We are two weeks into the NFL season now, and thought it would be a good time to revisit the social engagement of some of the most featured faces in and around the league; not the players or even the owners, the coaches. The amount of time they are seen and talked about during a game is probably more than any player outside of a quarterback, yet for the most part their engagement with the fans, because of their volatile position and their workload demand, is not that high. Sponsorships are also usually left to the offseason or the post career, yet coaches remain the most visible and consistent face on any team depth chart.
We took a look, with the work of Tanner Simkins and the Complete SET Agency, at the social footprint of NFL Coaches. Here is what we found.
There are currently only six NFL head coaches engaged in social, down from eight two years ago and seven last season, and of the six, only three, Pete Carroll of the Seahawks, Ron Rivera of the Panthers and Mike Vrabel of the Titans also have active Instagram accounts.
Of the six, which also include Sean Payton of the Saints, Mike Tomlin of the Steelers, and Dan Quinn of the Falcons, the most engaged and most authentic continues to be (no surprise), Seahawks coach Carroll who not only pushes team messages and community events, but generates his own thought filled content as well. While all universally make their interaction positive, and do a good amount of retweeting of colleagues, they do avoid controversy, player decisions and much that is not pre-determined.
Of the six, the numbers probably are dictated by the amount of activity, with Carroll, over 2.3 million twitter followers, more than the other six COMBINED. Second is Mike Tomlin of the Steelers at 337,000 with Payton at 296,000. The newer, more energetic voices like Jon Gruden of the Raiders and Sean McVay of the Rams are nowhere to be heard from still, at least on social.
On Instagram, Carroll’s 419,000 also dominate, which shows the amount of time, interest and effort the Seahawks mentor puts into the value of social in tech-savvy Seattle.
It is also interesting to note that most of the coaches who are engaged have gone through the interaction with the live unscripted shows like Hard Knocks and the recent effort by Amazon, although the Browns Hue Jackson is not on the list, despite the positive response the team got form participation this year.
Still this is the NFL, and social access is carefully monitored and controlled, although we are seeing more from players in season would be great to get see additional insights from the top. It is not easy, and time is limited, but getting engagement from those calling the signals away from the field would probably be beneficial, interesting and insightful as fans, brands and interested parties look to learn more about the biggest weekly spectacle in pro sports today.
We will take a look at a much more robust group, college coaches, later in the week.
For now for those running the NFL shops, the interest is dwindling.
