Looking for a job in the sports industry? Think social media

Recently I caught up with Jessica Cook, the Communications Assistant at Cricket Victoria. She is living the dream when it comes to social media in sport – she gets to hang out with all your favourite Bushrangers and tweet about it later.

She was nice enough to answer a few questions about her journey and how social media is beginning to become an important part of the sporting landscape.

SportSpiel: So Jess, tell us a bit about yourself

Jess: I studied the highly regarded Bachelor of Communications/Public Relations course at RMIT University in Melbourne. In lines of PR based courses this is the known as the cream of the crop as they only take about 30 students per year offering lots of practical work to fit in alongside the theory elements. The course embraced the rise of web 2.0 and social media, incorporating it into the learnings which I believe was highly beneficial. I studied media relations and sports media classes which kick-started my interest in this career!

Comms/PR is very broad which means you could end up in so many places with this degree and it took me a while to realise what I wanted to do with it. The fact that I’ve combined my love for PR, sport and social media – to put it simply – I bounce out of bed every morning to go to work!

I also did an internship at Essendon Football Club for a season in the media/communiciations department which gave me the groundings for my career!

SS: What is your current job title?

Jess: Communications Assistant at Cricket Victoria

SS: How did you end up in your current role?

Jess: I had previously worked at the Essendon Football club in a similar role. The role at Cricket Victoria was advertised via Seek, I applied and the rest is history! I actually had little to NO interest in cricket as a game when applying, but identified the sport to be continually growing and liked the fact that it was on an international stage, also gaining experience in another sporting code was something I saw as beneficial to my career.

I suppose cricket is a little bit behind the AFL in the bigger scheme of things too – I thought I could bring ideas and experience from that world to cricket and hopefully help them to move forward.

SS: Outline a typical day for you

Jess: One thing about my job is that no day is ever typical! Everyday is different – a win/loss/injury can change the landscape of things very quickly. Generally most days I’m in touch with the players whether it’s via phone or text, catching up for a coffee or at an appearance. Managing the player appearance and assisting with all media requests means I have to know their schedules and maintain a resilient working relationship with the team.

Some days I could be in the office all day, but that’s pretty rare during the season as there is always something on. I am always contactable via phone or email, pretty much 24-7. On a game day I’m involved in a variety of roles – looking after social media (score updates, pics, uploading videos etc), organizing interviews for the TV station with players, briefing the players pre-interview, liaising with the media outlets, post match press conference and filming post match interviews in the rooms (I run around a lot on game days!!). I get to do some pretty fun things in my job and get to meet some pretty cool people – such as being on the ground at the MCG during the Boxing Day Test, or sitting with the team with the record crowd cheering them on during the Big Bash (I guess the closer to the action I am, the more content I can get!).

The Bushrangers players play a big role in their social media success

I’m out on the MCG all the time and sometimes forget now what a big thing that really is and how many people would kill do to it! Because of the PR side of my role one thing I do is generate publicity for team so recently I done things like the Nova100’s Twenty20 Big Bash match with Hughesy and ED. We had several of our players playing, photo shoots for the Herald Sun with players, TV interviews, etc. Because I’m involved with these ‘fun’ behind the scenes things and have access to the players and I actually understand and enjoy social media which allows me to get the content for our Facebook, Twitter and Cricket Victoria website.

I still do lots of office things like press releases, internal communications, writing and having to plan out these ‘fun’ things as we always want to leverage off them to get the most out of it for social media! It all comes back to planning!

SS: How much of your day is spent interacting with social media?

Jess: A lot! My iPhone is the key and never leaves my hand! Facebook and Twitter are always logged in on my computer so I can consistently check in; monitor our pages, fans and any related news. This extends to out of hours too; via mobile technology I monitor these social media platforms all day long and I do mean all day – it’s literally the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning and last thing I do before I go to bed!

Social media is definitely not a 9-5 thing – I’ll be at dinner with friends posting score updates on Facebook, or replying to fans comments. To keep it in real-time, (Cricket Victoria Digital Marketing Manager) Anthony and I need to be consistently engaged in it ourselves!

SS: Do you think social media can be a full time position across the sports industry?

Jess: Yes – most certainly. Social media is now a way to engage with a whole other audience but needs to be managed to correctly for it to be successful. There are so many stories of how quickly it can all go wrong, and I believe to ensure that doesn’t happen you need to have someone committed to manage it.

I think there’s certainly a place for roles to manage, implement or create social strategies for sporting teams especially if teams are serious about connecting and engaging with fans properly.

SS: Do you follow many social media trends across big business?

Jess: Yes – I try to as much as possible! I try to follow all trends and stay in the loop and up to date with the ever developing social media world. I read a lot of case studies to see whose doing what and what they are getting from it. I look at a lot of businesses and particularly other sporting teams feeds to see what they are doing and to see if we can leverage off that. I think many big businesses lead the way and whilst often we’re very different world, we can learn a lot from what they are doing.

I’m very interested in the ‘ROI’ factor of social media and whether it can be one day implemented in the sport arena without damaging things.

SS: Where do you see social media heading in the sports industry?

Jess: I think it has the capabilities to in time control the way a sporting club interacts, communicates and reach their fans. The teams that do it well, we already know that fans turn to their social media/online tools first before looking elsewhere. There is potential for ROI opportunities, membership initiatives and ultimately to create the best possible fan engagement experiences. The clubs or  teams that aren’t on board are missing out in a big way.

SS: Videos with the players are a big part of the Bushrangers website and iPhone app. Explain how that works

Jess: Our video content is one tool we have that is exclusive to us! We’re trying to maximize having our players and offer the fans behind the scenes footage and so they can get to know more about our team. Our ‘Beating round the Bush with Bobby‘ series is something we launched this year to get the players more involved, but to also introduced the lighter, more fun and less serious sides of the guys to the fans.

'Beating Around The Bush' on YouTube

At this stage we plan week by week, and try to recognize what the fans want to see and offer them what they can’t get or see at a game, on TV or from the newspaper. We film on location using a handheld HD camera, microphone and tripod. Back at the office, Anthony or myself cut up the videos, place our title pages or effects in and viola!

Going forward with more planning we’d love to have more videos and ’segments’ with the players during the season.

SS: What has been the highlight of your time at Cricket Victoria so far?

Jess: Highlight…. there has been a few to tell you the truth! Firstly, be so actively involved in our social media campaign and watching it grow has been great. When I first started we had about 800 FB fans and under 300 followers on Twitter, with both pages not really providing much content – we’re now reaching about 20,000 fans. It’s pretty satisfying to think many Bushrangers fans now turn to these social media platforms first to find out news, scores, and info as they believe it’s the most informative place to get this information. Being a part of the record crowds for the Big Bash was something really special too, we worked really hard on the marketing/PR campaign around it, particularly implementing a strong social media campaign.

It was great to track feedback, hype and talk about the game – from social we knew people were interested in the weeks leading up to it but those who didn’t ‘get’ social media didn’t quite believe us! One of the players said to me a week out before the Tassie match, how many people did I think we’d get to the game and when I said 40,000+ he laughed at me! As he ran out onto the MCG in front of 43,125 people he was gob smacked that we were able to generate and attract that much interest in the game.

She was right, 43,000 turned up to support the Vics

The atmosphere and excitement that night from ground level was a highlight in itself! I think overall though increasing the Bushrangers profile has been the biggest highlight – we legitimately have fans now who are interested in and support the Bushrangers, not just people who like cricket and I think our social media and online strategies have a lot to do with this fact.

SS: When looking particularly at sport, who are your sources of inspiration in sport and social media? What sites do you look at regularly? Who are your ‘must-follow’ tweeters?

Jess: My initial start in the industry at Essendon Football Club was probably the base of my social media/sport inspiration – seeing EFC manage their social media so well, at that stage they were leading the way in the AFL and it motivated me to take that knowledge and apply it to the Bushrangers. I regularly look at other sporting clubs and sporting codes (In both Australia and international) websites, Facebook pages and Twitter, etc. I love to know who’s doing what, I think you can often learn a lot from what other people are doing.

There are some great social media experts, lovers and bloggers who are great to follow online. James Duthie, Mashable and Kate Kendall spring to mind.

Must follow tweeters in sport? To be in the know, you’ve got to be following everyone in sport. News outlets, athletes past & present, teams, administrators, different sports….

Some of my favourites are: @SENNEWS, @Whitey927, @Emmasq, @Warnie888, @AFLPAToday, @Harry_O,  @Camschwab and @Essendon_FC

SS: What would be your advice for people wanting to get into the industry?

Jess: Whether it’s sport, social media or the two combined – I think it’s all about experience, research and interest. Be willing to work for free, it sucks having no money but if it’s what you want to do, offering your services will show people who keen you are, provide you with great opportunities to meet people and see how it all works.

The sporting industry is tough and competitive, doesn’t matter what role you might be in, a lot of people want a job in sport but there aren’t that many!

Relationships and networking is the key, it really is all about who you know! Work experience, an internship, or a great reference could make all the difference in getting a job.

Also you need to always do your research and be in the know. In the social media/online world you need to be up with trends and a new technologies – in sport you need to know about the teams, players, history, sponsors and culture of a team or sport.

Social media skills are so important these days too, you need to have them! If you don’t understand what social media is about – you’ll become pretty one dimensional – it’s time to learn as it’s simply another skill set to add to your resume. It doesn’t matter what job, what industry – these skills can be put to use.

Also for the ladies out there – being a girl in this world certainly has it challenges! I think women in the AFL have been accepted for a while now and play large roles – but girls in cricket are all a bit new! There are certainly lots of women in the office but working closely with the team it’s still a big boys club still and I often have to work hard to change attitudes and initially be accepted, I’ve learnt to be pretty thick skinned!!

Example: In footy there are countless amounts of women in the rooms post match – in cricket it is just me! Ladies be strong and stick at it!

SS: I’d like to say a big thanks to Jess for helping me out with the interview.

I believe the Bushrangers are the best at social media in Australian sport. And it comes as no surprise that they have a dedicated Digital Marketing Manager and a Communications Assistant who has a major focus on social media.

Social media now represents a full time industry and Jess makes it clear you need somebody who is willing to look after your social media presence (mainly the Facebook page and Twitter account) not only from 9-5, but in their own time as well. You have to love and embrace social media to get the full benefits from it, and the Bushrangers are doing just that.

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