No matter if he is preparing for a Golf Channel broadcast, serving as the NFL Giants’ radio play-by-play announcer or his SiriusXM NFL show, Bob Papa (@BobPapaNFL) knows the role social media plays in doing his job. It has become more than a research tool, as it can provide content during a broadcast. He said of his Golf Channel duties, “We do the NCAAs and you follow Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler and they are rooting on their college teams and posting something. Those are the kinds of things you can sprinkle into the telecast visually or mentioning it. It is all intertwined at this point and to ignore it is putting your head in the sand.”
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follow: If you are working in the NFL and not following Adam Schefter, Jay Glazer, Peter King, Pro Football Talk, Albert Breer, Chris Mortensen, you are behind the curve. In the golf world, you have to keep up with what Brandel Chamblee is saying, Doug Ferguson. For a little comedy, if you aren’t following Club Pro Guy on Twitter you are missing some of the best humor out there.
Favorite apps: Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, DirecTV and NFL.
Average time per day on social media: Minimum six hours.
Reasons he uses social media:
It replaced the newspaper in a lot of ways. I used to go out before I did my show on SiriusXM NFL Radio and bought a stack of newspapers and sifted through them. Now, it’s like a newspaper at your fingertips. It’s almost a necessity just to do my show with the way news is circulated and the speed of it, if you don’t have it you are behind the curve.
Difference in interacting with football and golf fans on social media:
Football fans are much more combative, they are a lot more opinionated. For the most part, interaction with golf fans is much more civil especially with all these crazy rules the R&A and USGA have come up with to “simplify” the game. You start talking football, potential trades, what people think of players, it’s amazing how passionate and intense it gets.
How he manages his online critics:
I don’t really block people unless there is some level of profanity. I’m out there in the public domain, so to speak. For as many callers as we get on SiriusXM NFL Radio in the morning, we’ll get twice as many tweets. Sometimes people will send me a tweet and it will be a friendly reminder, “You forgot this” or “You didn’t mention that” and it allows me to correct something. I let it roll off my back. You realize not everyone is going to love you. As long as it doesn’t get personal, it doesn’t get nasty and have profanity, it doesn’t bother me.
Importance of social media to his job:
It’s huge. You need to get a pulse of what is going on. We’re covering 32 NFL teams on a daily basis at SiriusXM and you have to follow the beat writers for all of the teams because they are right there. They are the ones breaking or advancing storylines. It’s vital to what we do. Teams are using it more, so you have to follow teams. They are breaking their own news, their signings.
On if his social media use is greater than a year ago:
It’s about the same. I may have added some people that I follow but it’s been pretty consistent the last year or two from a resource standpoint. I’m somewhat active on social media. I tend to use my own accounts whether it’s Twitter or Instagram to promote things or broadcasts or events that I am part of. One of the areas that I never, ever wade into is politics because as I understand whether it’s Giants fans, NFL fans or golf fans of all different political belief systems, the last thing I want to do is alienate any of our fan base.
Besides his phone, a piece of personal tech he can’t live without:
I have to have my laptop. So much of what I do comes off that laptop. For my SiriusXM we have caller software, so I can remotely do my show from anywhere, so It’s like I am in the studio.
If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com.
