Falcons Dir of Digital Media Dan Gadd has seen a lot in his 19 months with the franchise -- from a Super Bowl appearance to the opening of Mercedes-Benz Stadium (@MBStadium). Gadd, who previously worked with the Jaguars and Bears, is responsible for the social media accounts associated with the stadium, which recently hosted the MLS All-Star Game. He and his team of about 15 provide social media coverage focusing on areas of fan interests beyond the game. Gadd said, “The thing I am most excited about is we have the resources we need and have a vision for where we want to go.” He added, “It is amazing the support we have from the top down."
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follows: I’ve got an eclectic feed: I have creative inspiration, SEO, a lot of other teams, athletes across the board.
Favorite app: I use a lot of different sports apps, but I am a junkie for Pro Football Talk. That’s where I can spend two minutes and see headlines.
Average time per day on social media: A lot of my time on social media is either looking at what our fans are saying or in a tool like MVP Index to evaluate content performance.
Approach to promoting the stadium from opening to now:
There’s been two phases. The run-up to the opening was interesting because of the intense fan interest. We could do a really good job of putting it out on the Falcons’ channels, but we were also trying to build up the MBS channels. There was so much interest in the stadium that between us and with support of the NFL, it was amazing what we could do with content. It was amazing how far we could get that to go. The second part was when the stadium came on line and we delivered great content that shows the fan experience and what a great place it is to be and the environment. One of the things we wanted to do is get away from being an event promoter. Actually showcase how cool it was to be there.
Stadium-oriented content:
There have been so many of those tentpole moments we knew we could create content around. Give people something to get fired up about a stadium and fuel that interest in the stadium. We had all these moments -- the Falcons statue coming on board, the halo board, being able to showcase the roof opening and closing even before the stadium was completely finished. Being able to show the different light displays and show drone footage at night -- it drew high interest levels.
Coordinating to get social content on halo board:
The in-game entertainment group is really good, and they are working with a vendor to help pull those feeds. They are aggregating it by hashtag and making sure they are showcasing a lot of the fan elements and giving them a chance to see themselves on the halo board.
Goals during Falcons training camp:
When I got back in the NFL, the one thing I wanted to do is have a team that is driven by fan insight. The first day on the job I wrote on top of my board: “Develop the most passionate, excited and informed fanbase.” One of the things we pride ourselves on is understanding the emotional and informational triggers of our fans. It’s also understanding what the moment is. Training camp is about being optimistic and having hope that the team is going to perform really well and have a great season. Our content efforts start there. How do we showcase how the team is being put together? How do we showcase what is happening on the practice fields every day and what Dan Quinn is preaching to the team every day?
Dealing with angry fans:
That just comes with the territory. We look at those as isolated comments. You can’t feed into it too much. Every fanbase is surrounded by trolls on Twitter. So the thing we talk about is, how do we go out and arm our fans to stand up for this team? We will create content that we think they can counter back in those instances. We are not going to take them on directly. There isn’t any good in doing that.
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