It’s time for the fifth installment of Leadership Huddle, a series on the blog where leaders in sport and beyond offer perspective on digital today. Some of the guests work directly in digital while others are leaders outside of the space (but get the work and advocate for it).

This installment of the Leadership Huddle features Christi Bedan, VP of Digital & Media at the Tampa Bay Bucs. Christi joined the organization a year ago.  In her role, she is responsible for all digital & content departments (digital, social, radio, TV, gameday video).  Prior to joining the Bucs, she spent 12 years in Chicago at Stadium (a multi-platform sports network) and NBC Sports’ action sports venture in various leadership roles managing media partnerships, digital product and distribution.  She started her career in sponsorship consulting at an Atlanta agency. 

If you follow the Tampa Bay Bucs on social, you’ve probably noticed they stepped up their game this season. From strong brand storytelling to unique game day illustrations, their digital presence is fun, engaging and ownable. It’s most certainly a testament to the work of Christi and the team she has built. Below is the Q&A. I hope you enjoy the perspective and insights.

When you joined the Bucs, I imagine you spent quite a bit of time laying a foundation and getting buy-in. For others trying to get digial buy-in across their own organizations, what are three pieces of advice you can share from your own experience? 

The entire offseason was spent understanding our market, our fans, and what we want the brand to stand for.  This project was led from the marketing team, but once that foundation is laid out, it becomes quite apparent that one of the, if not the primary opportunities to bring that to life is on digital platforms.  For example, part of our mission is that we want to be a brand that provides a year-round fan experience.  Digital is critical to achieving that, for obvious reasons. So to specifically answer your question, three pieces of advice:

Collect consumer data.  We did a number of focus groups and interviews in the market to understand the current perceptions and sentiment of the brand.  There were some clear ways to combat some of that feedback in the marketplace that we were able to use to support buy-in for digital.

Know the value. Measure the value delivered to corporate partners, at the very least as an internal benchmark.  Most sponsorships do not carve out dedicated media plans, but if you’re able to show the value you are delivering as a team (both production and exposure) you can start to justify additional resources as you grow that number. 

Look at budgets. Understand where dollars are being spent within budgets; yours and cross-functionally.  Often times, the justification of a resource is as simple as moving dollars from outsourced work to in-house.  

Generally speaking, what do you see as digital’s role within the team landscape today? And, how do you think its role will change in the future (5+ years from now)? 

The importance of the digital role has just scratched the surface.  Today, it is a central component for branding and becoming more critical for sponsors.  But, we are just beginning to see the impact on the marketing and gameday/stadium side.  Five years from now,  the customer experience is going to be transformed.  From mobile ticketing/ordering to supplemental AR content that provides real-time stats to bots.   Further, the data teams will have access to as a result will continue to evolve where as a team, you can have a very direct 1:1 conversation with someone after they leave the venue.    

Digital/social has matured a great deal in the last few years as it relates to paid and sponsorship, but there still seems to be a disconnect between organic and its ROI. How can we in the industry demonstrate the value of social and content, especially the plays that don’t have a hard tie to revenue? 

I think there are a few things here that can be primarily addressed by what are you trying to achieve as a brand.  At your core, what do you want your fans to take away from the experience with your team or organization?  For those plays that aren’t directly tied to revenue, it is important to build that case for the indirect ties.

Digital/social is essentially an additional marketing platform that didn’t exist years ago.  If you build your audience, you don’t have to outsource all marketing, and dollars can be reallocated.  And you are investing in future fans.  Further, you are collecting the data and building consumer profiles that can ultimately be leveraged for more direct ROI.  Test and provide data. 

What are the biggest keys for setting digital/content teams up for success?

The key is to setup an infrastructure that allows for cross-functional collaboration.  Silos have to be broken down because digital is only successful when working hand in hand with partnerships, marketing, ticketing, community relations, football, stadium ops, etc. 

Additionally, team members need to understand the importance of taking ownership of every project and thinking beyond just clicks and views but how all stakeholders can be affected, and ultimately, working towards a common end goal.  The more people you have looking at the whole picture, the more impactful a digital team can be. 

Lastly, set an environment that allows for trial and error, and in the end, more creativity. 

And finally, switching gears to professional growth. For anyone who aspires to one day be in a position similar to yours, what advice do you have on gaining the right experience and skills?

Stay curious and self-aware.  Challenge yourself to understand not just the task at hand but three steps prior and three steps ahead.  If you put in the work, with every task or project, to fully think through and anticipate what you may be asked by managers, colleagues, sponsors or other stakeholders, you will be forced to grow beyond your individual role.  Make sure you know the ‘why’.

A big thank you to Christi Bedan for her time and perspective. Connect with her here: LinkedIn and Twitter. And, be sure to follow the Bucs across digital for some great inspiration: Twitter, Instagram & Facebook.

If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to read the others from this series: Harry Arnett, Eric SanInocencio, Graham Neff and Brendan Hannan.

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There’s a monster in this industry. One that makes us feel exhausted, frantic and like we can’t keep up. It’s a serious threat to our sanity and work. This monster is content. And not only did we create this monster, but we continue to feed it.

Content has become a buzzword. A buzzword so vague someone will say “we need content!” and you can interpret it a million different ways. We measure total engagements over meaningful interactions. We push, publish, spray and pray for a glimmer of hope that someone will see this “content” we created.

The idea that content is king has to go away (gasp).

It’s easy to understand why the industry invented the phrase “content is king”. Early on, social media needed little resources except for someone who could write good copy. Almost overnight though, the platforms turned visual. Suddenly, brands, teams and leagues needed dedicated creators to digital. “Content is king” was a cry for leadership to understand how important an investment in creative is.

Fast forward to now and organizations, for the most part, understand that digital is an investment in creative too. Yes, we still have work to do when it comes to structuring teams and getting proper resources, but very few would argue that content isn’t important. We have come a long way. 

And in this quest to build up content to others outside of digital, it seems that we also built up content in our own heads. It’s become the “everything”. We overproduce, over-publish, oversaturate the feeds. And, we’ve prioritized content at the expense of other things. 

We’ve forgotten to breathe, pause and think. 

It’s time to stop the content madness. We have to shake off the internal pressure to be everywhere, all the time. We have to rid the pressure of publishing and publishing often. We have to ignore the voices that say volume matters. It’s time to stop doing just for the sake of doing.

Why does this matter so much? First of all, social media has evolved. Long gone are the days where you can spray and pray. Thanks to algorithms, every decision made can impact impressions and reach. Additionally, consumers are smart, in control and inundated with a ton of “content”. They’ve become immune to anything that doesn’t entertain and engage them.

Everything is nuanced now.  And because of that, when we “do for the sake of doing” we hurt our own reach. We dilute the quality of work. And, we make fans tune out.

With all the nuances today, the solution to success is a lot more than just “content is king”. Along with great creative and ideas, it takes purpose, planning, programming and packaging.

Purpose.

Social media has become cluttered thanks to the content revolution. And in sports, it’s often the sea of sameness. Very few teams actually own their brand narrative beyond the scores and pop culture memes.

It’s so important for teams to take the time to define their purpose. What is your brand strategy and how does that translate to social? If you can define this purpose, it will set your team apart from the rest.

A brand strategy becomes your North Star for how your brand should come to life through voice, tone, aesthetics and the stories you tell. When you have defined what your brand is and isn’t, long gone will be the days of posting just to post. You’ll have a clear vision for what needs to be produced.

Planning.

Too often in social, we throw things at the wall. We test and we try, without understanding the why. But this fly-by approach makes it hard to map the work back to meaningful goals.

The best work comes with planning. Yes, we work in sports and have to react and be nimble, but there’s actually a lot we can plan and anticipate.

Once teams have a solid understanding of their brand strategy, it’s important to dive deeper into the content strategy. This is all about leveraging content for a purpose. Map back to the goals of the brand and find a way to bring to life the brand in a way that matters. It’s about setting parameters for what is worth the team’s time and what is not.

With purpose and planning, comes focus. And with focus, come quality work that matters. Take the time to pause and plan.

Programming.

It seems like teams sometimes suffer from the fear of missing out. There’s a sense that we have to cover everything, all the time.

Batting practice and pregame warmups are a good example of this. Before every game, across every league, you are guaranteed to see the same exact pregame pictures and video over and over and over again. It becomes a tired story very quickly.

When we get in the mindset of covering, we start doing and dumping without understanding why. Think about Instagram on game days. So many times I see teams post upwards of 20 times and garner less than a 2% engagement rate. To me, that’s a serious flag that we need to give thought to content volume and distribution. A less than 2 percent engagement rate should show a serious need to pivot (and no, don’t blame it on the algorithm).

Instead of “covering” everything, think about how to “program” everything. Look at the totality of the season and curate a plan that shows every moment, every angle, every storyline over time. The *over time* is key here.

We don’t have to dump everything on fans all at once. We should consider what has already been covered, and offer up something different. If we plan, and curate smartly, we can unfold the story in a natural and organic fashion over time– without being intrusive to fans’ feeds.

Packaging.

How teams package their content has become as critical as the content itself. And, the approach to how content is packaged can play into the volume you produce and publish.

For example, let’s talk highlights on IG. So many times I see teams sharing more than five highlights from one single game. At some point, all the highlights look the same as I scroll through my feed. And forget the fact they’re often showing up days later thanks to the algorithm.

Instead of publishing five individual highlight posts, what if it could be packaged differently? What if after every game a team leveraged the Instagram carousel? By creative a “five plays of the game” carousel, teams can include design elements to make it unique to the brand. Sure, packaging content means that publishing might have to wait until after the game, but the product would be stronger, unique to your brand and less intrusive to your fans.

These are the things we have to think about.

If you want some inspiration, here are a few examples of how teams have packaged content:

I am by no means saying content doesn’t matter. It matters. And it matters a lot. There’s no such thing as a strong social presence without a strong creative arm today. But, we can no longer just post and pray. We have to be thoughtful, deliberate and strategic about our work. We have to define our purpose then plan, program and package.

Yes, content is still king in a lot of ways. The problem is your content won’t be seen if you don’t focus on the big picture and all the ins and outs. It’s about the totality of all the work — the strategy, the planning, the ideas, the execution. 

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