Social Media Audit — The National Hockey League (NHL)
NHL
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NHL 🏒
By: Noah Fries
Purpose of Audit
The purpose of this audit of the NHL’s social media accounts and pages is to analyze the brand’s reach, successes, and possible challenges that they may face on their respective platforms. By analyzing the NHL’s six social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube), we will be able to determine what kind of content performs best on the different platforms in order to obtain the most engagement possible and hopefully continue to grow our channels and the sport as a whole.
Audit of Brand Accounts
As I went through each of the NHL’s social media platforms, I quickly realized that the content posted on each platform varied based upon what style of content each platform was known for — with some overlap on certain platforms. The first platform that I analyzed was Instagram. The verified NHL Instagram (@NHL) has 6.8 million followers, which is the second highest of the NHL’s platforms. Their content entails mostly highlights, player interviews, posts highlighting upcoming games, and behind the scenes content — with highlights and player interviews seeming to garner the most engagement. The verified NHL Facebook (@NHL) has 5 million followers, making it their third most popular platform. This platform displayed more basic pictures of players than Instagram and also had longer, more inspirational moments, but had the same posts highlighting upcoming games. The posts of inspiring quotes from current and former famous NHL figures seem to do the best on this platform. The next platform is X (formerly known as Twitter), which is the NHL’s most popular platform with 7.2 million followers. This verified account (@NHL) displays more longer-form content than the two previous platforms, while also showing tons of highlights, posts highlighting upcoming games and advertising the NHL’s quarter-century team, as well as behind the scenes content. The behind the scenes content, as well as longer-form highlights and other content, seem to perform the best on X. The next platform is the newest of the NHL’s platforms — TikTok. While it is the fourth most popular platform with 2.9 million followers, it is also the most rapidly growing channel that the NHL has. This verified account (@NHL) posts the most unique content of the six platforms, focusing mainly on behind the scenes content and player interviews/fun media games that attract the younger demographic of TikTok in hopes of growing the NHL and hockey as a whole. The next platform is LinkedIn, which is by far the least popular of the NHL’s social media platforms with only 188 thousand followers. This platform (handle: National Hockey League) contains more heartwarming, informational content about the NHL’s partnerships — such as Hockey Fights Cancer — as well as job openings, with the partnership content having the most engagement. The final platform is YouTube, where the NHL (@NHL) has 2.3 million subscribers. This platform is known for its long-form content, mainly in the form of highlights. They also have short-form content in the form of YouTube shorts, where behind the scenes content and other highlights are found, with the longer-form content seeming to perform better on this platform than the shorter-form content.
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Handle: @NHL (verified)
Followers: 6.8M (2nd most)
Bio: Vote for the #NHLQCTeam with the link below! nhl.com/vote
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Handle: @NHL (verified)
Followers: 5M (3rd most)
Bio: The best hockey league in the world.
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Handle: @NHL (verified)
Followers: 7.2M (most)
Bio: Your home for hockey.
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Handle: @NHL (verified)
Followers: 2.9M (4th most)
Bio: Your home for hockey.
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Handle: National Hockey League (NHL)
Followers: 188K (least)
Bio: Hockey is for everyone.
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Handle: @NHL (verified)
Subscribers: 2.3M (5th most)
Bio: The offical Youtube channel of the National Hockey League.
Observation of Social Media Care
When going through the most recent posts on each of the NHL’s platforms, I was completely stunned to find that the NHL doesn’t reply to customer comments very much, if at all. I didn’t think that a platform such as the NHL would never interact with their fanbase on social media, but further research on the other major sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB) made me realize that none of them interact with their fanbase neither as much as they should in order to keep people engaged in the game and attract new members to the sport. They do have a form that people could fill out on their website for “Contact & Support” if fans want to contact the league in that way.
Analysis of Social Media Comments
In this section, I was tasked with having an AI system analyze the comment sections of the NHL’s six social media accounts to determine what kind of content was most and least effective, as well as see if the AI had any recommendations on what would make the brand better as a whole on social media. Utilizing ChatGPT, I asked the following prompt:
“Please review the comments from the NHL's social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, X) and detail what kind of content is most effective, what content is least effective, and what the NHL should do more to make their content more engaging?”
I was given four responses on the most effective content over all platforms: behind the scenes/player personalities, real time highlights/live engagement, user generated content/fan recognition, and localized/international content. This makes the most sense to me, as the behind the scenes content is the kind of content that I love to consume the most as one who follows the NHL on several different platforms. The other biggest and most effective form of content are highlight reels, which is another thing that I absolutely agree with as one who is unable to watch Penguins hockey games since they are always blacked out for me. As an avid Penguins fan, the only way I am able to engage with the team I’ve loved since I was a little kid is watching the full game highlights and analysis the morning after the game. With these two being the most effective forms of content, ChatGPT suggests that the NHL focus more on the emerging platforms (namely TikTok) to reach the younger generations with more behind the scenes content to expand the fanbase. In terms of the highlights part of the effective content strategy, ChatGPT believes that creating more original series and documentaries, essentially arguing that it would be the best of both worlds with the behind the scenes and player personality content while also essentially being a highlight reel sort of content at the same time. ChatGPT also believes that enhancing interactive content and highlighting inclusivity and community initiatives are the best ways to enhance engagement across all platforms. Some of the least effective content that ChatGPT thinks the NHL puts out includes too many promotions and overall repetitive content found on several different platforms.
Closing Analysis
After analyzing the last 25 social media posts on each of the NHL’s social media platforms — Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube — it’s very interesting to see the variety of content that is found on each specific platform. Looking at the NHL itself, I have learned that they adjust their content to what which platform is best at, and I recommend that they continue to post long-form content on X and YouTube, while also maybe putting some long-form content on LinkedIn and TikTok as well. I also have learned that LinkedIn is the social media platform that the NHL utilizes least, and I would recommend trying to post more enticing content on that platform to get more engagement from that platform itself. Finally, I have learned that X is the most engaging and popular platform as a whole, and I would recommend that the NHL continue to post up-to-the-minute content as it occurs — as well as long-form content — in order to cover all the bases in that aspect to obtain the most engagement in all fields. From a competitors stand point, I have learned that TikTok is the most rapidly growing platform, and I would recommend also trying to post more content on TikTok in order to obtain a younger fanbase and obtain the most engagement in the quickest fashion. I also have learned that the NHL posts repetitve content across a number of different platforms, and I would recommend diversifying my content more to get a wider range fanbases that would enjoy a wider spectrum and variety in our content. Finally, I have learned that behind the scenes content is what people enjoy most across all platforms, so I would recommend that creating more behind the scenes content because that’s what people really want to see and what will generate the greatest engagement. Overall, it has been very interesting to learn about the NHL and its utilization of their six social media accounts.