There is no doubting the fact that we are living in the age of social media. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook provide people with a medium for connecting to their friends, their family, and their favourite professional sporting teams, and these connections can extend well beyond the reach of just a few familiar people; when a tweet goes viral, it can literally be seen by millions of people.

Professional sporting teams know this, and hire dedicated Public Relations staff responsible for cutting edge social media engagement. The problem is that when you live on the cutting edge, it can be all too easy to slip, which is exactly what happened two weeks ago when the Houston Rockets social media manager was fired for a tweet that was deemed over the line, directed towards the official Dallas Mavericks account.

For the Washington Redskins, up until recently their official @Redskins twitter account had been fairly straight forward; linking to news articles on Redskins.com, sharing infographics about players, and so on. However all that seems to have changed of late.

On April 20th, the Redskins had a tweet that went so viral it was referenced on ESPN’s SportsCenter, mentioned on news programs in both the United Kingdom and Australia, and generated a significant amount of comments on websites such as Reddit.

But it wasn’t the sort of tweet that was going to get someone in the Redskins Public Relations team fired. Rather, it was a simple, well executed meme in response to the news that the Philadelphia Eagles had signed Tim Tebow:

For many people, this was the first time that they took notice that the @Redskins twitter account was different, but the reality is it had been building up for a few weeks prior.

By noticeably increasing the amount of direct fan interaction that was taking place, as well as the utilization of emojis, GIFs, and memes, the @Redskins account has been well and truly among the best social media accounts in all of professional sports.

It seems to have changed in early April 2015, when direct fan integration started occurring more regularly, such as this example:

Washington Redskins Senior Vice President for Communications Tony Wyllie is no stranger to running successful NFL Public Relations teams, having won the Pro Football Writers of America’s ‘Pete Rozelle Award’, recognizing the best NFL Public Relations staff each year. What is truly impressive is that he hasn’t just won it once, but a whopping 5 times with 3 different teams. Wyllie, however, has yet to win it in his 6 years since joining the Redskins executive team.

It therefore doesn’t come as a surprise that Wyllie and the Redskins Public Relations staff have clearly implemented a new strategy regarding the @Redskins account; more fan interaction, more diverse subjects discussed, and most noticeably, more fun.

And the strategy is working: in the past 5 weeks the Redskins have gained approximately seventeen thousand new twitter followers. Importantly, the Redskins fans are noticing the new direction, and have been singing the praises of the @Redskins account of late:

@httrandcavsfan Thanks. 😊 — Washington Redskins (@Redskins) May 9, 2015

With all this in mind, Redskins Capital Connection presents our top 5 @Redskins tweets since April 1st:

#5 – Skip Bayless Shut Down

ESPN’s Skip Bayless, a Dallas Cowboys fan, remarked that the Redskins had found a new Left Tackle with Brandon Scherff, apparently forgetting that Pro Bowler Trent Williams was fairly well entrenched in that position. The Redskins twitter account made sure to remind him in a great display of passive aggressive playfulness:

@RealSkipBayless We've already got a pretty good left tackle. Scherff will probably line up at RT, according to Jay Gruden. — Washington Redskins (@Redskins) May 1, 2015

#4 – Simple yet effective fan interaction

There are a huge number of fan interaction tweets from the @Redskins account in the last month, an exponential increase compared to the past, so this tweet used for #4 on this list is more of a placeholder to recognize the wider trend. It isn’t rocket science for the most part; fans are excited to have their favorite team acknowledge them with a re-tweet or a mention. The Redskins account goes a step further though, by actually responding in-kind, using emojis, and generally just ‘getting it’. Ayyyeeeeee.

#3 – Thanks to Mel Kiper

A few days following the draft, analysts from all the major outlets who cover the NFL started giving their draft grades. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr gave the Washington Redskins the best overall draft, and the Redskins twitter account was quick to accept the praise:

#2 – Yeahhhhh, we’re going to have to go ahead and disagree

Unlike Kiper, NFL Network’s Bucky Brooks was not so impressed with the Redskins draft, and went so far as to list the Redskins as having the worst draft out of the four NFC East division teams. Once again, the Redskins account was not going to sit idly by and let that slide:

#1 – Space Jam

When the Seahawks traded up to the #Redskins 3rd round pick (69 overall) on day 2 of the draft, the @Seahawks account announced the deal in fairly straightforward terms. The @Redskins account, however, acknowledged the deal via the use of a Space Jam GIF, thus winning over late 20s/early 30s sports nerds everywhere. It was simple, and it was brilliant:

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