Philadelphia Eagles: Behind The Scenes Daily Snapchat

The Philadelphia Eagles have been connecting with fans via Snapchat longer than most NFL teams and through the current NFL season they have been demonstrating why they are one of the leading sports teams at engaging across the channel on a daily basis.

For those who had added ‘eagles’ on @Snapchat the team has been offering unique, fun, behind-the-scenes insights into what it is like to be part of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The team’s approach is to use Snapchat to show fans things they normally wouldn’t see on other media channels or marketing campaigns.

The Eagles opened their own Snapchat account last year and gained more than 7000 followers in the first week as they sought to keep fans connected to the team.

The Eagles social media team posts photos and videos for fans every single day in an attempt to provide 24/7 engagement by offering an insider, real-time perspective on what being on the Philadelphia Eagles is like.

The team uses Snapchat for everything from providing film footage of locker room sing-a-longs and pre-game preparations, day-off activities and practice sessions, to share new products or alerting fans to new promotions.

There is a personal tough and a breaking news story approach to the Eagles’ use the channel – from pictures highlighting Trent Coles’ birthday to a snap of Jason Kelce signing his new contract,

The Eagles also use Snapchat to show a human and comic side of the team – such as a recent snap making fun of running back LeSean McCoy’s shoe choices.

The team continued its Snapchat engagement right through the off-season with snaps supporting other Philadelphia sports teams and highlighting celebrations and events that relate to the team (such as national Bald Eagle Day).

The team’s Snapchat approach aims to ensure that fans themselves know they’re important by posting photos and films of players talking to fans all with the caption ‘Fans First’.

The franchise is also pushing its Snapchat offering via photo galleries across its other digital channels – such as its central website hub and on its Facebook page.

Comment

The Eagles, along with the New Orleans Saints were among the NFL’s early Snapchat adopters.

The media platform market is always changing and is becoming increasingly crowded, so one can’t help but ask whether Snapchat is here to stay.

If not, quite how much money and time should teams invest in engaging through what may be a temporary channel?

But the current mantra across the sports world seems to be that you don’t want to get left behind, so you have to embrace emerging technologies as they gain traction.

Certainly the Eagles’ digital and social media director Linda Thomas feels an obligation to experiment with whatever the hot new medium is.

‘We want to meet them where they are,’ she said. ‘Our team thinks that social media is a great way to connect with our fans. People can connect with us and have a conversation with us.’

‘[When we launched on Snapchat} we didn’t do a great big media blitz. We just posted about it on the team’s other platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. The response was immediate.’

As yet the team’s number of Snapchat followers doesn’t match up to its two million Facebook fans, but Thomas says she is most struck with the intensity of the engagement with fans on Snapchat.

Snapchat at its most basic functional level is a mobile platform that enables users to send pictures or short videos (with optional enhancement and added doodles) which last around 10 seconds before they disappear forever.

The Eagles account predominantly utilises Snapchat’s ‘My Story’ function, which enables users to combine photos and videos for a longer message.

Interestingly, the Eagles have opted not to receive pictures from followers.

Like most other social platforms, Snapchat was created in the spirit of fun and ease of use while connecting with the people users care about reaching most.

It is likely that those who are successfully at engaging through Snapchat in the long term should adopt this same spirit.

Links

Philadelphia Eagles Snapchat Username

‘Eagles’

Philadelphia Eagles Web

http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/

Philadelphia Eagles Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/philadelphiaeagles

Philadelphia Eagles Twitter

https://twitter.com/eagles

Philadelphia Eagles Pinterest

http://www.pinterest.com/officialeagles/