Eight years ago, when Twitter was still known as Twitter, Dan LaTorraca’s mind was on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
LaTorraca was the manager of digital content and strategy for the Carolina Panthers. It was early July — typically the calmest point in a pro football team’s season — and LaTorraca was scrolling Twitter while watching TV with his wife.
He saw a story about a guy who hid lyrics to Smashmouth’s All-Star in a series of tweets and thought the idea was creative. He wondered if a brand could pull off something similar.
The next morning, he reached out to the Panthers’ head of public relations to give him a warning.
“I’m going to try something stupid,” LaTorraca said.
And with that message, LaTorraca and his social media team posted the following tweet:
Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary to Panthers’ followers. What no one realized was that tweet was the first of 39 consecutive tweets that spanned three days and honored a 90s’ sitcom character.
All of the tweets were still about the Panthers, but read in reverse order — meaning the tweet published most recently first — the first word of each tweet spelled out the Fresh Prince’s iconic theme song.
The stunt went unrealized until the Panthers’ shared their secret with a simple post: “Now go back and read the first word of our tweets from the last three days.“
Once the secret was out, the Panthers became the talk of the Twitterverse. Even other professional sports teams tipped their proverbial caps to Carolina. Up until that point, LaTorraca’s biggest focus was hoping no one would catch on before the tweets were all published.
“A lot of the focus was trying to throw people off the scent,” he said.
To do that, the team got creative with some of its tweets. Starting a tweet with the word “Prince” could have been challenging, but the team chose to acknowledge the “Purple Rain” singer in a list of special edition shoes worn by star quarterback Cam Newton.
Instead of the word “Bel” for “Bel-Air,” they used a bell icon to announce a giveaway contest.
LaTorraca thought the tweets would entertain Panthers’ fans, but he never expected the virality that ensued.
“I thought it would be fun, but I didn’t think it would leave the circle of Panthers fans enjoying it,” he said. “I figured the tweets would be retweeted one thousand times or so, in the best case. The last tweet got 100,000 likes on Twitter and 57,000 retweets!”
That turned out to be the team’s best performing post to date.
Use storytelling to resonate with your audience
In case you’re wondering, no, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has nothing to do with the Carolina Panthers. LaTorraca wasn’t concerned about that. He knew the team’s fans enjoyed fun, personality-filled content, and he figured they would appreciate the tweets,
Looking back on them today, he understands why they became a phenomenon.
“It was a fun way to engage our fans in a quiet period,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t commit to that type of goofiness and silliness. When you can capitalize on those moments, or create them yourselves, it can be very impactful in both the short term and long term.”
Managing social media for a brand can be challenging, particularly when the brand is a sports organization. A team will make a transaction or a player can say something that is not appreciated by the fan base.
It’s up to the marketing team to keep fans engaged, no matter what else is going on within the larger team landscape. That engagement stems from understanding the audience and knowing how to communicate to them — and with them.
A key way to do that, LaTorraca said, is through storytelling.
“Storytelling is incredibly important, and it integrates into every fiber of a marketing department,” he said. “As the brand, we’re not the sole storyteller. The fans have a piece of that equity. Our job is to capitalize on that and make the most of it.
“If you do it the right way, it will resonate with your audience. It’s important to find your opportunities to leverage that.”
LaTorraca recently became director of marketing for digital measurement platform Zoomph. He admits he doesn’t spend much time thinking about the story of the Fresh Prince tweets these days, but he’s glad they resonated.
“If that is what I’m remembered for for my time with the Panthers, I’m OK with that,” he said. “I do think it inspired a few other people to try something similar, and that’s great. That’s what social media is all about.”
3 storytelling lessons for you
1) Know your destination
LaTorraca drafted all the Fresh Prince tweets before posting the first one. That helped him make sure he had a good balance of types of posts. It also helped him preload the last set of tweets, since he had to be on a video shoot while the series of tweets came to its end.
2) Think outside the box
Like most content creators, the journey of creating the posts was as exciting as the reaction the posts got. There’s always more than one way to tell a story; many times, the most creative — like the Prince shoes or Bel emoji LaTorraca used — are the most memorable.
3) Have fun
LaTorraca could easily have decided not to go through with the plan because it wasn’t connected to the Panthers’ brand. He felt the posts still reflected the Panthers’ personality and that the team’s fans would enjoy it, so he went for it. And he was right.