Is #RallyTogether good?

We’re four games into the 2018 season and I can say with confidence that I know one thing about this team for certain: The Cleveland Indians are 2-2.

Make that two things, because, yet again, the team is using #RallyTogether as its Twitter hashtag. This marks year 3 of the slogan/motto/branding exercise/way of life/what have you and I’m wondering if it’s still good or if it ever was.

While it makes sense, unlike some other team hashtags — looking at you, Tigers — that seems like a bad criteria to work from when asking the question is this good?

How would I define good? Good question. I came up with a few questions to answer that.

Is it catchy?

Rally Together, in my opinion, is a catchy slogan, so it fits this bill.

Is it popular?

The tastes of the masses can often be bad (e.g., Imagine Dragons, anything featuring Kevin James, and so on), but collectively humans are rather good at sorting the wheat from the chaff, so this can be instructive. I used an analytic tool from Brand24 to find out how often #RallyTogether was used (Note: I don’t know a ton about their tool and data gathering, or why the daily totals don’t equal the weekly report number, but I know it was free and I wasn’t ready to spend a bunch of money for this one-off article). Beginning last Tuesday it has been used 309, 205, 440, 2680 (opening day, natch), 221, 645, 492, and 625 times. An estimated 500 million tweets are sent per day, so in the last eight days #RallyTogether accounted for 0.000001% of all tweets. By volume it is not very popular, but in context, I think an average of 702 tweets per day featuring #RallyTogether is actually quite popular. So, for this metric I give it a qualified yes.

Brand24

Is it relevant?

Here’s where I start to get lost. Back in 2016, when the Indians success was a surprise to some, the idea of rallying together was certainly relevant. But as ticket sales, revenue, and eyeballs on the team continue to rise, it feels a little less relevant. I mean, we’re doing this thing together. But, as Craig Calcaterra noted in his Is Your City a “Baseball Town” season preview:

“The Indians went to Game 7 of the World Series in 2016 and people seemed to be talking about the Browns more. It’s totally a football town.”

So maybe the plea for everyone to rally around the best team in the city (sorry Cavs) is still valid. On this point I have to declare a hung jury.

Is it fresh?

This kind of goes with the last criteria, but is distinct enough to warrant its own. And the answer is no. After three years, #RallyTogether is a little stale. It’s not moldy, but it’s like cereal that’s gotten chewy.

Is it unique?

This one is also a no. Rally together could literally be about anything. It’s better than Philly’s “#bebold,” but it could be the hashtag for any MLB team or any team period. It could be a union’s slogan, or on a political yard sign. A group of cancer patients could adopt it as their slogan (this might actually be the best use of the phrase). Hell, even a bachelor party could co-opt “rally together.”

So, #RallyTogether is a hit for 2.5 of the 5 criteria. I guess that makes me rather ambivalent about it. For me, it’s Schrödinger’s hashtag: As long as the Indians don’t open the box of possibilities and choose another slogan, it is neither good nor bad.

What do you think?

To get to the bottom of it, naturally I conducted a Very Rigorous and Highly Scientific Twitter Poll. Lo and behold, you guys like it, overwhelmingly.

Not many took me up on explaining votes in the comments, but a couple did.

I appreciate the comments, and mostly agree. I think J. and I are totally on the same page, but I’d be more inclined to agree with Phil if he hadn’t used the British variant on “flavor” (not very local, my man).

Everyone’s favorite Twitter user, Hipster Tito, didn’t weigh on my post, but certainly had some thoughts.

I see what you did there.

Anyway, #RallyTogether is what we have and it’s not bad. Many of you think it’s good, and I think that is great. I’ll use the hashtag because all social media is silly anyway. Now, let’s see some more rallies.