It’s no secret that the Seahawks have great fans. If you follow sports at all, you know the 12th Man is alive and well. What you may not realize though, is how much the Seahawks capitalize on their devoted fans and the passion for the Pacific Northwest on social media. Their team gets the importance of harnessing the passion online. It’s an approach that is refreshing to see.
The Seahawks take time for their fans. They engage, build digital initiatives to rally the troops, make fans a part of gameday and celebrate them in unique ways. Recently the Seahawks launched a content series that focuses on the latter, and it caught my attention. Here’s a look at the series:
The copy choice, the imagery; it all comes together in such a compelling way. And, look at the engagement. Fans love it. So, what’s the story behind it?
“The #WeAre12 hashtag and marketing campaign is something our organization has used for the past 18 months to unite our team and the 12s,” said Kenton Olson, the Director of Digital Media & Emerging Media for Seattle Seahawks. “Our Managing Director of Marketing had the great idea to extend this campaign during the postseason by leveraging photography and the great sights in our region in an effort to show the reach our team. That concept eventually evolved into the content series we are running.”
The photos you see throughout the campaign have been sourced through photographers the Seahawks have relationships with. Along the way, they have received some fan submissions too.
What I love about the content series is that it goes way beyond the scoreboard and taps into the passion of a fanbase, a city and an entire region. Scores are nice and all, but it’s the belief in something bigger that ties sports fans together. This campaign touches on that.
“We only have 20 days each year we play a game,” said Olson. “Rather than focusing on those few days we wanted to showcase our fans’ passion that takes place the other 345 days. Also we wanted to use it to show that the passion for the Seahawks extends well beyond Seattle and extends throughout the Northwest. In this series you will see photos from Oregon, to Easter Washington to British Columbia.”
As Olson notes, sports are about a lot more than the games played. And if you work in social, then telling those stories are a way to stand out from the noise and resonate with fans. We need to see more content like the #WeAre12 series. Take a step back and ask what is special about your team and fans? Find the content that taps into the emotion, history, tradition, passion and stories like the Seahawks did.
I would like to send a big thanks to Kenton Olson for taking the time to answer a few questions on the Seahawks content series. You can follow him on Twitter here: @Kentono
As always, thanks for reading!