Over the past two decades, the New England Patriots have been a dynasty in the National Football League with seven championships. Since being eliminated by the Tennessee Titans, I’ve admired how the Patriots have been able to keep their social media audiences engaged in the off-season by posting effective content. However, I’m curious why they don’t practice the same strategies across all of their platforms. Here are three improvements I found while taking a deeper dive into the Patriots social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter:
1. Engage with the Audience
Although the Patriots have a very engaged audience on all of their platforms, they still have practices to improve on. However, there is none more glaring than the Patriots lack of engagement with commenters. Although they occasionally interact on Instagram, both of their Facebook and Twitter accounts haven’t publicly responded or engaged to a single fan comment.
This is surprising since it would have a positive impact on most of their posts. Especially posts that rely on viewer participation like the submission dependent “Lil Fan of the Week”. By simply responding to a few comments with submission suggestions and encouragement, the post would immediately gain more engagement.
Additionally, according to strategist Alfred Lua, other posts could be improved too by providing links to additional related articles or asking follow-up questions to start discussion.
2. Enable Shopping Features
As one of the most successful franchises in history, the Patriots goal every season is to distinguish themselves as NFL champions by hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. Despite their obvious desire to win games, the Patriots mission is to sell season tickets to football games and merchandise. However, that hasn’t been their main focus across their social media platforms.
Instagram shopping has dominated the platform and will continue to. According to Sprout Social, Instagram has incorporated enough shopping features that the platform can become an entirely new revenue stream for your e-commerce business. and that over 130 million users are tapping to view Instagram shopping tags on photos a month.
As my classmate Brandon Ortiz discovered, the Patriots haven’t used Instagram shopping tags at all. Since the apparel market is popular among fans that want to represent their team, it’s a practice that the Patriots should implement within their posts. By simply applying a shopping tag on a beanie, t-shirt, or jersey, they could potentially net themselves thousands more apparel sales.
3. Post a Variety of Content
Many of the Patriots’ followers follow them to receive football news and content. However, since their loss to the Titans that ended their season, creating meaningful football related content has been a struggle. Especially on their Instagram and Twitter pages. Below are three types of posts that the Patriots successful Facebook has implemented to keep their fans engaged:
1. Linked Content Posts
By following Christina Newberry’s strategy, the Patriots have been able to combat this lack of content by sharing news from other thought leaders in the football industry. Through this practice of Linked Content Posts, they’ve been able to post interesting articles relating to free agency or other off-season news to their audience that drives viewers back to their website. While also increasing engagement and discussion among fans with different opinions
2. Throwbacks
The Patriots have also implemented the use of throwback pictures and images with great success. This can be attributed to the fact that since it was a throwback, this Patriots memory is much more well known and widespread.
Especially on platforms like Facebook where, according to Katie Sehl of Hootsuite, usage has grown increasingly among older generations. Therefore, this post was able to reach a much wider audience with a pleasant memory which led to higher engagement from those viewers.
3. User Generated Content
As a way to get their fans more involved, the Patriots began introducing user-generated content created by their followers. By introducing fan submission driven campaigns like the “Patriots”, they were able to gather a multitude of user-generated content for their usage. More importantly, it was content that was interesting to fans since it was submitted by them! Therefore, leading to more meaningful engagement with shares and comments.
Do you have a favorite brand you follow on social media? Leave me a comment below.
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Dave's Social Media Blog 
Great post. I evaluated the Eagles’ social media platforms and found similar results. They also need to improve on audience engagement. I think you idea and suggestion for teams to use Instagram shopping tags is a really great one. I’m surprised social teams haven’t thought about/implemented this already! My favorite brand to follow on social media is Chipotle. I think they have hysterical tweets and campaigns.
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