Press Release: Cardinals Launch Spanish Language Twitter Account
ST. LOUIS, MO, August 5, 2016 – The St. Louis Cardinals announced that they have launched @cardenales, a Spanish language Twitter account in an effort to better reach a rapidly growing segment of the team’s domestic and international fan base.
“We are very excited to be able to offer our Spanish-speaking fans inside access to the team they love with unique content provided to them in their native language,” said Ron Watermon, Vice-President of Communications for the St. Louis Cardinals. “Fans looking for real time updates about the Cardinals, and unique Spanish-language content will want to follow @cardenales so they don’t miss the unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the Cardinals we strive to offer fans every day with our social media coverage.”
In addition to launching the @cardenales Twitter account, the Cardinals have also established Los Cardenales, a video topic page on cardinals.com to house Spanish-language video features the Cardinals are producing as part of their expanding video brand journalism efforts. With the Cardinals’ Spanish language communication efforts, the team hopes to reach fans both domestically and internationally.
Recent census data shows approximately 50,000 people in the St. Louis metropolitan area speak primarily Spanish, while there are more than a million Spanish speaking people in the nine states (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Tennessee) that are part of the team’s regional market. The U.S. Census Bureau data shows the Hispanic and Latino population in this multi-state region at just over 4 million people and growing faster than any other demographic group. The Cardinals also hope to reach fans in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the largest insular territory of the United States, and internationally in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and other Spanish-speaking nations in Latin America.
“Our players, particularly our Spanish-speaking players, are very excited to see the team launch this account,” said Alexandra Noboa, the Cardinals’ International Communication Specialist who will be responsible for managing the @cardenales Twitter account in addition to serving as the team’s Spanish Interpreter. “We can’t wait to interact with our fans and allow them to get to know our players and our team in a much more enriching way.”
In the near future, the Cardinals will be announcing details surrounding Fiesta Cardenales, a Hispanic Heritage Theme Night at Busch Stadium scheduled for Friday, September 30th that will also include a Spanish-language radio broadcast and other programmatic elements designed to reach Spanish-speaking Cardinals fans. Details will be available in a future press release once finalized. Fans can learn more about the Cardinals social media at cardinals.com/communications and may join the conversation with #STLCards and #SomosSTL.
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About Cardinals Social Media
The Cardinals have experienced dramatic growth in the team’s social media platforms in recent years. In May of 2010, when the team used Twitter to launch the Stand for Stan campaign to celebrate Stan Musial, the team had just over 5,000 followers. Today, the Cardinals have more than 849,000 followers on Twitter, making @Cardinals one of the largest accounts in MLB (9th). The Cardinals have more than 2.3 million fans on Facebook (7th in MLB), and over 500,000 followers on Instagram as well as a growing presence on other social media platforms such as Vine, Tumblr, Pinterest and Google Plus. In March 2015, Forbes listed the Cardinals social reach (a combination of Facebook fans and Twitter followers as a percentage of the team’s metropolitan population) as among the best in MLB (3rd behind the San Francisco Giants [#1] and the Boston Red Sox [#2]). The Cardinals’ various innovative social media efforts, such as the Stand for Stan campaign, Facebook Fridays with Fredbird, the Like Mike Facebook campaign, #FreesePlease, #VinetheVote, #LoveRed2, #StLisLou, the team’s #VoteSTL All-Star balloting campaigns, the team’s two #Nestflix Instagram video original series (#TheFrontOffice in September 2013 and the two-time regional Emmy nominated #BirdtoTheFuture in September 2014) and the team’s #CardsFanFlix fan-engagement initiative have all been designed to take advantage of communication mediums that are transforming how fans interact with the club. Fans can learn more about the team’s social media efforts at cardinals.com/communications and they can join the conversation with #STLCards.
