The Hawks are flying, and their confidence and brashness is being matched by their social media presence
PRANK calls, dress ups, viral trends, ugly filters, airport tricks, matchday selfies and Meek Mondays. Hawthorn isn’t just winning on the field.
The Hawks’ hot streak of 10 wins from 13 games has them on the verge of an unlikely finals appearance, but the team’s enthusiasm, confidence and brashness is being matched by its social media presence.
Victories help, but Hawthorn was enjoying itself before the results started to turn and its content reflected it. Its rebuild looking ahead of schedule, Hawthorn knew if it was going to go through some darker times it could still keep things light.
Throughout its golden era of success, Hawthorn was historically a shut-off club, keen to keep its superstars under wraps and premierships its sole pursuit. Successfully, the Hawks traversed that path and did things their own, closed-off way, bringing in silverware but keeping out potential distractions.
Sam Mitchell’s ascent as the Hawks’ new senior coach ahead of the 2022 season opened the door to a flip in direction. Walls, literally, were broken down inside the club as Mitchell made changes to the football department layout. But those outside have also been won over by Hawthorn’s creative, personality-driven player content that has made the Hawks fun again.
Last week, ahead of the club’s biggest game of the season, the Hawks players took on a retro dress up day, happily captured by their in-house media team. Changkuoth Jiath took the disco direction, while Finn Maginness wore an old-school David Beckham England top and looked straight out of the 1990s.
When the Hawks had their players do a membership ring-around earlier in the year, they created a mocked up opener of The Office, while at the same time getting some players to prank others thinking they were talking to supporters.
As ‘rawdogging’ caught on worldwide – the trend of doing a long-haul flight without any technological entertainment – Hawks captain-in-waiting Will Day joined in to jokingly do the same on an interstate trip.
Hawthorn’s strategy is clear: inside the club it could see their players enjoying each other’s company, laughing and getting on. The work was to transport that to the outside world of the club’s fans and beyond. Mitchell and their players have bought in to the plan, being open to showcasing the club’s culture in snippet form.
It’s working. The Hawks’ numbers on Facebook and Twitter have continued to grow, but they have seen a massive uptick in their TikTok and Instagram engagement. On TikTok in particular, the Hawks are more than double their numbers on last year in a significant increase.
Their biggest Instagram hits have been the Day travelling video, their ‘What’s up brother?’ take-off of the viral trend as well as asking players to swap something from their lockers for a lollipop. All have had more than a million plays.
The ideas are generated mainly from the club’s media team, but occasionally players also bring their own. That was the case when Sam Frost made an announcement to the team as a faux retirement speech before letting them know his partner was pregnant.
