planetf1.com

I have to say i am really impressed by the efforts the F1 teams have been doing to increase their fans and keep them involved and interested using their online means.
I think this year has been revolutionary for F1 in that way, Lotus and Mclaren have really hit new heights here:

Lotus have used their twitter account excellently creating general polls, questions, driver and GP nicknames for the fans and always replying to those asking. their team has used the Kimi propaganda in a terrific way, even capitalizing on Kimi being quite rude (entertaining for us) to his engineer and saying things like "leave me alone, I know what i am doing" "don't remind me every second". their comics before every GP were very involved and entertaining and even mentioned Romain's in explainable smile often

Mclaren as well using their "casual Friday" on twitter as well as responding to the fans, sample telemetry data (not the one Lewis did, but another as an explanation), legendary 50 drivers not to mention TOONED!

Williams Also had their engineers use twitter and Pastor's race engineer was always sending pics as they walk the track and doing some explanations. Mercedes as well were quiet active.

Other sources are also quite entertaining the Fake accounts (Charlie whiting has encouraged his Fake self even!), F1 pit radio among others.

i think these efforts are well a step forwards in terms of publicity and fan attraction (specially the younger audience), the teams have done well to take that step IMO

best two F1 twitter accounts by far : @charlie_whiting and @LotusF1Team

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Ask no questions, hear no lies

Fake Charlie is funny but he also panders to his crowd.

More on topic - Lotus has fully embraced Kimi's public personna and made excellent use of it. Love it. I enjoy the Red Bull Spy as well, and the Williams team does a great job putting you at the circuit each weekend.

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The Lotus PR team has been on fire all season. It's great to see that the teams try to interact with the fans as much as possible even during the off season.

Lotus has been very aggressive in raising the team's profile in social media with Youtube and Twitter, and I'm guessing the approach was very similar in the sponsorship arena as well which has shown with a very strong winter lead by the Honeywell and Coca Cola "Burn" deals. Getting a win of course helped, Kimi on and off track has helped, and so has producing results (Until I started watching the 2011 GPs on DVD this off-season I forgot how much potential Lotus Renault showed at the start of that season and how it seemed like it was wasted away after the 1st few races.)

But I do think recognizing the power of social media in promoting the team and growing revenue can only help the team as well as others, and also the sport in showcasing its attractiveness, and that the sports has a personality beyond the 'rocket ships.'

Marussia is another team that I've noticed using Twitter an awful lot and trying to interact a lot as well. Force India has seemed to ebb and flow re: Twitter activity and interesting things it posts. Meanwhile, I've noticed very little activity from several teams. I really think its a way for some of the lower ranked teams to generate interest in their teams and give more value to their sponsors because it draws attention that they wouldn't garner through their results. (I know that may seem like a backwards priority, but if it does work that way, it keeps revenue streams open, maybe grows them allowing more money for testing, development and hiring good engineers and drivers that do bring improved results. Since its a relatively inexpensive thing, it seems to me the very smart teams will take advantage.)

I'm in my late 40s, so many of the social media stuff arn't that important to me... but I do follow/use Twitter a lot simply because of the all the F1 activity either by teams, drivers or media and commentators following the sport.

I love how lotus asked fans to " like " a certain post on facebook if they wanted Kimi's radio message T-shirts. Fans liked it. Lotus made a line of Kimi T-shirts, beanies and hoodies of his messages ( only available in EU countries at the moment though )

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