Why An Argentine Football Star Deletes His 92K Twitter Followers

Boca Juniors football star Burrito Martinez deleted all of his 92,000 Twitter followers and start over from zero with the goal of regaining all the followers he erased.

The reason why he did this? The act is a Twitter activation from Nike and BBDO Argentina.

In one of his first tweets after the big delete, Martinez stated:

Hoy dejé mis 92.112 seguidores para volvermelos a ganar jugando cada partido como el primer partido. http://t.co/4M71CRLnES

— Burrito Martinez (@BurriMartinez07) August 16, 2013

 

In English: “Today I erased my 92,112 followers with the idea of winning them back by playing every match as if it were my first”.

Martinez is already back up to 32K followers, so apparently his fans aren’t too annoyed at having to re-follow him.

The stunt also ties in thematically with Nike’s recent TV spot “Baptism” (see in the tweet above) in which veteran Boca Juniors players shave their heads, which is usually reserved only for the newbies to demonstrate their ongoing allegiance to the club.

My Opinion?

I think it’s a funny, but also an interesting stunt: a great way to check the loyalty of your fans and followers.

I doubt whether he would get back up to 92K followers, because I believe today people are much more selective when it comes to who to follow or not.

I think Martinez doesn’t have any kind of knowledge yet of his social media value, I guess he would think twice if he finds out what the social media value of an athlete actually means in terms of sponsor value.

What About You?

What do you think of this little Twitter (re)activation, smart or stupid? Let us know in the comments below.

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About the Author
Laurens Bianchi is an independent online (sport) marketing professional from the Netherlands and has been blogging on ViralBlog since 2008. Currently Laurens is also the Social Media Consultant for the Royal Dutch Football Association.