How I Created the Instagram Highlights for the New York Rangers

If you open Instagram on your phone and visit @nyrangers, you’ll see the highlights I created at the bottom of their profile.

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to take part in an eye-opening internship last summer. I served as the Student Associate to the team’s Social + Digital department under the amazing Jess Isner. Working alongside some amazing colleagues, I spent much of my time attending marketing and creative meetings, tagging content in Spout, monitoring and updating my team on social chatter, and brainstorming daily and special content, as well as partner activations. In addition to this, I was tasked with a special project by Jess: researching and ideating a way for the Rangers to use their Instagram Highlights. At the time, their highlights were blank–yet to be utilized–so I was excited to be able to provide a footing for the team to kick things off. ?

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So, how did I do it?

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Find A Purpose

It was important for me to understand why people even view highlights in the first place and how they are using them. It was also important for me to refresh the minds of the decision-makers to who I would soon be pitching to. I did some research, looked at popular brands and talked to some fellow “Zoomers” for some insight. I found three key points:

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1.????IG Highlights are for evergreen content.

The content within a highlight must not be timely, or else viewers will be seeing outdated information. Countdown, event updates or announcements might not be fitting for highlights, unless the highlight is designated for this purpose. In addition to this, highlights last for as long as you leave them there. Keep this in mind when determining if content is worth a highlight.

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2.????IG Highlights are for engagement.

Highlights build first impressions. They come BEFORE the posts you make and after the information that tells people who you are; they are very important. Using highlights properly can engage a fan in following or interacting with your content, rather than immediately leaving your profile without taking action.

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3.????IG Highlights serve as an archive

Highlights serve as a database for your best posts (to both your story and feed). This means that you NEED to emphasize its importance. It shouldn’t be a place for you to sh*t post and dump content from your story or feed. Instead, it should summarize the best of the best and highlight what your account is about.

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I also did some digging into what strategies are commonly being used across different industries within the Instagram Highlight tool. I found that product showcases, event promotion, life updates, fan interaction, Q+As, product tutorials, testimonials, sales and discounts, partnerships and campaigns are most featured in Instagram Highlights.

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Do Some Research

Now it was time to do some research. I wanted to figure out what brands were doing outside of the sporting world, inside of the sporting world and most importantly within the hockey realm. I wanted to scope out the competition so that we could beat them. And, we did. I looked at brands like Oreo and Xbox and teams like the Celtics, Capitals and San Jose Sharks. I had a couple of big insights:

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1.????IG highlights within the NHL are lacking; they are boring and unengaging

I couldn’t find a single NHL team, at the time, that was engaging with their fanbase like big brands outside of the NHL were. Given that a team even had Instagram Highlights, they typically posted boring, non-relevant content to their highlights. One team even kept an archive of every single game from the season… come on now.

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2.????The New York Rangers’ content excels when certain players are featured in the post

When compared to similar content types, Rangers’ content outperforms other like content when certain players are shown. This shows the importance of player personality and a phenomenon that I have coined “fan favoritism,” which essentially means that fans will choose to interact with content that pertains to their favorite players and will prefer to access this content over other content. So why not give them this option (more on this later).

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Highlight Content Objectives

With additional research, I came up with 8 content objectives for the Rangers to make sure they included in their highlights:

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1.????Wallpapers are a staple

Everyone is doing them. Fans love them. And, it helps build brand loyalty.

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2.????Sponsor, Sponsor, Sponsor

Everything nowadays can be sponsored. Find ways to incorporate your partners. They’ll thank you later.

3.????Player Takeovers and Q&As

Fans love to look into the lives of their favorite players and behind-the-scenes content always resonates well with audiences.

4.????Player Songs & Playlists

Another great way to let fans look into the lives of players and is a much lower lift for managers who can’t get immediate access or screen time with players.

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5.????Audience Involvement & Games Are Key

Xbox does a great job at this. They incorporate actual games into their stories to engage fans with content when they aren’t posting–and it’s on brand.

6.????Cycle through events frequently

Even though I advise against it, sometimes event highlights can work. If done correctly, you’ll cycle through campaigns and launches frequently so it doesn’t FEEL like your highlights are an outdated archive of the past.

7.????Use powerful IG Highlight Covers

They aren’t required, but they will make finding content easier for fans.

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8.????Personality should show in highlights

Look back at Oreo’s highlights, both at the content and the covers. Their highlights emphasize their brand voice and mission and reveal the account’s personality to anyone who clicks on their profile.

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Finish With Suggestions

My goal with my final suggestion to the marketing team to which I would soon be pitching was to synthesize my previous content objectives with my finding regarding what fans enjoy and engage with on the Rangers’ account. If player-led content garnered the most engagement, the Instagram Highlights must be player-specific. During my pitch, I suggested a roster model that allows our player-interested fans to look into the lives of their favorite players by clicking on a highlight dedicated to each player.

The roster model allows for the aforementioned objectives to still be met while highlighting the backbone of the team and social media: the players.

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Then Pitch!

I had our graphics team mockup some cover photos for the highlights (shown below) and put together a pitch deck. I presented it to about 40 staff members from across marketing, PR, creative, social and other relevant departments, and a few months later the Rangers’ account featured my suggestions. Now, I don’t want to be biased here, but I do think the team leads the NHL with the most attractive and engaging highlights. What do you think? Let me know.

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My name is Matthew Rigsbee and I am a senior at the?University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill?majoring in Advertising and Public Relations at the?Hussman School of Journalism and Media. In the summer of 2021, I interned with the New York Rangers Social + Digital Team as a Student Associate and had the opportunity to ideate content, brainstorm partner activations, monitor fan chatter online, and much more.

My goal with this blog is to highlight the successful sports marketing campaigns and social media posts. There are so many new marketing techniques that are emerging out of the sports industry, and I want to be your guide to understanding how many companies are leveraging these techniques to change the way people, young and old, involve themselves in sports. I will use real-world examples of how some of the top brands in the sports industry are using game-changing social media and marketing techniques.