Social Media Audit: National Hockey League (NHL)
by: Austin Hansen
Section 1: Audit of Brand Accounts
General Observations:
The National Hockey League holds a strong presence across Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube, although currently, the NHL’s social media presence has been elevated due to the professional league’s all-new 4 Nations Face-Off. This tournament is a replacement of the NHL’s All-Star break and pins the best hockey players in the NHL against each other, representing their native countries. The countries included were the United States of America, Canada, Finland, and Sweden, as an NHL-exclusive event, digital marketers for the NHL saw this as an opportunity to grow the sport of hockey. Each platform had a unique strategy and audience engagement level, but all shared a similar purpose of increasing eyes on the NHL.
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Content: Graphics, reels with cinematic highlights, and game photos.
Top Content: A quote about the importance of 4 Nations Face-Off Championship Matchup (Team USA vs Team Canada).
Recent Post: NHL Quarter-Century Team voting information.
Learning: The strongest time to push content due to high interest in the tournament, and have capitalized on the Instagram collaboration feature to penetrate markets that may be interested.
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Content: Cinematic videos and game highlights. Informational posts/reposts, for example, game articles.
Top Content: Most engagement within a post happens to be a minimal tweet saying, “TWO NATIONS FACING OFF!” without the use of photos.
Recent Post: NHL Quarter-Century Team voting information with hashtag voting as an option could promote impressions.
Learning: More tailored for hardcore fans, this could be due to it already having the highest amount of followers compared to its other social media. The features within X allow for longer content to be posted and information to be shared because those are features X users use in higher proportion to other apps.
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Content: Similar to Instagram with graphics, videos, and game photos but with more engagement prompts.
Top Content: Posts with community engagement calls to action, for example, which player are you reminded of by said flag of the nation represented in the tournament.
Recent Post: Video storytelling of a brother relationship on Team USA between the Tkachuk brothers.
Learning: Works well for community engagement and storytelling, possibly due to the demographics of Facebook users. Typically, users may be older and would value storytelling of values such as family in the Tkachuk brothers.
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Content: Player personalities behind the scenes, mic’d-up clips, and quick highlights.
Top Content: Interview-based videos featuring USA and Canada players.
Recent Post: Creator/influencer 3-on-3 tournament before the Championship game.
Learning: Trending content performs well, this makes sense because TikTok’s landscape is ever-changing with different trends. Additionally, a younger audience is at hand, so the NHL tries to show personability to players that many younger generations look up to. Having creator/influencer cameos can help with both aspects of trends and personability
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Content: Job postings, philanthropic events, and larger league office announcements.
Top Content: Job postings.
Recent Post: Promotion of philanthropic collaboration with the Winter Classic and VFoundation
Learning: Fits its niche audience very well. Helps show organizational longevity and ethos. LinkedIn, while it may not be flashy, does the best at appealing to the audience at hand out of all mediums, in my opinion.
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Content: Highlights (full and short length), YouTube Shorts, and cinematic-style documentaries.
Top Content: A documentary-style 4 Nations Face-Off video.
Recent Post: 4 Nations Face-Off Unveiled
Learning: Strong gameplay content and YouTube Shorts show personalities like the way TikTok does.
Overall Strategy Adjustments:
Instagram and Facebook: Lean into community engagement and reply more in comments.
X: Post more original content instead of reposting.
TikTok: Ensure thumbnails are accurate to avoid misleading content.
LinkedIn: Keep the focus on professional updates, but consider engagement strategies.
YouTube: Leverage long videos more effectively for full versions of interviews and personality-driven content.
Section 2: Observation of Social Media Care
Instagram and Facebook – Lack of Engagement in Comments
Missed Opportunities:
Instagram allows for plenty of fan engagement, yet it is extremely rare to find a reply from the NHL on their page. This can be viewed as a missed chance to humanize the brand in a situation that has more fans keeping an eye on their page than there is typically. Finally, not often are there posts that would allow many to have an opinion, it seems to be more catered to the eyes but opening it to the audience’s opinions in the comments is an opinion on Instagram.
How to achieve more engagement in comments:
Assign a social moderator to reply to top comments, especially on viral posts this would give the audience an idea that the administrator behind the account has a personality, too, and additionally will allow the audience to feel heard by the NHL. Additionally, in this class, we have discussed how important a call to action is for boosting engagement, the NHL should try to do this more often because the few times they did, their comments often reached over 2.5k rather than a typical amount of around 500. We have learned that Meta values interactions with its customers on accounts, so the NHL has room to improve.
TikTok – Thumbnails Can Misleading
Missed Opportunities:
Looking through the profile, some of the thumbnails seem to not be as clear as others. This is a missed opportunity, especially for new views, because their process is not as easy and clear. As a viewer, you want it to be easy, so as a social media administrator, you must make it easy for the audience to receive your message.
How to achieve better thumbnails:
If I were the NHL on TikTok, I would try to have consistency in my thumbnails, so they are all stellar. Some are very well put together, while others do not tell the story properly, especially with the growth of TikTok, as we have seen in our class preference, and the use of its search feature thumbnails is vital to ensure views. When comparing two different guitars’ Instagram pages, one had a clear theme in their thumbnails, which was part of the reason they succeeded more than the other, this would be vital to an increase in the NHL’s numbers.
YouTube – Content Strategy
Missed Opportunities:
Longer-form content does well on YouTube, although there is a lack of posting of longer-form content. The NHL has content from other platforms, such as player interviews showing personalities that can easily be put together to enjoy in long form.
How to achieve a greater content strategy:
This solution is a simple one that can be done by branching content together to give it multiple purposes. It also gives the NHL more content to post on YouTube because it was pretty stagnant in between the matchups in the tournament. We have learned how often posts will help with algorithmic gains, so the NHL should capitalize on that.
Overall Customer Care Takeaways for all NHL pages:
There is a clear lack of effort to reach out to the fans through the official account. There is a lack of replies to fan comments across all platforms, and it is vital to have those areas covered in times like now, where the NHL is gaining many fresh eyes and trying to run with the tractions that came from this beloved inaugural tournament. It was mind-blowing to rarely find a comment from the pages. Whether it is assigning a social media team to reply to top comments daily or generate fan conversational posts, the NHL needs to address this quickly as we have covered the importance of showing your brand quickly and often in comments is important, and it is almost non-existent on the NHL platforms.
Section 3: Observation and Analysis of Social Media Comments
What are the top qualities of this product mentioned?
1) High-Quality Production and Storytelling
Fans have recently been in disbelief of how high-quality the content has been. The ability to “unbelievable storytelling” is very impactful because that is what digital media is all about at the end of the day: conveying your story to the audience.
2) Growing the Sport and Fandom
Additionally, the fans love the content being centralized around the 4 Nations Face-Off currently because they want the sports they love to grow and flourish because of the support behind this tournament. A commenter summed it up perfectly concerning both the high quality and growth of the sport:
What ideas to go with the product do users suggest?
1) More and more behind-the-scenes and personalities.
One fan said, “Mini Doc for the 4 Nations Tourny???? Let’s go,” and many others uttered the same idea that the fans love to see more than what they do during game time. They want to see the trash talk, practice, get to know their rituals and even more. This type of content is vital for community engagement and is a major desire from the fans
2) Debates
More fans want to be prompted to do more in the comment section, which correlated to the major flaw that the NHL has experienced in the past week and a half. These fans will debate who is better whenever the opportunity arises, the NHL should see that and capitalize.
Are there any other trends notices?
1) The love of the 4 Nations Face-Off idea!
Countless number of times in these comment sections, the NHL has been praised for this idea because it is something that has not been used in the sport of hockey in about a decade. The NHL does not participate in any international tournament; this is the only time the best can play against the best for their countries. This emotional investment is vital for the NHL to take the next step numbers-wise.
Section 4: Closing Analysis and Learnings
NHL Learnings and Recommendations
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Have a team dedicated to commenting and replying across all social media platforms
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On various occasions, it was seen how the NHL can know who their audience is by the type of content posted, depending on the medium. This is a huge strength because if you can know what the yes want you make them feel as if they are getting exactly what they want.
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No matter the platform, when players' faces and personalities were on screen, the video did significantly better numbers-wise. This makes sense to people because it shows a side of people's idols that they may rarely see. I would recommend continuing this as it has been shown that it works successfully.
Recommendations for the National Basketball Association (NBA)
If I were the National Basketball Association, I would keep a close eye on how the NHL revamped its All-Star experience for both the players and the fans, sparking fans and players interest due to international pride. Also, the NBA show shows how successful the personalities of NHL players are and utilize that technique within their media strategy. Finally, if I am different league, I am commenting unlike how the NHL rarely does on their posts.