Industry Series: Vol 1.1 — Andi Perelman, Director of New Media, Pittsburgh Penguins

As an executive in the sports industry, I find that I get better at my job my learning how others do theirs well.

In 2018, I plan on spending time with key players in our industry to learn how they create, innovate, and succeed.

Andi Perelman is a colleague of mine and a legitimate superstar in the emerging world of digital media.

I invited her to share some meatballs with me at Emporio: A Meatball Joint in Pittsburgh and chat about what she does, why she does it, and how she does it well.

For anyone interested in the sports industry, this peek behind-the-curtain is for you.

Enjoy.

Jack: Explain your role at the Penguins — what do you like most about it?

Andi: The easiest explanation is that I am Director of New Media for the organization. What that entails is overseeing all the Penguins’ social posts, the website, analytics for social and website, and then helping out with the Penguins app. That’s the general idea.

I am also the conduit between the team and the fans. A majority of the front office works primarily with specific season ticket holders, the players, or corporate partners, but for me, I’m interacting with everyone who is a Penguins fan on social — which is a lot of people!

I listen to the concerns of those fans, their feelings toward the team, and we ride the emotional hockey rollercoaster together. I then convey those thoughts and feelings back to members of the front office and try to make choices that fit with the mood of the fans and the team. I love that New Media is the intermediary between the two.

It gives us a unique opportunity to give back to the fans. We can make a fan’s day by having that nice one-to-one connection. And it’s not just a season ticket holder rep, or customer service rep… it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins — and that’s a powerful interaction.

It’s fun to get the fans riled-up and more avid. My job is to create more avid Penguins fans, and as a Pittsburgher and as somebody who really loves the city and loves the game, it’s cool to be able to pass that along.

Jack: Do you ever get intimidated by the influence that you wield? You said you’re a conduit between the team and the fans — that is a lot of pressure.

You’re representing the brand of the Pittsburgh Penguins to the public — communicating all this information to the fans instantly. I’ve seen some of the influence that social media has had — specifically on our fanbase — but being in charge, can you talk about that mindset?

Andi: It’s a lot of pressure. You just have to remember you can’t be everything to everyone. That’s the first thing — you have to realize no matter what you say, it’s not going to be perfect to every Penguins fan. Not every Penguins fan is the same, they don’t all like the same tone of voice, they don’t all like the same players, they don’t all like the same trades. Getting comfortable with that is a good first step, and then analyzing when you do make a stronger tonal move how that makes a ripple effect with the fans.

The other important factor is that timing is everything. If I post a joke when people are in the wrong mindset, it can make a big difference; if I made the same joke when we’re winning five games or when we are losing three straight games, it’s going to have a completely different effect when I put it out there. So that can be rough, but it can also be managed. One of the things that helps me most is the rest of our New Media team — we always bounce ideas off each other. We look at drafts of messages and say, “How would you react to this?” As you know, we are all pretty different people — and we all have very distinctive personal voices. We all work together to understand how fans are going to feel about our posts and we make tiny tweaks to make sure it’s hitting in the right way.

Jack: If I gave you a magic wand, and this magic wand could change anything about your job, how would you improve it? What are some of the difficulties that you face in your role?

Andi: Hmm… There are definitely a lot of little changes I would want to make! I think our department is really great at coming up with ideas for partner integrations on our social channels. When we do that, we look for ways to seamlessly engage a partner and a fan at the same time. That can be quite the challenge but we like that challenge. The tough part is when we feel like we’ve come up with an idea that’s really great for the fan and the partner’s goals, and then the partner doesn’t feel the same way. We truly want to be collaborative.

So that’s the first major thing I would change. I’d want to work with companies who are on social media themselves or can trust us as the experts if their company doesn’t have the manpower or money to invest in their own social.

We like to think we have open minds and we’ll listen to all ideas, but we want to work collaboratively to make the partner activation succeed for all involved.

Jack: It’s a great point. I think something that partners and social media folks should remember that this is your world. You deal with it every single day. Your team should be the subject matter experts. The challenge is convincing the partners that you know what works best for the fanbase AND illustrate you know what the partner is trying to achieve.

Andi: The other thing I’d change is just having more time in the day. We have a lot of content and so many things to post, and sometimes I run out of time! A game will end and it’ll be a late west coast game, and I have post-game stories, interviews, late goals…etc. I’ll have so much content, and then I look at my clock and it’s three in the morning and I’m still going strong and posting all this stuff. At that point, I try to separate myself and say “Stop posting so late, Andi. Everyone is sleeping and no one really cares about how many scrums you post. No one really needs an answer to their question at 3:00AM.” Being able to space things out and have more time to engage is always something I’m looking for though! Oh, and getting more sleep time is not a bad thing either!

Jack: The way you described your department as being a conduit between the team and the fans is fascinating. You and your team act as a digital living and breathing “person”. As weird as that sounds, that means you always exist — all the time, correct?

Andi: New Media doesn’t sleep.

Jack: Wasn’t there a trade when Carl Hagelin was acquired in the middle of the night?

Andi: Yes — it was in the middle of the night. We don’t usually find out about trades very far in advance, if at all. Hockey operations keeps it close to the vest. They want to make sure that it goes through before we post anything. That’s why insiders usually have it posted before the team account. And then, no one is finding out before they need to know.

In the case of Carl Hagelin, I don’t remember exactly what time it was. It might have been 12 or 1 in the morning — we got a text from our PR team that said, “Hey — we have something coming.” And what that meant was really just “Stay awake.” Jonathan (Kabana) — a member of our New Media team — was awake. I was awake. We determined that we could handle it — just the two of us. He’d get it on web, I’d get it on social. We said we’d work together to pull photos– of course, we didn’t know who is going to be in this photo or what a potential graphic was going to look like — but we were ready to divide and conquer when we received the information. We also had a writer (Michelle Crechiolo) that was awake. So, we were all on a group text just waiting. And you know, we guess. We say, “What do you think it’s going to be? Who should we pull photos of to be ready? What has Jim (Rutherford) said recently — has he talked about forwards, has he talked about defensemen?” And we guess. You wouldn’t believe how many graphics we’ve made and cutouts we’ve done for players that we were probably never even considering.

For Carl Hagelin, we knew something was coming. He was one of the players we were guessing. And I think it was three hours later when we finally got it.

Jack: So it was in the middle of the night!

Andi: Yes. I think it was 3 in the morning when we finally posted. (Fact check: we posted at 3:07AM!)

Jack: It was a 3:00AM release to the public. Wow. Most people in Pittsburgh are sleeping at 3 in the morning!

Andi: They woke up to some good news!

Jack: I certainly did. I thought that was really interesting. So, you’re this digital, living, breathing entity….

Andi: We say we’re “on call”. It’s weird to say because usually it is doctors that say that — people that are actually dealing with life and death. We’re just dealing with hockey, but…

Jack: But at the same time our fanbase expects it.

Andi: They do. At all times, anything could happen with us. And we are how news gets out. Fans get news at the same time as the media. We break our own news and that always starts on Twitter. The days are long gone when we just send a news release to the local newspaper. And then when we tweet, we email the media at the same time. So, that’s how we’re breaking news. And it could happen at any moment!

Jack: I’d like to talk about 2017. First question — was it successful for you and your group? The second question — how do you define success?

Andi: We won the Stanley Cup, so that’s the first team success. That’s what the whole team is working toward — we want to win the Stanley Cup and be the best team in sports. In that aspect, yes, 2017 was a success. Things went well. And it only goes that well for one team out of 31 now.

We also look at did we win within our coverage? Are we doing the fans justice in providing them the best coverage of the Pittsburgh Penguins? Are we providing value? Not just goofy tweets or some stats every once in a while, but consistent coverage that gets people excited about hockey and the Penguins.

There are three main questions that we ask ourselves on a regular basis.

1. Are we providing quality content?

2. Are we providing superior customer service when called upon?

3. Are we producing avid fans of Pittsburgh Penguins hockey?

If we are doing all of the above, then I think we’re successful. Obviously winning the Stanley Cup helps at least two of those things — excitement and built-in content. That’s easy. Great customer service is up to us.

The main thing is consistency. Are we doing these three things all the time? Is our content performing well? Not just in one week (in social stats), but every single week.

I think one of the ways we determine that we are being consistent is weekly reports. We look at how that week performed. We also look at monthly and yearly reports.

At a more micro-level — are we putting out content that fans are willing to share? Are our posts getting a lot of retweets and shares? Those are the things that are important to us. It’s easy to ‘like’ a post on Twitter or Facebook, or especially on Instagram — you just scroll and double tap, but is it something you are going to take and then share with a friend later? Is it something you want to share from your personal profile because it’s a reflection of you and what you believe in or what you like? That is what we’re looking for.

Something like Sidney Crosby’s birthday, we’re going to post it every year, right? We would never miss Sidney Crosby’s birthday. BUT — that’s not the kind of post that’s really great for us. Everyone likes it and says ‘Happy birthday Sid’, or ‘it’s Sid’s birthday — cool’, but no one says, ‘This is amazing content. I need to share it on my feed!’ It’s happy and you can like it, but it’s not a deep reflection of what you like as a human being. It’s probably not going to have a deep emotional connection for you. On the other hand, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin racing Zambonis is much more shareable. People are more likely to think ‘This is funny. I find this amusing. I want my friends to see this.’ You are much more likely to talk about that type of content with friends or family in real life.

We’ve read and researched a lot of studies on what makes people share. In the case of video, posts that are most likely to be shared are either cute, funny, disgusting, or anger inducing.

Most brands will say we don’t want to be disgusting or make people angry. But for us, a disgusting video could be a huge content piece When Pascal Dupuis pulled his teeth out on the bench. It was gross — you don’t want to see someone casually pulling their teeth out! BUT…it made him look tough. Disgusting in its “tough-guy hockey player” type of way.

Do you remember that whole internet debate about the dress? The world was debating whether it was white and gold or blue and black. We were having a big Foundation event that night and I was pushing out a lot of content on the go. I was trying to get nice photos and share this philanthropic event where we’re raising money for Cystic Fibrosis.

When I got back to my computer, I realized everyone was asking me about a dress. I was thinking “what are people talking about?” I thought they were talking about one of the wives or girlfriends dresses — did we put out a photo of a girlfriend in the back wearing a funky dress? What’s going on?

Then after doing some research, I realized the dress debate was starting to bubble up and trend on Twitter. It was the night before it really took over the internet. I ran to the locker room, thinking ‘maybe I’ll catch one of the players before I leave and ask them about this dress’. Despite having our biggest Foundation event of the year, raising all this money, and having the entire team creating awesome social content — something bigger was happening on social media.

Usually, that “bigger thing” is much more serious than the color of a dress. However, on that day, this question took over the internet. When I got to hallway in front of the locker room, Sidney Crosby was the first player to walk out of the door. Keep in mind, I ask him weird questions every once in a while and he’s always very understanding. I decide to say “Sid, sorry to interrupt, but can you tell me what color you think this dress is on my phone?” He agrees — all the while I’m feeling crazy for asking him something like this — and says that it’s blue and black. Just blue and black.

I said thank you and told him to have a great night. So, we tweeted “Sidney Crosby says the dress is blue and black so the dress must be blue and black.”

For all the people that were pro “white and gold”, we were making a stand and they were angry that their hockey hero was anti-their opinion on that matter.

BUT…it was a big moment for us on social that was easy to share. Even though this one was silly it was still really big for us. Another big thing we’ve seen that works really well for us is “wow”. We are big on “wow” moments.

Jack: How do you define a “wow” moment?

Andi: Well, the easiest way to define it is ‘what’s literally making people say wow’ on Facebook reactions — the literal wow. We looked at the entire NHL and what content created the most likes, loves, sad, angry, wow — all these different Facebook reactions. We ended up having three out of the top five “wow” moments.

We looked at those moments and realized our fans are resonating with “wow”. We are creating moments that are making people really want to say “wow” and be impressed. Obviously, winning the Stanley Cup helps. It’s easy to create those moments when you win a championship.

Here’s an example — one of those moments was a Tristan Jarry save. Tristan is a young goaltender still getting introduced to our fanbase, and he made an unbelievable save. It was his first game and it was this ridiculous save. We put it out and it was this really cool “wow” moment. He was someone people didn’t really know. Sometimes we don’t necessarily need only our superstars for great content, we just need that “wow”.

Any player can be impressive in the NHL. It’s easier with superstars (it’s why they are stars), but that moment with Tristan we realized it’s not necessarily Sid, it’s not necessarily Geno (Malkin), it’s not necessarily star power that is needed for great content. It’s much more about that “wow” moment that is more likely to engage our audience.

We know “wow” works — there’s been a lot of studies on those four aspects of social regarding sharing and what makes people share.

Part two:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/industry-series-vol-12-andi-perelman-director-new-media-jack-tipton/