The UFC has announced the first quarter winners of their Twitter incentive campaign that was launched at the UFC Fighter Summit in May.
The way the program works is the fighters are placed into one of four categories based on number of followers as of June 1, the beginning of the quarter.
Then at the end of the quarter four fighters from each of the three following categories are awarded a $5,000 bonus: most total followers at the end of the quarter, biggest percent increase in followers over the quarter, and most creative use of Twitter.
And fighters winning $5,000 for the first quarter are:
Most followers:
- Anderson Silva (@spideranderson), UFC middleweight champion – 604,511
- Minotauro Nogueira (@Minotauromma) – 176,852
- Demian Maia (@demianmaia) – 69,792
- Cris Cyborg (@criscyborg), Strikeforce women’s featherweight champion – 12,252
Biggest percent increase in followers:
- Anderson Silva (@spideranderson) – 106.5%
- Minotauro Nogueira (@Minotauromma) – 290%
- Demian Maia (@demianmaia) – 157%
- Paulo Thiago (@paulothiagomma) – 301%
Most creative:
- Forrest Griffin (@ForrestGriffin)
The original Ultimate Fighter has always been known for his sense of humor and he brings that to Twitter. Notified of his win, he wrote: “Irony: found put on twitter I won a prize for tweeting” and “When the @ufc says most creative what they obviously mean is incoherent ramblings.”
- Joe Lauzon (@JoeLauzon)
Lauzons scooped the MMA media and broke the news of his UFC 136 fight against Melvin Guillard (with the blessing of the UFC, of course). He wrote a post on his own site with his reasons for taking the fight and his (ultimately correct) prediction for how it would play out, then tweeted a link.
- Benson Henderson (@SMOOTHone155)
Henderson live-tweeted during the UFC 133 pre-fight conference call, giving fans access to what is usually a media-only affair. He also took questions from fans during the call, fully incorporating them into the event.
- Joseph Benavidez (@JoeB135)
Benavidez held a Twitter contest asking fans to suggest and then vote on a new nickname, which was to be announced by Bruce Buffer inside the Octagon at Benavidez’s August fight. The contest received over 1,000 mentions and 250 nominations.
NOTE: If you notice the winners for “most followers” and “biggest percentage increase” are all Brazilian fighters. According to the UFC, their surge in popularity is due in large part to the UFC Rio event in August.
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