specifically Tiktok and Instagram.

Cleveland Indians Media Guide

Audit

The Cleveland Indians Media Guide is 384 pages of information about things that fans and press may find very interesting to know and use. The Media Guide is essential to any sports program, from high school teams to professional organizations. These Media Guides give the press key information they need to write and tell exciting and captivating stories. The 2020 Media Guide for Cleveland contains 11 main sections that are in random formation. These sections are:

● 2020 Indians

● Awards

● Broadcasting

● Miscellaneous

● Opponents

● Personnel

● Player Development/Scouting

● Postseason/All-Star Review

● Progressive Field

● Records/History

● Season in Review 2019

The Media Guide is available on a third-party website. Unfortunately, it was not easily accessible on the Indian's website as I could not find it on their site at all. However, it was easy to find and download as a PDF when I searched "2020 Cleveland Indians Media Guide."

Proposed Changes

​I would suggest adding something similar to the example below. I believe that the Media Guide could be organized much better. Not having set sections throughout the 384 pages causes people to hop back and forth between pages to understand a section fully. I also could not find a "quick facts" section in the Media Guide, such as the one in the University of Oregon Softball Media Guide. This addition could be precious to the media.

Having a more organized Media Guide would be beneficial to the press. For example, once you pass page 22 of the Media Guide, no color is in the photos. I believe the Media Guide would have a fresh look if the color were continued throughout the guide, even if it is only in the PDF version. Color ink can be costly, but it would make the team look more put together.

Cleveland Indians Social Media Accounts - Instagram & TikTok Audit

​The Cleveland Indians have an impressive following on Facebook with well over one million likes, one million followers on Twitter, and almost 600 thousand Instagram followers. Many of their fans get information from these pages, such as ticket sales, game day updates, and general news about the team. They interact with followers often, which creates a sense of community among the fans no matter how far away they are from Cleveland.

Proposed Changes

The two social media channels in which I believe the Indians are slacking are Instagram and Tiktok. Starting with Instagram, the Indians mainly post action shots of their players and rarely any kind of graphic, community relation, fan art, etc. While action shots are exciting, the lack of diversity in posts makes the feed dry. Compared to the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, the Indians' Instagram feed is boring.

​I would suggest that the Instagram media team diversifies the feed by adding interactive media, graphics, and things that would rally the community.

​Secondly, the Indians are losing out on a younger generation of possible fans. A big professional sports community on Tiktok has captivated young minds. One of the most prominent themes of very popular professional sports Tiktoks is "mic'd up" videos. Cleveland could capitalize on this free community-building platform. This platform is an excellent opportunity to start building a younger fan base.

Link to Original Audit with photos: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18sBhOWiMH3utxqgd0I9kW6acfh2p_-T-cf2qvSiHqZk/edit?usp=sharing