Annie Agar, Robert Clay and Josh Snead would never have any sort of connection in a normal world. For starters, Agar isn’t even from the same region of the country as Clay and Snead. There’s also the difference of the two day jobs. While Agar was reporting about sports on camera behind a set, Clay and Snead were previously looking at gross medical slides all day long.
But what they did have in common is the passion to make entertaining video content. With Agar finding her niche doing Zoom parodies of conversations amongst Big Ten Conference teams and NFL teams and Clay and Snead’s SEC Shorts becoming wildly popular, the trio will forever be linked as individuals who saw opportunity during a pandemic when most didn’t.
“I had just gotten into TikTok, because I’m a millennial,” laughed Agar. “I was learning just like everybody else was during quarantine with no job. I was thinking about Zoom calls and how interesting it would be, because I knew the Big Ten had to be doing something towards getting football back. Having a Zoom call, I thought, would be hilarious because they all kind of hate each other. Doing a Zoom call and capturing all the rivalries amongst the teams was kind of how the whole thing started. I didn’t have a script or anything other than the idea of wanting to connect the fans through the Zoom call. It just blossomed from there.”
Clay and Snead were both employed at boring office jobs editing medical lectures when their idea came about. Initially, Paul Finebaum asked for viewers to make funny videos to play on his show. The duo sent in an edited sketch that was played on the show, It was so good that they were asked to make more. Thus, SEC Shorts was created. They haven’t stopped since.
“We were always looking for something creative to do on the side,” said Snead. “One day Robert had an idea to make fun of the Kick Six game between Auburn and Alabama. It was just voiceover stuff in the beginning. From there we started to think about making college football videos, funny stuff like that. Paul Finebaum was letting fans send in videos and we sent in an actual produced sketch. We sent it in and they aired it. We thought it was cool to just be on TV. Then, they asked us to keep making them every week so we did.”
Sure, it looks easy enough to do, right? Just pop on the camera, decorate a t-shirt or two, start making fun of different teams and thousands of followers will come. Yeah, think again. Though it’s fun and meant to make fans laugh, research and preparation is still the instrumental part of creating the perfect video.
“I spend 50 percent of my time watching the game and 50 percent of my time on Twitter, seeing what people are joking about,” Agar said. “It’s a constant thing of seeing what the trends are and what people are laughing at. It’s a lot of research and people laugh and say, oh, well, all you have to do is watch all the games, which can’t be hard. It’s actually a lot of research, because I want to make sure and hit on the jokes that everyone is talking about.”
“One of the most challenging parts of the job is to speak each team‘s language,” said Clay. “You search wherever you can find on the internet for fans who are expressing how they’re feeling about their season, coach, players, history, all of it. Normally that happens on team blogs like on 247Sports, Rivals, you’re still only getting a certain percentage of the fan base when you do that, so we have tried to reach out to fans and different teams to see if they can boil down their fan base to manageable sentences.”
Details. Details. Details. It’s the smallest things that can make all the difference in videos such as these. So much so, that even the team specific t-shirts Agar wears in her videos have a certain strategy to it.
“The logos are tough but they’re so cute and people love them,” Agar laughed. “I just print them off of my home printer and hot glue them onto a shirt. But I don’t wanna act like I’m doing some big production I just wanna act like I’m a team talking to other teams over a zoom call. It gives it a little bit more of a homey feeling I think.”
Clay and Snead are no longer spending their days looking at slides. Instead they’ve discovered a way to overcome the No. 1 road block to any creative idea: How to monetize it.
“This is our full-time job now,” said Snead. “We have a sponsor, Renasant Bank, who sponsors all of our online content. We have a contract with ESPN for the stuff we do for SEC Nation. It’s our full-time job now, so even in the off-season we’ll do one football video a month to keep the page fresh so it won’t go dead for most of the year. Other than that will work on commercial projects and stuff like that.”
Agar’s Zoom parodies, as well as Snead and Clay’s SEC Shorts are incredible content. There’s no denying that. But both would have limited potential without the power of social media. So as important it is to make fun of how Nebraska probably wouldn’t have a strong enough internet connection to join a Big 10 Zoom call, it’s even more important to know how to spread your content via social media and interact with a new audience.
“The biggest thing I’ve learned is to really tailor your content to other people instead of posting for yourself,” said Agar. “I’m constantly putting out content that other people relate to, which is a big thing on social media, because we tend to try and keep it to ourselves to have content that others can relate to. I think it’s the key to social media. I’m thinking of social media in a completely different way now than I was before.”
“90 percent of our growth has been online,” said Clay. “I think what we’ve seen is the ability to instantly connect with the fan base. We’ll go three months without making a Georgia video but if they have a big moment or a big game, we’ll make that video, and then all of a sudden it just magically finds its way in front of Georgia fans because of shares on social media. I think that’s what’s been so cool and it’s giving us more confidence to break out and do different teams, because you know that even though you’re not doing each team every week you can reach that audience simply from the power of the share that social media gives you. It’s really incredible to see.”
Don’t expect either of these ideas to fade away after the conclusion of football season. In fact, you should expect these creative minds to expand on the hilarious content they’ve already put out. What exactly that means, only the future knows. But it’s a great lesson to people in media, which is to always think creative ideas that will engage an audience on social media.
“I just want to be able to bring a longer process to this,” said Agar. “I love the following that I’ve made and to be able to keep it going and bring new things they keep the same kind of humor as the idea. I’d love, when COVID is over, to actually go out to games. I would love that opportunity. Hopefully we continue on the same train because people know what they get when they come to my page. I just want to keep it going from here.”
"Media" - Google News
December 02, 2020 at 08:03PM
https://ift.tt/2JtJskD
Football & Social Media Are The Perfect Mix To Go Viral - Barrett Sports Media
"Media" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2ybSA8a
https://ift.tt/2WhuDnP
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Football & Social Media Are The Perfect Mix To Go Viral - Barrett Sports Media"
Post a Comment