Top 10 NASCAR Drivers – April 2019

Top NASCAR Drivers With the Highest Social Interactions Among Fans

The Hookit Top 10 Nascar Drivers list saw a lot of movement in the month of April.  With races at Bristol Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway, and Talladega SuperSpeedway, drivers posted about wins, crashes, and events to get more social interactions. Chase Elliott moved up 7 spots to finish on top with 362.1K interactions. Jimmie Johnson moved up 4 spots, coming in second with 205.6K interactions. Kyle Busch rounded out the top three with 148.9K interactions. Hookit analyzed the top 10 NASCAR drivers, based on the total number of interactions received via their social media channels and created valuable insights to explain a few of the racers’ rankings.

Note: All data from Hookit Engagement rankings on May 6th, 2019. Data is updated consistently to reflect live rankings on the Hookit Rankings website.

Key Insights

Chase Elliott:  Winner at Talladega and on the Social Charts

Chase Elliott jumped up 7 spots to take the top spot on the April 2019 Hookit Top 10 NASCAR drivers list.  Elliott took the checkered flag on April 28 at Talladega Superspeedway, which helped him add 13K new followers and drove up his social interactions. Elliott’s most engaged post (57K interactions) showed him with the checkered flag with the song lyrics from Eric Church’s “Talladega”. This type of crossover content that plays in the “culture” realm as well as “sports” can help athletes add to their engagement.

Jimmie Johnson running into 2nd Place

Jimmie Johnson takes the runner up spot for the month of April on the social charts.  This month, most of Johnson interactions didn’t come from his NASCAR races but a different kind of race.  On April 15th, Johnson raced in and completed the Boston Marathon. Wearing bib number 4848, Johnson finished in 3 hours, 9 minutes and 7 sec, saying on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, “That was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, what an experience!” Again, while most fans follow him for his achievements on the track, other lifestyle posts also generate high engagement, a trend across athletes of many sports. See the NBA rankings for how Dwyane Wade is leveraging a similar technique.

Kyle Larson’s “Crash Course” on how to get into the Top Ten

With the most movement on the social charts, Kyle Larson moved up 12 spots finishing at number 8 on the Top Ten list.  Larson had 93.3K interactions across his social channels for the month of April, with one post driving more than a third (34.2K) of those interactions.  On the final lap at Talladega, Larson was sent flying in the air, rolling over a couple of times in a pretty scary crash. Luckily, Larson was not injured and posted a picture of the crash onto his Instagram, saying he was alright.

The Wrap Up

Taking the checkered flag, crashing out, and participating in different activities show there isn’t just one way to get onto the Hookit Top Ten social charts.  Drivers post on their social channels for fans that may not have been able to attend the race or tune in on television. Social and digital media has eclipsed traditional media in exposure.  As more and more fans interact on the social channels, drivers are using these platforms to drive value for their sponsors.

Note: All data is from official Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram Business accounts. Any personal Instagram account data is not included in these rankings.

Written by Chad Patteson
Chad is on our partnership development team at Hookit. He studied Sports Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara and has worked in many aspects of athletics and analytics.

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