Inside Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers’ Social Media Strategy for Super Bowl LVIII

It’s Super Bowl LVIII time in Kansas City where the Chiefs will face off against the 49ers, and both of its social media teams are ready for the big game.

Chiefs and 49ers will be at the center of the Super Bowl and brands like Shake Shack, Ritz, and M&M’s will leverage social media to create viral memes, join in the conversation, and engage with their audiences. It’s not just a friendly competition between the two teams; the leaders of the opposing teams intends to go the extra mile to ensure that both sides’ fans, as well as all football fans, have an enjoyable experience.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ CMO and EVP of Marketing, Lara Krug, and the San Francisco 49ers’ CMO, Alex Chang, share with us how they will be approaching social media during the big game and the days leading up to it.

Krug said its social media team aims to maintain consistency with its season-long and postseason efforts. They are confident in their approach, focusing on relevance while staying true to their brand, channel voice, and football team. Krug acknowledges the ever-evolving landscape of social media channels and algorithms, adapting their strategies accordingly. With over 14 million followers across their channels, Krug prioritizes delivering engaging content to their audience. With that in mind, Krug and its social media team is laser focused on the storytelling of the game and the week.

“We know that there are additional eyeballs on everything that both teams are doing on social media this week, but we never want the storyline to turn into competing social media teams. The focus is and always should be on the game. But it’s always fun to see what other teams are producing and are executing during this time. There is a lot of respect between teams and best practices shared amongst clubs throughout the year and it’s fun for both organizations to be highlighting their respective teams in February,” said Krug.

Krug highlighted that Opening Night offers fans a unique chance to interact with players without their helmets, providing valuable insights into their excitement for the week. Additionally, Krug expressed enthusiasm about the importance of the event in terms of delivering distinctive content and participating in various other activities throughout the week.

As Chang emphasized, 49ers will follow their own playbook and make sure their content strategy results in consistent engagement across their digital platforms. According to Chang, the social team’s strategy goes beyond the game. In addition to Opening Night, Radio Row, team practices, NFL Honors, NFL Experience, and more, they aim to highlight various key events during the Super Bowl week. This comprehensive approach ensures capturing moments beyond the game itself as part of their strategy.

“We know most of our fans can’t be at the Super Bowl in person, so we aim to bring that experience to the faithful at home by providing a unique perspective of the Super Bowl. We have spent significant time planning a detailed content and channel strategy so we know the content we need to make, and stay nimble enough to capture moments we didn’t anticipate,” said Chang, adding that by crafting this strategy in advance, the team ensures operational alignment and maximizes opportunities to identify synergies with other digital media properties.

The Social Media War Rooms

Krug and Chang will both have a dedicated social media war room. 

For the San Francisco 49ers, The team is holding regular meetings to formulate their social and digital content strategy, detailing the content creation plan, publishing schedule, channel strategy, and more. Thanks to this preparation, they have a cohesive playbook ready for game day. Chang said akin to regular season matches, the social media and digital media teams will operate from the press box, allowing them to monitor on-field action and execute their content plans swiftly and in sync.

For Kansas City Chiefs, Krug explained the entire crew collaborates seamlessly with the social media team, creative and design team, copywriters, and digital/app team. Although coordination is simpler during home games compared to road games or the Super Bowl due to space limitations, Krug further emphasized the entire staff is committed to ensuring fans have access to comprehensive coverage across all social media platforms.

The Importance of TikTok and YouTube Shorts

Both teams will utilize platforms such as YouTube Shorts and TikTok during the Super Bowl. The NFL intends to keep millennials and Gen Z viewers active during the Super Bowl by leveraging short-form video platforms like YouTube Shorts and TikTok, which are increasingly popular platforms for quick, engaging, and shareable content. By doing so, the NFL reinforces its presence among younger demographics and remains relevant within today’s dynamic digital environment.

“Both TikTok and YouTube Shorts are important and growing channels and during the game, we use YouTube Shorts more for game pieces and then if anything more entertainment centric or culturally relevant happens – like a touchdown dance – we’ll utilize TikTok,” said Krug.

“YouTube Shorts and TikTok continue to be an essential part of our content and channel strategy both for helmets off, lifestyle-centric content, as well as game content. We have continued to invest in these channels, as well as on Instagram, X and Facebook, to reach and engage a younger diverse audience as part of our mobile, social-centric content strategy,” said Chang.

A Possibility of Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl

Fans of Taylor Swift expect her to be at the Super Bowl as she is wrapping up her tour in Japan on Saturday. One of the top search items on Google is “Will taylor swift be at the super bowl?” according to the SEO rankings platform SEranking.

According to Captiv8, Stubhub experienced a record 175% increase in ticket sales for the Chiefs-Jets game following Swift’s first appearance on an NFL game, making it the second-highest seller of the year. A 27 million-viewer audience made it the most watched NFL broadcast since Super Bowl LVII. Kelce has been discussed extensively on TikTok over the past 30 days, receiving approximately 36,000 posts and 85,000 mentions. 42.45% of the discussion this month is about these mentions. Last two weeks, hashtags such as #traviskelce and #nfl accumulated 2.27 million and 1.02 million engagements, respectively.

“From an organizational standpoint, we’ve worked hard to be very measured and respectful of Travis and Taylor’s relationship, which is garnering attention from around the globe,” said Krug. “We are very happy that she is part of Chiefs Kingdom and is a fan of ours – we’re fans of hers as well. We always want to err on the side of respect when it comes to posting about her for gameday.”

Regardless of who wins the game or their performance on the field, Krug and Chang will both remain true to their authenticity on social media and not deviate from its brand voice on either team’s social channels.

“We don’t want to be out of character, so this will be handled a lot like a regular season or postseason game for the most part in terms of what we do in-game,” said Krug. “In the event that we win, that is traditionally the time that followers would see a noticeable uptick in our posts and content.”

“Typically after wins, we increase our publishing cadence and frequency to match the interest that we get from our fans,” said Chang.