Hurricanes Digital Marketing Dir Dan LaTorraca (@NHLCanes) has had the unique experience of working on the social and digital side for teams in the NFL (@Panthers), NBA (@BrooklynNets) and now the NHL. He said life in the NFL is “very cyclical and it’s very straight forward in how you structure” content strategy and narrative, whereas the other two sports are different because “you have to turn the page quickly whether it is with a big win or a bad loss.” Having joined the Hurricanes last summer, LaTorraca said the franchise “wanted to adjust this year and get a lot more efficient" with its internal processes. Part of that included hiring an agency to help with gameday graphics so their internal design team could focus on bigger projects. He said, “We wanted to focus on quantity over quality. We really reduced how often we post and we’ve seen interaction rates skyrocket because we are cutting out things that aren’t as impactful.” Nothing may have been as impactful this season as Don Cherry calling the team a “bunch of jerks” for their postgame celebrations.
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follow: I basically stop scrolling whenever I see Jess Smith, Jack Appleby or Keith Stoeckeler tweet.
Favorite apps: I probably use Twitter more than anything else.
Average time per day on social media: A lot less now that I am in more of a digital marketing-focused role. Maybe 5-7 hours out of a typical work day.
Being handed social media gold with Cherry's comments:
That was a nice gift. I’m glad we have the right process and people in place to where we could capitalize on that by doing something as simple as changing our Twitter bio to funny graphics to a T-shirt that has now cleared 10,000 sold. We made good money off that. And it’s all because we have a great marketing team that allows us to be really nimble and ownership that buys into that. We were able to build an identity. That’s so important for a team in a non-traditional market.
How the team’s social media voice has changed:
The one thing I wanted to do when I got here was to be as conversational and responsive as we could. The fan base was in a rough spot; the team hadn’t been super competitive for a number of years. The first step in building and re-establishing that relationship is showing you’re present and alive and in this with them. We wanted to get aggressively and politely conversational and responsive, and make sure we were there to engage with fans. Part of that is as simple as answering a fan’s question on Twitter, thanking them for their support. But it’s also building content opportunities to facilitate that one-to-one relationship.
Standing apart from other NHL teams:
Some of that is in our voice and how we approach certain situations with humor and fun. We have definitely embraced fun as part of our brand identity across the board. Not a lot of brands are really responsive with their audiences -- the Rockies are an inspiration. They are one of the teams that do a really fantastic job of that. We take a page out of their book as far as prioritizing one-to-one communication. It’s also how we approach content. We aren’t going to be one of those teams that rolls out a travel video every time our team gets on a plane. That gets mundane. We are aiming to approach things as creatively as possible and show our audience why this is a team you should care about.
Success of Whalers-related content:
That was a tremendous success. Up until a few weeks ago, one of our postgame celebrations where Warren Fogele did a bat flip, up until that in mid-February, Whalers night and the whole day was our best performing day from a video standpoint. It was ridiculous the level of engagement we had. Just for the announcement alone we had hundreds of thousands of views and generated a lot of good revenue from a Twitter amplify standpoint. On the night itself (the first of two this season), we had 5.5 million Twitter impressions, which was almost half of what we had for the month. On Instagram we had over 110,000 interactions and 334,000 video views total. We understand there is some criticism that comes along with that event, but from a fan engagement standpoint, it was successful across the board.
Dealing with trolls, including those from Connecticut:
That is something we want to be extremely respectful about. This is not someone coming at the Canes for their postgame celebrations. This isn’t exactly fair game and there are sensitivities involved. In most cases we lay low in terms of responsiveness. We want to thank our own fans for their support and their acceptance. If we have people coming at us about how disrespectful our postgame celebrations are or how it’s bad for hockey or it’s bush league, we approach that in a different way.
If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com.
