When it comes to an instantly recognizable global brand that masters content marketing, the National Football League crushes the competition. For years, the NFL has athletically handled the balance of tweeting, Facebooking, email marketing and yes, blogging. Almost as much they love watching football, fans are nuts for talking about football, so the NFL blog does just that. Stats, trades, passes, tackles and all the stuff that makes a non-football fan’s head explode is gleefully blogged here… and it’s a touchdown. Blog Like the Big Brands takes a pass at blogging with the NFL, a brand that scores by speaking their fans’ language.
Many blogs benefit from having tons of images and stylish layouts, yet the NFL isn’t one of them. Too cool for school memes and retro-flavored Instagram-type of photos, which would be oddly out-of-place in Football Town. The NFL passes on trendy graphics and uses its blog to be a news source for all things football. Easy to read and navigate, the design bells and whistles are few and that’s a choice which really works for this brand. Admittedly, this writer hasn’t a clue who Beanie Wells or JJ Watts is (and didn’t even know there was a team called the Ravens). But then again, the NFL blog wasn’t written for me. Each post covers real-time news happening in both the worlds of actual and fantasy football along with recapping recent games from both realms. With a massive worldwide fan base, the NFL’s blog needs to be updated regularly — and boy is it. On any given Sunday, the blog is packed with a minimum of ten new posts. The writing style here is a readable mixture of classic sports journalism mixed with a jokey, hip, self-referential lingo that sports bloggers from all platforms seem to use. Also great is the updated scoreboard on the top of the blog which covers every game in the league.
But hands down, the best take away from the NFL blog is the tone. We think it’s fantastic the NFL speaks the language of its fans and that is something any company can do. Tech companies, engineers, antique collector and sports fans all have a language their own and they shouldn’t be afraid to use it. The people who are interested in your brand and blog won’t need a road map to figure out what you’re talking about.
Leave a Reply