No conversation with a Philadelphia native is complete without discussing cheesesteaks, and Bleacher Report’s Adam Lefkoe (@AdamLefkoe) has an opinion on who has the best in the city. Lefkoe's top three in ascending order are Tony Luke’s, Steve’s Prince of Steaks and Ishkabibble's. Lefkoe said, “I’m not putting Pat's and Geno’s on there because they are the Times Square of Philadelphia. Everyone wants to go there unless you are from there.” The main course for Lefkoe is his upcoming bi-weekly series, “Ditch The Playbook With Lefkoe," which premieres Sept. 4. He said the goal is to “NBA-ify the NFL.” Lefkoe: “The NBA has LeBron, who can go on Instagram and say, 'Taco Tuesday' and everyone gets excited because you get to see part of his family life. Or Damian Lillard put out another rap album and everybody is talking about it. In the NFL, unless you are a quarterback, nobody really dives into these personalities.”
SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follow: Two guys in the football analytics space: Warren Sharp and Evan Silva.
Favorite app: There are two apps: Square Fit and PocketVideo. They allow me to have my own Adobe Premiere Editing suite pretty much on my phone.
Average time per day on social media: It’s going to change during the NFL season, but I would typically say it’s about two hours.
How social media helps do his job:
I am one of the few media members who embraces the comments section. A lot of people look at the comments section and social media and focus on the people who say bad things about them. I get that, too. But there are so many good, thoughtful responses to content that I use it as crowd sourcing. When I am producing a podcast, I don’t want to say ask me anything and use that to produce the show. I get hundreds of DMs and every day there are one or two where I say, “This guy has pitched me a phenomenal segment.”
Disconnecting from social media:
When you have a very wonderful fiancée, that is the reminder that you need to put it down. The way I get rid of it is I schedule a lot. I am literally creating my in-season notebook and calendar and I’ve learned that I have to allocate time to go on social media. Using analytics and using a lot of facts I get from Twitter and Instagram and YouTube, I can see when people are most active, so I can go for an hour or two and after that time is up, I get off.
What he looks for on social media:
If I go on Instagram, I am a huge fan of UGC (user generated content). It was a white space for a long time, but if you follow the players or the teams, they are cranking out content on Instagram Stories. There are so many opportunities for behind-the-scenes footage that people like me covet, and I can distribute from there and build up a player’s following. On Twitter, I believe gambling, DFS and fantasy are a better follow for day-to-day NFL news than traditional media.
How sports betting has influenced his coverage:
There’s actually value. Once you start to see daily fantasy and gambling, you start to see there is more than saying I have a feeling this team is going to win. When I look at a lot of TV football coverage at mainstream places, it’s a former athlete that has been given the opportunity to say, “I have a hunch, I am going with the Patriots.” Being around enough high-profile sharps in the gambling world, they love that because that increases the number of bets going toward one side and they can take advantage of that. For me it has been the uncovering of this world of super fans using all this knowledge to make money.
Best NFLers on social media:
The king right now is JuJu Smith-Schuster. He’s taking the young NBA mindset and the esports mindset and has built that into himself. There are some NFL players that do the Drake model, which is they have cameras all around them all the time to create content and that’s JuJu. He has his own YouTube channel, which means he’s privatizing his content. He has to put out stuff every week or every day. He’s created himself a little media company.
Biggest social media pet peeve:
When people create content, and that’s everything from an Instagram post to a tweet, that is very self-serving and they don’t think about their audience. A lot of times people get the blue check and they feel they are king of the internet.
If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com.
