This year's Pro Football HOF weekend is in the books, and HOF COO & Exec Producer George Veras and Dir of Digital & Social Media Jason Rentner were very pleased with the social media aspect of the event, which included Facebook and Instagram videos for the unveiling a statue of Saints Owner Tom Benson and the logo for the new Johnson Controls HOF Village. Both Veras and Rentner like the way HOF has been presenting content on social media, but also looking to keep up with what competitors are doing. Veras: "We want to be ahead of the curve in our look and feel. We want to be current, and we still have work to do in that area. We follow different apps as case studies. Our news is different because we are the Hall of Fame, because we take a different tact in following the game; everybody else is into the wins and losses and what goes on the field. We don’t chase in that space.” Rentner added that the HOF sees its greatest social media success on Facebook and Instagram because of the video capabilities available on those platforms.
Social media philosophy for the HOF:
GV: We’re not just about the gold jackets. There’s a record of every single player to play the game here at the Hall of Fame. It’s part of our incredible archive, which is also a great resource for us in social media. It’s all about creating content that we get out through social media connecting the fans through the players.
How connecting with fans has changed in recent years:
JR: When we first got on social media, it was because it was trendy. Then we developed our first strategy, which was building followers and pushing traffic to our website. As social media kept evolving, we kept adapting with best practices. Now we use it to feed our content.
GV: We have streaming productions -- not just single-camera Facebooks -- using a firm called Live Stream. We also have a SiriusXM Radio show that we will soon start streaming. We’re generating hundreds of hours of content that is filling our social media buckets.
Approach to HOF Weekend:
GV: We have a very detailed production schedule that is incredibly organized. We have three crews that are downloading everything back, two guys just doing social media, we have an editor who is cutting videos. What we are doing is bringing fans inside the ropes. We have tremendous inside access.
Getting HOFers involved:
JR: They embrace it, they love working with us. They are willing to help us with anything.
GV: Part of the partnership is an equal exchange. The players get content they can use on their Twitter feed or other media sites. We also do a lot of shared partnering. Everything we give them is exclusive content.
On construction of Johnson Controls HOF Village and Tom Benson HOF Stadium:
GV: We have done a lot of work showing the fans the progress of the construction starting in February when it was just a mud hole. We have a live constriction cam up; we sometimes had two cams up at the same time.
Keeping focus on the HOF the other 51 weeks of the year:
GV: You’d like to hear that it’s hard, but it’s easy. Every day something is going on at the Hall of Fame. That’s the great thing about football and the Hall of Fame.
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