The anticipated return of NFL football kicked off last tonight with a prime-time game that no doubt had high ratings with “America’s Team”, the Dallas Cowboys and the defending Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.  This marks the opening of not only the football season, but the social brand season.  More than ever, the largest brands are using social means to get the word out about their product.

Social campaigns are big business campaigns and we are seeing more and more integration within the game itself of a number of social tools.  From Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, to text messaging engagement, the medium for branding on this social playing field is in full swing.  John Furrier stated in an article titled “Super Bowl 2012 or Social Bowl 2012?”:

“Getting the customer to smile or laugh is memorable, getting the customer to engage in the brand conversation via YouTube, Facebook or Twitter is magic.”

Without a doubt, social marketing is extremely important to major brands and focused on sparking social conversation and engagement.  That naturally lends itself to relationships with the NFL, probably the largest and most captive target audience in the world of television, and on into its crowning event, the Super Bowl.  With larger-than-life personalities, heroes, and villains the appeal of reaching out to the NFL audience is unquestionable.  

Just an ad, a webpage or even a viral video will not do it alone.  Maintaining a presence among the various social channels is on its own quite minimal.  Though not obvious to the average viewer, what is taking place in the best cases is a precise, coordinated, and closely monitored effort.  That requires ongoing analysis and monitoring of the heartbeat of a carefully crafted campaign as well as expertise that can be hard to find on a global brand level.  We’ve previously mentioned the example of ThisMoment.com and their momentum in global social campaigns.  With a focus on user-generated content and integration of social presence points for a given brand, what is most impressive about the company is the ongoing transformations to new social trends that emerge constantly.   The most successful global brand marketing efforts focus on meaningful human social engagement through fostering participation, audience buzz, and brand loyalty.  Social marketing is booming and the NFL is a great place to start that.