The Not-So-Secret Ingredients of the Philadelphia Eagles

In my last post, I told you how the Eagles have a few flaws on Instagram. As it turns out, they are doing some things that fans are reacting to positively. Here are three ways the Eagles are achieving positive feedback through their social media content on Instagram:

Looking Out for Their Competition

According to Hootsuite "14 Social Media Best Practices You Should Follow in 2019,” the fourth tip is to keep an eye out for your competition. The Eagles are definitely keeping up with their competitors’ content on each platform. Even though they did not make the Superbowl (throwback to when they did in 2018!) and the season is over, they are posting several times every day.  Sometimes up to four times per day! Whereas their competition, the New England Patriots, are only posting a few times a week after losing in the playoffs last season.

Brands and sports teams that have ”peak-season,” like around the holidays for stores or in the fall/winter during football season for the NFL, still need to keep up with their following by posting continuously. According to Campaign Monitor’s article named, “9 Off-season Marketing Strategies for Seasonal Business,” the second strategy says “It puts you ahead of competition.” If brands are reaching out and engaging with their followers before peak-season, they will have an advantage when the season starts and competitors decide to start reaching out then.

Using Images that Interest Followers

Buffer’s article, “How to Engage With Your Social Media Followers Quickly and Authentically,” also states, another way to engage with your followers is by using images. The Philadelphia Eagles did a great job with using images to engage their followers during this past football season. Instead of posting pictures of just players to announce the upcoming game, they did something a little bit different that their competitors aren’t doing. They posted images that local artists and influencers made to hype up the upcoming game or a previous win. If you're an art major like me (or just a confused sports fan), this was definitely a relief from the typical football related posts. It also gained a lot of positive feedback from the comments and from people reposting the images to their Instagram stories. See these examples:

Posting Videos That are Funny and Eye Catching

Buffer’s article also states that videos are more personal, visual, and it takes a little more effort, which shows your followers how much you care about them. The Eagles are constantly posting videos of players talking at events, recaps from the previous game, slo-mos, hype videos for upcoming games, and funny videos of players (sometimes even behind the scenes in the locker room!). Videos are more engaging because the most seen content on Instagram are pictures, so when a follower sees a video they're most likely going to watch it. 

The first screenshot was a video of Miles Sanders from a previous game with a photoshopped slice of pizza, as if he was holding it for National Pizza Day. The second screenshot was a short video with the words, “we’re in” of the Eagles celebrating a previous win to get fans ready for the upcoming game, using the caption “See you Sunday at 4:40 PM, @seahawks.”

Would You Be Engaged by This Content?

Search your favorite NFL team on Instagram and see how they are engaging with their followers! Are they providing similar content that the Eagles post? Let me know in the comments below! Please share,like, and check out my last blog post!