Here at TeamWorks, we create a lot of content, from articles to social media posts to videos. Whether it’s charting the path of Latino baseball players with La Vida Baseball, getting athletes hyped for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon or digging into the exciting stories out of Big Ten universities with LiveBIG, we’re not usually at a loss for ideas.
Yet, each of our projects has some kind of off-season when a string of slow news days is ahead of us. We asked some of the TeamWorks staff to talk about how they keep things fresh and interesting in times when not much is trending.
LA VIDA BASEBALL
For the last four months, the one question I’ve been asked the most is “What are you guys doing during the off-season?” Our answer was to move into relatable lifestyle conversations, but with a La Vida Baseball spin.
We divided the off-season up in themes. For November, our theme was food because of Thanksgiving. Throughout the season, we asked players about their favorite foods and the answers we got were gold. Some players talked about how home cooking was their favorite, while others talked about their favorite restaurants on the road. We had enough good sound where we put these answers together in themes to create really culturally specific content. Below is the video of players talking about arepas.
In December, we went all in on the theme of giving back and community service because of the Holidays. Throughout the season, we captured players who had their own charities and featured families and players who are involved with these charities. In July, when we went to the number retirement of Pudge Rodríguez, we spent a day with a family from Ft. Worth Texas who are involved with the Down Syndrome Foundation in Dallas because of their son Alec Barry who has Down’s. Alec talked about how Elvis Andrus, his favorite player on the Texas Rangers, has made an impact on his life.
I think that the offseason is one of the best times to create content because you can really be creative and are not tied to the season when everyone is talking about the same topic. Our engagement was the highest ever in the month of November. You might say it was a grand slam for us.
– Henry Pacheco, Social/Digital Media Editor, La Vida Baseball
BANK OF AMERICA CHICAGO MARATHON
We face two challenges when building social content for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon’s off-season:
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- The Chicago Marathon experience is built around a single race weekend, making the “off-season” particularly long.
- A majority of our followers will not run the race every year. So we’re tasked with not only creating compelling content 12 months out from the race but also with making sure it is positively received by both our current and previous participants – and the everyday runner.
Here’s how we do it.
1) We build inspirational content that motivates all runners to go out and hit the pavement. It’s the type of shareable content that even someone who despises running can’t help but ?.
2) We highlight Chicago Marathon mementos as a way to engage those who have previously run, showing them that they will always be a part of Chicago Marathon history.
3) We show off the beauty of Chicago. It’s a city most of our followers either live in, have run in or hope to one day race through. Our emphasis around Chicago as the host makes all of our followers – from Mexico City to the local suburb of Hinsdale – relish in Chicago pride.
4) We hype up nervous debut marathoners with previews of the course. Showing off the electric neighborhoods kicks pre-race jitters while also allowing alums to reminisce about their own experience.
5) We build a platform for runners to connect and share questions and advice for their upcoming marathon – or just for the sport of running in general. We regularly publish posts that encourage dialogue between runners, and it’s like hitting the jackpot, because this is one chatty, excited group!
– Abby Best, Client Partner, TeamWorks
BTN LiveBIG
When people think of the Big Ten, an association with sports is usually not far behind.
But in our work on BTN’s LiveBIG campaign, we’re covering science, philanthropy and the arts – specifically stories of innovation, inspiration and impact. So in many respects, our off-seasons coincide with the school year: summer breaks and winter holidays, when our sources are usually on vacation or hard to reach.
Last summer, we took this as an opportunity to delve into stories that explore the history and impact of Big Ten universities.
We created a Big Ten book club and reviewed works from university professors like Wisconsin’s Heather Swan or Minnesota’s James Kaklios or re-examined significant eras like Ohio State during the 1960s, the lives of Purdue’s Virgil Grissom or Iowa’s Dan Gable.
We also profiled university museums which provide a look at unique art like Northwestern’s Block Museum or the geographic natural history of an area like Michigan. We also took a different spin on the philanthropic efforts of the universities by profiling their summer camps.
With winter holidays, it’s a good opportunity for us to create some best-of content. So we’ll roundup our favorite stories from specific Big Ten universities and also create topic-focused articles and videos like this one about robots:
Or a look at art with an impact.
The bonus opportunity with our round-ups is it gives us a chance to take a look at themes and trends across the Big Ten and how each university demonstrates the ideals of LiveBIG.
– Scott Smith, Editorial Director, TeamWorks