As one of the most successful franchises in the National Football League, the New England Patriots have established a dynasty with seven championships. However, that success seems to be dwindling since they were eliminated by the Tennessee Titans in the first round of the playoffs.
Alternatively, the Philadelphia Eagles (my favorite team, but I’ll try not to be biased) haven’t had as much success overall as a franchise. Despite having several experienced and gritty rosters, the Eagles have only won one Super Bowl in their 86 year existence. However, the tide seems to be changing on this franchise since that lone Super Bowl victory was only a few seasons ago in 2017…against the Patriots.
Similar to their dominance on the field, the New England Patriots have an outstanding following on Facebook compared to the Eagles (6.7mil followers to the Eagles 3.1mil). However, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Patriots are doing a better job managing their Facebook page. After examining and comparing each Facebook account, here is what I found about how each brand is doing in three best practices areas:
1. Lack of Engagement
Despite their difference in followers, the Patriots and Eagles Facebook pages both receive a significant amount of engagement. However, they both fall short on a simple, yet major, practice in social media marketing…lack of interaction with their followers!
I was surprised to find that the Philadelphia Eagles Facebook page was also guilty of this social media sin. Especially since they’ve done well following this practice on their other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter.
In fact, the Eagles Facebook page interacts with their followers so little, that they don’t even share any User-Generated Content. Alternatively, the Patriots are notorious for their fan recognition with submission generated posts like “Lil Pats Fan of the Week” or “Petriots”.
Considering how widely followed and successful their Facebook pages are, It’s interesting to see that both of these competitors don’t follow this practice. Especially when responding to your followers further builds a trust and connection with them according to Sprout Social.
2. Posting Strategy
During my earlier audit of the Patriots Facebook page, they routinely spread out their posts throughout the day. Typically, their first post would go out during rush hour while people commuted to work. Then, their second post, and occasionally third if they had one, would either occur during lunch or as the work day concluded. Since they posted a variety of content spread out among the day, the majority of their posts received high levels of engagement.
In comparison, the Eagles don’t follow this best practice strategy for posting content. Alternatively, as my classmate Natasha discovered, the Eagles typically share two to three posts per day all before lunch. Unsurprisingly, many of these posts underperformed. Especially compared to the level of follower interaction on an average Patriots post.
Therefore the Philadelphia Eagles Facebook team should follow this posting strategy successfully implemented by the Patriots and promoted by Katie Sehl of Hootsuite.
3. Sponsored Posts
Since being eliminated from the playoffs in the first round by the Tennessee Titans, the New England Patriots have posted a variety of content. Similarly, the Eagles Facebook team has had to search for fresh content to post. However, there has been a huge difference in their content…sponsorship.
Throughout many of the Patriots posts, they’ve offered a business partner the opportunity to place their logo on the content. This is a very beneficial strategy since it not only creates a source of revenue, but could also create additional visibility if the sponsor promotes it.
Surprisingly, the Eagles don’t have a sponsor on a majority of their posts. Therefore, they should implement this strategy since it’s a missed opportunity for revenue and potential visibility.
Who won?
The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles have several different Facebook practices. However, Patriots strategies have had significantly more success despite their larger following.
But, who do you think had the better Facebook page?
Click the teams’ helmet to check it out for yourself and let me know who you think was better in the comments!
Dave's Social Media Blog 
I love the points you made in this, especially about posting strategy. Now more than ever it’s becoming important for brands to follow the viewing and engagement trends of their followers, or they will suffer. I also think the Patriots won this one, too bad they didn’t do that in Super Bowl 52 #GoBirds
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There are some strong arguments in this post. I agree that the Patriots do a great job of integrating user-generated content and sponsored content on their page, maybe more-so than the Eagles. What did you find comparing the Patriots against other teams beside the Philadlephia Eagles?
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