A Legendary Team with a Tough Task
“The Philadelphia Eagles” is one of the most well-known names in football and boasts a rich history filled with memorable wins and legendary moments. As a professional sports team with millions of die-hard fans, the Eagles understand the power of publishing imagery at the perfect moment that captures in-game action, as well as preserving its legacy for years to come.
The Challenge: Rewriting the Playbook on Content Distribution
Jennifer White, Senior Manager of Digital Assets for the Philadelphia Eagles’ content and production team, faced significant challenges when she assumed her role in 2014. There was no system to keep digital photos organized and there were thousands of historic, physical photos that needed to be digitized to run effective marketing campaigns:
No easy way to search for images. Metadata was often incomplete, and with no other way to easily search for specific photos, it was nearly impossible to locate images the team needed quickly.
The wrong tool for the job. The team’s previous system was primarily geared toward tech-savvy video professionals. It was difficult and time-consuming to train new people on a system not built for photos.
Slow, manual content distribution. Sharing content with players was a time-consuming process where social media team members had to download and send images individually to each player.
Missed fan engagement opportunities. A manual workflow meant the Eagles kept missing moments for peak engagement. Fans were turning to other sources before the official Eagles account could post their own photos.
“No matter how many times we trained people [on the old system]…it was very cumbersome. It just wasn’t user-friendly. It wasn’t like anybody could jump in and find assets easily.”
Jennifer White, Senior Manager of Digital Assets, Philadelphia Eagles
The Solution: A Winning Combination of PhotoShelter & Socialie
By leveraging PhotoShelter’s AI functionality, alongside Socialie’s content distribution automation capabilities, the Eagles were able to streamline their workflow and get content into their players’ hands in seconds, taking fan engagement to the next level:
A centralized, searchable digital asset library: With all of the team’s digital images housed in PhotoShelter, the Eagles now has a one-stop shop for employees who need to produce content on a day-to-day basis. PhotoShelter’s AI features also make it easy to auto tag images with the click of a button, eliminating hours of manually tagging.
AI auto-tagging with lightning speed. The Eagles content and production team takes full advantage of PhotoShelter’s AI features. PhotoShelter’s RosterID helps find and tag players automatically and PeopleID makes tagging corporate staff effortless.
Automatic content distribution with Socialie. The seamless integration between PhotoShelter and Socialie simplifies content distribution to Eagles players. Socialie automatically notifies Eagles players when their photos are ready to share with fans.
Reinforced sponsorships and partnerships. With PhotoShelter’s BrandID, the team can quickly and easily identify branded content in images that the corporate sales team needs to bring back to sponsors and partners. “Before we could be sifting [through photos] and miss it. Now we can type in a partner’s brand and find results,” explains Jennifer.
Increased engagement with fans. The Eagles staff can now quickly get photos on their official accounts, each of which has millions of followers. Simultaneously, players can share images on their personal accounts, helping Eagles content reach fans who may not follow the official brand accounts. With Socialie, publishers, like athletes, generate 8x the engagement per day compared to publishers with similar social footprints.
“Socialie made it possible for us to seamlessly share content with our players. This used to be a manual process, where someone on the social media team would download all images and text them to each player individually. Socialie eliminates that step and also shows us what content our players are most interested in. Love that we can see what they’re opening/downloading so we can aim to send them content they’re looking for.”
Jennifer White, Senior Manager of Digital Assets, Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles’ Game-Changing Digital Transformation
The Philadelphia Eagles have harnessed the power of PhotoShelter and Socialie to gain the best of both worlds: powerful AI tools and innovative content distribution to revolutionize their digital asset management system. With PhotoShelter and Socialie on their side, the Eagles content and production teams have eliminated bottlenecks, saved time and cut costs, and guaranteed their content reaches fans faster than ever. In the fast-paced world of sports, the Eagles are flying high in the digital game.
“[PhotoShelter & Socialie] are heavily relied on now. They’ve become a staple. It’s been huge.”
Jennifer White, Senior Manager of Digital Assets, Philadelphia Eagles
Key Stats
- 13.6M+ collective social media followers
- 760k+ assets housed in PhotoShelter
- 69.5k+ downloads in the last 6 months
If you would like to learn more about PhotoShelter and Socialie, let’s find some time to chat.
