Top 10 NFL Players – February 2019

Top NFL Players With The Highest Social Interactions Among Fans

Each year during the first weekend of February, the most watched event in all sports occurs, the Super Bowl. Super Bowl LIII resulted in the New England Patriots taking the title over the Los Angeles Rams while Tom Brady secured his sixth championship ring with the team. It’s no surprise that Brady and Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman were the only NFL athletes among all teams to have more than a million social interactions. Cleveland Browns wide receiver Jarvis Landry was the third-highest NFL athlete in the rankings with 958.6K social interactions among fans. Hookit analyzed the top-10 active NFL players, based upon the total number of interactions on their social media channels, and created valuable insights for reasons behind a few of the players’ rankings.

Key Insights

Tom Brady Scores Touchdown with Most Social Interactions

The Patriots’ quarterback is one of the most followed NFL athletes on social media, with a reach of up to 10.4M fans on his social media accounts. Even with an impressive number of followers, Brady managed to top that number for total social interactions. His 13.8M interactions among fans were generated from 24 posts collectively over Facebook and Instagram.
His Facebook post after securing the win on the night of the Super Bowl attracted 6.4M views, over 113K shares, and nearly 200K comments and likes. A similar post to his Instagram account racked up over 9.5M views.

Patriots’ Cornerback, Stephon Gilmore, Picks Off Sixth Position

Stephon Gilmore had jumped twenty-eight spots for a massive increase in social interactions. Part of the reason for his high social interactions among fans is due to his clutch pick in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. That interception was able to stop Jared Goff and the Rams from tying the game and possibly going into overtime.
Because of his performance during the Super Bowl, Gilmore’s social media followers increased by 61.4K to reach a total of 332.6K across his social channels. His 771.5K total interactions was accumulated from his 48 total posts in February.

Le’Veon Bell Rushes to Seventh Spot for Social Interactions

Le’Veon Bell saw the biggest increase in social interactions in February. The running back gathered 761.2K interactions from 28 posts, primarily on his Twitter page. His tweet on February 20th was liked over 100K times and retweeted by 16.6K fans. The reason for his huge jump in the rankings was due to Bell becoming a free agent after the Steelers declined to tag him for the 2019-20 season.
This is exciting news for Bell, seeing as he missed the 2018-19 season. With the Steelers declining to tag Bell, he has entered as an unrestricted free agent and can sign with any team beginning March 13th. Bell, who already has 3.9M fans on his social media channels, can expect more social interactions and fans in March once he signs with a new team in the league.

The Wrap Up

The Super Bowl is the perfect opportunity and time of the year for NFL players to increase their social interactions with fans. In the top-10 rankings, four of the players were from the New England Patriots whereas no player from the Los Angeles Rams was in the rankings. This just means that NFL players from any team can still benefit from the big game and increase their fan following and social interactions even if they aren’t playing in the championship. These social interactions can be instrumental for brands that are sponsoring the top NFL players and are looking to increase their brand value. By analyzing the top-ranked NFL athletes based on social interactions, brands can create valuable insights when looking for new partnerships or wanting to increase their media value.
Note: All data is from official Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram Business accounts. Any personal Instagram account data is not included in these rankings.

The right metrics and insights can help sponsor brands understand which of their sponsored properties are most effective and drive higher ROI. Sponsor brands can gain this competitive advantage by leveraging the Hookit platform to make effective sponsorship decisions and strategy. Contact us today for a free demo of our powerful sports sponsorship platform.