College football season is in full swing!
College athletics provides one of the biggest stages in the country for social media strategists and content creators to flourish. No school has been able to continuously innovate and thrive on that stage over the last five years like the creative solutions team at Clemson University has.
This past February, I was honored to speak on the same panel as Clemson’s associate athletic director for creative solutions, Jonathan Gantt, before listening to his keynote address at Niagara University’s 2018 Sport, Recreation and Tourism Summit. Gantt has been on the front lines at Clemson in changing the way they tell stories on social media, promote their student-athletes and university, and build a fanbase that is engaged and attentive year-round.
Giving their fans a direct line to the stories they wanted through social media, paired with newfound success on the field spearheaded by their football program, catapulted Clemson athletics – and their social media team – into the national spotlight. Today, Clemson has four full-time staff members and two graduate assistants to lead creative solutions, along with an army of talented student designers and videographers to capture every moment.
So how does this tie to staffing?
The odds are pretty good your staffing firm doesn’t have an army of people solely dedicated to social media and creative solutions. If you prepare with a social media strategy designed for the staffing industry, you don’t need an army.
In today’s social media landscape, platforms are changing daily. Multiple times a day, businesses, agencies and content creators are pushing the limits of these platforms to find new ways to connect with their friends and followers. Gantt sees the majority of these innovations falling into two overarching themes:
- Perspective. What type of content are you viewing? Where are you viewing the content? How long is the content you’re being asked to watch? Are you watching a piece of content horizontally or vertically? Are you reading or watching a video? What story does that content tell?
- Process. How do I share content? How do I find another user’s content? How do I build a following to show my social media content to more people? How do I build rich, engaging content for social media? How quickly can I create content?
There are so many ways to innovate in social media through perspective and process. Let’s look at three big-picture items from what I learned about Clemson athletics, and how you can apply them to social media for your staffing firm.
What the Heck is Micro-Storytelling?
According to Gantt, micro-storytelling is telling the best story possible, in the smallest package possible. How many of your consumers have the time to spend five minutes reading a blog or watching a video? After making the acknowledgement that your audience’s collective attention span is shrinking, it’s easy to move forward with telling stories in smaller packages. Gantt’s team at Clemson athletics specializes in utilizing short social videos with copy written for their college-age demographic.
Everybody, this is Justyn.
Justyn, this is everybody.
Welcome to #Clemson. #ALLIN #WRU pic.twitter.com/xtpE42f3p1
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) August 12, 2018
9️⃣ days.
🌪👇🔁 pic.twitter.com/nxljKPOHD0
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) August 23, 2018
When it comes to social sharing for your staffing firm, think about how much time job-seekers and decision makers are spending reading your social media posts. Do you have great imagery or video to catch users’ attention? Are you creating content that adds value to their feeds? Once you know how to answer both of those questions, keep trying new types of content that requires the least of your followers’ time.
Always be Documenting
One reason Gantt and his team can produce such a high level of compelling content for their audience? They’re always taking photos and videos, documenting every moment that matters for their Clemson sports teams. Once they collect great content, they have a deeply-rooted process for storing and organizing content, sharing it between multiple collaborators, and finalizing the product to be shared to Clemson’s followers.
Something like this doesn’t come together unless you have a team member assigned to the camera to capture the best moments your team enjoys together.
The Challenge || Volume One
Time for new highlights. 🎬🏈✅#Clemson #ALLIN pic.twitter.com/vwVpWAAOi8
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) August 31, 2018
Designate someone to take photos or video at every event your staffing firm participates in. Capture the small moments that matter every day, such as changing peoples’ lives by helping them find a new job. Lastly, have a strategy to share those moments with the world!
Shift the Perspective
Clemson athletics also excels at showing content that pulls you in. This video puts the camera right inside the huddle, in the walk to the stadium, in the middle of a practice and many other situations. They make you, the viewer, feel like part of the team!
“That’s the beauty of football. Football unifies.”
#ALLIN 🐅🐾 pic.twitter.com/LB5Qrp6VSa
— Clemson Football (@ClemsonFB) August 27, 2018
Don’t just make content that tells people things. Take your audience from a spectator to a participant and talk directly to their challenges.
Take Your Staffing Social Media to the Next Level
Building a strong social media presence in the staffing industry starts with showing up on a daily basis. From there, you can increase your reach and share your message with a wider audience, ultimately gaining the attention of those who will apply for new jobs with your company or utilize your services to find top talent.
Haley Marketing Group has a four-part blog series laying out the road map for your team to find social media success. Need an advisor to assist in crafting a social strategy? We’re here to help!
