NFL teams may be behind other sports in their use of social media but they are catching up quickly. I looked at all 32 of the NFL teams Facebook pages to see how they use social media to interact with their fans.
NFL FanZone application was predominant on almost all the team Facebook page. An interesting find was that there are a few teams (very few, but still a few) that used Pinterest and Instagram directly on their Facebook page. I think it's a fun way to draw in a wider audience by having exclusive Instagram content to help humanize and create connections with the players. Pinterest and Instagram are also a good way to draw in the female audience with a pin board.
The Patriots have one of the better pages in regards to integrating enough applications and content with third party contests to broaden the audience. The idea of captioning photos is highly engaging and fans like the idea of helping title a photo of their favorite players, etc. They also seem to like head to head contests, such as "This or That."
Take a look at how NFL teams use Facebook to engage their fans. I ranked the teams based on the number of "Likes" of their Facebook Pages.
- Dallas Cowboys
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- New England Patriots
- Green Bay Packers
- New Orleans Saints
- Chicago Bears
- New York Giants
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Oakland Raiders
- Indianapolis Colts
- Baltimore Ravens
- San Fransisco 49ers
- New York Jets
- Denver Broncos
- Minnesota Vikings
- Miami Dolphins
- San Diego Chargers
- Washington Redskins
- Atlanta Falcons
- Detroit Lions
- Seattle Seahawks
- Houston Texans
- Kansas City Chiefs
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Cleveland Browns
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Tennessee Titans
- Arizona Cardinals
- Carolina Panthers
- Buffalo Bills
- St. Louis Rams
- Jacksonville Jaguars