It’s a social world out there

A new "For Pete's Sake" blog appears each Thursday on Profootballhof.com.

Yesterday, we added another outlet to the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s social media arsenal when we joined Instagram. As with our presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube you can find us at ProFootballHOF. We’ve been using social media for the past couple of years to connect with fans of the NFL as one other way to achieve our mission (see our mission statement).

We are home to the world’s largest collection of football memorabilia and information. We use our social media outlets as a way to share far more than what you can see by touring our museum. So, we picked one of my personal favorite items to be the first shot to share through Instagram.

It was the well-worn helmet of Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Fame defensive tackle Joe Greene. Give it a closer look and you’ll see the scrapes and dents from many years of his battles in the trenches during the 1970s.

Now, this helmet just didn’t happen to be lying around. Rather, our curatorial staff has been working hard to prepare for a great exhibit we have at the Super Bowl Experience each year. Fans who flock to Indianapolis will get a chance to see a nice cross-section of our artifacts that will be part of this exhibit. And, speaking of social, we’ll add a human touch to it all as several of our staff will be on hand to talk some football with all who come visit our exhibit.

If you’re not lucky enough to find yourself in Indianapolis in a couple of weeks, you might just want to follow us, like us, and be on the lookout on Instagram for behind-the-scenes from the Super Bowl.

More Super Bowl…

Oh, and one more item to share with you this week in case you missed it. I’m somewhat surprised by the reaction of fans on our social media sites who weren’t aware that the actual Vince Lombardi Trophy that will be awarded on Feb. 5 has been here in Canton since the start of the season. It’s a really great tradition we started a couple of years ago, where fans who visited the Hall of Fame can see the trophy. Of course, it’s that time of year where we have the Brinks truck show up to take it and deliver to the Super Bowl site. Check out this video (especially the part after the interview) about the trophy being removed. Video>>>