Julian Edelman: Moving the Markers on Social

Football star Julian Edelman is a work-hard, play-hard wide receiver, which endears him to fans nationwide. Selected in the final round of the 2009 draft, Edelman faced daunting odds to even make the team after a position change from quarterback. While he’s since become one of the most recognizable players in the league, Edelman has stayed true to his humble, relatable, and sometimes irreverent roots. Edelman turns to Facebook and Instagram to better connect with his fans, share his off-the-field life, and leverage Facebook advertising and IG Shopping for his JE11 merchandise brand.

A key tenet for all athletes that use Facebook and Instagram is to showcase their personality – fans want to get to know the man under the helmet. For Edelman, that’s never been a problem. With the help of Superdigital’s dedicated content studio, Edelman's accounts ooze creativity and humor.

“I’ll never forget — he was playing on Sunday night in 2013, the same night as the Breaking Bad series finale,” Swissa said. “As an afterthought, we made a show-themed banner post on Facebook of Julian returning a punt, and we added over 50K followers that day. That’s when we knew we had something special.”

From postgame scoreboards mimicking old football video games to pop culture-themed game recaps, Edelman’s team leverages timely moments to create content that fans want to engage with. “We know our audience, so we make posts that are really relatable, that feel like Julian has a hand in each one,” Swissa added. “In many cases, he does.”

"The thing we’re most proud of is our speed,” Swissa shared. “What Facebook and Instagram let you do that you can’t do anywhere else is be fast and reactionary to the thing that’s currently on everyone’s mind. For instance, in the 2015 playoffs, Julian threw a touchdown pass — we quickly designed a t-shirt and made nearly $250K in sales in just four days."

"Now we have what we call the 'graveyard shift,' essentially creators on standby so if something crazy happens in a game, we’ll produce and release merchandise on social in hours."

However, Swissa warned that speed alone doesn’t breed success — you need to first build and nurture an audience that’s tuned into your accounts.

“We’re opportunistic, but it only works because we have momentum on Facebook,” said Swissa. “You can’t be silent on Facebook and Instagram and then say ‘Surprise, here’s a t-shirt.’ This only works through consistency — you need to keep fans consistently engaged.”

A new approach Edelman's team brought to the 2019 season was tying merchandise releases in with their postgame scoreboards. "These scoreboards are routinely our most engaging posts," said Billy Griffin, account manager at Superdigital. "Before New England played Dallas last November, we knew that with a win, we needed to capitalize on the scoreboard post to drive sales."

Within a half hour of the final whistle, Edelman had dropped his latest JE11 design on Instagram: The New America’s Team.

The Edelman social team treats Facebook advertising as its “secret conversion weapon.” By whitelisting Julian’s handle for Facebook, it allows his team to retain his voice in ads. That affects the level and type of creative they use, as well as the investment they put into online sales creative. And by studying conversion figures generated via Facebook ads, Edelman’s team can learn more about its audience and which products push the purchase needle.

His team has also implemented a wide variety of Facebook ad targeting segments, focusing on visitors to the JE11 online store, viewers of specific products, past purchasers, and lookalike audiences for each of these. They serve ads to followers of Edelman’s Facebook Page and viewers of his videos as well, along with heavy viewers of football content on social.

For Edelman's 4th Annual JE11 Pop Up Shop, hosted during last season's bye week, the team created a full-funnel approach, building awareness and event responses to boost excitement around the temporary brick-and-mortar store in Boston. Facebook ad targeting helped them sell meet-and-greet tickets for fans to get a picture with Edelman in-person, and they utilized Facebook follower and interest segments to expand the event to his social accounts, generating additional sales of JE11 merchandise.

Through Instagram Shopping, Edelman can tag merchandise available on the JE11 online store directly in Instagram posts. Viewers can then click the posts to see a product description and richer imagery, and complete purchase via the JE11 shop, all without ever leaving Instagram. He’s the first athlete or public figure to utilize Instagram Checkout for his personal merchandise, a feature his team believes is ideal given the reactive nature of their content and merchandise releases.

"This has been one of the most exciting things for us," Swissa said. " To make a post that simply tags a JE11 product, it's a huge difference maker. We're incorporating an ad in a beautiful image; it's not something that distracts you or requires you to swipe up. The link between Julian and his fans and his merchandise – this brings everything together."

Edelman’s social team further amplifies his presence through the “JE11 Game Chat” — a live chat with fans during every game this season, directly on Instagram.

"Fans are extra engaged while he’s playing, it's the perfect time to interact – I don't have enough battery on my phone sometimes to keep up with the chat," said Asher Norris, brand strategist at Superdigital. "We'll drop discount codes for JE11 merchandise. We've seen good figures by putting up flash sales at halftime."

Edelman is also among the first athletes globally to use Instagram reminders for product launches — a new feature in testing that allows him to notify followers of an impending merchandise release on Instagram. Followers have the option to set a reminder to purchase, which sends a notification 15 minutes before launch. Edelman's children's book Flying High 3 — starring Julian the squirrel, Tom the goat, and Bill the wise owl — dropped in November 2019.

To drum up awareness of the JE11 brand and interact with fans, Edelman created the JE11’s Best Bubs Facebook Group to give his biggest supporters a dedicated community to connect and engage.

Beyond exclusive offers and the latest news on Edelman merchandise, the Group posts behind-the-scenes video content and allows fans a direct line to the star receiver’s social team — even to suggest touchdown dances!

“It’s growing fast,” Swissa said of the Group. “Once you get it going and start nurturing the discussion, we figured out what content people wanted — which in turn boosted engagement. The Group allows us to reach people who are electing to be engaged with on a deeper level.”