Canton native to manage media for NHL team
By GuestJen Videtta, 24, has been appointed as new media manager for the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League and Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Arizona.
A native of Canton, Jen is the daughter of Mike and Laura Videtta. She is a 2009 public relations graduate of Hostra University and a former student of Mo Krochmal, who was then Hofstra’s first digital journalism professor.
Videtta has been a digital marketing specialist with the New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center since November 2010.
“Social media is a huge part of sports, especially for the fans to connect with the team,” Videtta told Social Media News NY. “We have viewing parties where people walk around with their Twitter handles on their badges and they have conversations that they could have never had before.”
The Devils compete locally with the Rangers, Islanders, Penguins and Flyers. They have 250,000 fans on Facebook and another 40,000 fans on Twitter, as well another 120,000 video views since June on YouTube, Videtta said.
Now she’s looking forward to increasing fan interaction and engagement online in her new position with the Coyotes.
Asked for the secret to social media excellence in sports, Videtta said it’s quite simple: “Asking questions. You ask a question, and that gets the conversation going.”
Videtta is a Hootsuite fan for managing social media operations. She has maintained five different Twitter accounts using the tool, monitoring mentions and hashtags, the team’s feed, and what people are saying.
“Any time anyone mentions us, we respond,” Videtta said.
In Phoenix she will manage a team of four or five people who operate on Twitter game-day accounts, the community relations accounts, and the arena’s account, as well as Facebook pages and websites for the team and the arena.
She finished in New Jersey last Friday and flew into Phoenix on Saturday.
“I’m going to miss all of the people I’m working with,” said Videtta. “No other sports team has taken up social media like the Devils — ESPN wrote about us … We made a huge jump from 75,000 to 250,000 Facebook fans since I’ve been here.”
Videtta coordinated the launch of “Mission Control,” the Devils’ innovative initiative to monitor online presence and get fans involved.
She has also become a role model for women in sports communications as she blazes a path that still surprises some people.
“Somebody came up to me at a game,” she recalled, “and I was on a laptop, updating the Devils’ Facebook page. He said, ‘I can’t believe that they have a girl doing that.’”
Her advice to social media professionals:
“I’m really looking for active users, on the (Facebook) page and interacting right on the wall,” she said. “Make sure to maintain two-way communications. Listen to what fans are saying to you. There’s a person behind the scenes, and we are going to respond to a question. We have given the fans a place to come and talk about the teams they are so passionate about.”
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