Social Media Manager | Producer | Editor
#MissionSlovenia
MY external placement with Cardiff Met WFC
For my external placement, I worked with Cardiff Met WFC as the club was looking for a media manager and content creator to work for them in the run-up and throughout the team's involvement in the UEFA Women's Champions League in Slovenia. This role would require me to put together everything that I had learned throughout the year during my internal placement with Cardiff Met Sport TV and implement it into a real-world environment and job. The role began from when the team returned for pre-season in mid-July, and it allowed me to create and run a whole media campaign for the team during the UWCL.
Creating 'Mission Slovenia: A Cardiff MET WFC Story'
For my Masters dissertation, I had to create a 15 minute documentary. I decided to focus my documentary on the Cardiff Met WFC, filming the behind the scenes action as they prepared to compete in the UEFA Women's Champions League in Slovenia.
Being able to demonstrate Sports Broadcasting skills in a professional environment.
With this being the first-ever job I had with a professional team, it has inspired me to create the best possible content as it would allow to demonstrate and improve upon many broadcasting skills that I have learnt through the last year with Cardiff Met Sports TV. To do this, I wanted to follow the same principles as any other top professional club and create similar types of content. Some of these would include the obligatory training montages, high- quality pictures, clips, match action, interviews, and features. A great example of the type of content that I wanted to create was the pre-match interview and feature I created with Madison Schupbach and Naomi Clipston…
As you can see from the VT, the use of a great interview location and set-up, mixed with the great B-roll that I was able to capture, shows a great representation of the team. I feel that one of the strongest parts of this particular VT is the way the players involved were able to describe their emotions and thoughts about the winning goal of the match. This is great as I was able to use this interview to create an emotional connection with our fans and audience as you can “never underestimate the power of emotions. If someone can make you smile or shed a tear, you know there’s a pretty strong emotional bond there. These emotions are great to tap into because as humans, we love to relate” (Kettler, 2019).
Creating this type of content allowed me to learn and develop a range of technical and non-technical skills. From a technical point of view, making these sorts of features allowed me to improve my camera work and editing skills, meanwhile from a non-technical point of view, I was able to improve skills ranging from working as part of a team, face-to-face interaction, communication, and problem-solving. Problem-solving was a key part of my experience as I had to overcome many obstacles while making features such as the previous pre-match interview. For example, in the main front-facing shot, you can see that the camera is not fully focused and quite blurry. This was due to the 35-degree heat affecting the camera and could not be saved in the edit. Looking back at a problem such as this one has made me more aware whenever I create new content, as this is the only way I could progress in my role as a broadcaster. As the main media officer and content creator for the team, often I tried to work out if I was efficient enough with the amount of content and videos I had produced while I was out in Slovenia. It was often a tricky task trying to create a balance between the amount of content I created versus the overall quality of them. Reflecting on my actions, I know that I put my full effort into making sure that a piece of content went out on each of the club’s social media accounts every day. However, looking back at it now even though I feel I made the right amount of content, there is often some errors or mistakes in some of the videos. These mistakes include trouble with the camera focus, the sound quality on some clips, and most importantly spelling mistakes. If I could go back and change anything, I would make sure I tripled checked everything that out on our social media pages, as any errors do not just look bad on the media office, but on the club itself.
A big lesson I did learn while creating content for the team was the responsibility of still creating meaningful content, even when things are not looking good for the team. After the team lost 2-1 in their match against Hibernian LFC, the team were effectively out of the running to progress in the tournament, meaning that the mood in the camp was at an all-time low.
The way this VT is able to seem professional and inspiring despite the downbeat mood is a testament to the players as it shows their hunger and desire to still compete and look for the next goal. As we all know, “sports consumption is a special form of consumption distinguished by both the intensity of emotions and by the heightened level of self-definition found among followers” (Kahle and Close, 2011). Creating content in this way is a skill that will serve me well in the sports broadcast world as not all sporting stories are about success and accomplishment. But overall if there are any videos I look back on and analyse thoroughly, this is the one that I have the least problems with. Even at the time of editing the VT, I knew that it would be great for not just the club and the players, but for the fans.
The partnership’s that helped create my overall experience
During my time with the team, I met and was involved with many different individuals that helped and guided me throughout this journey. One of the main figures that helped me throughout my time with the clubs was Dr. Kerry Harris, who is the club’s main coach and Director of Football. Kerry was the person that was involved with advertising the role in the first place and asked me if I would be able to get involved in the team’s preparations for the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Before I began the role, I sat down with Kerry to discuss different aims that we wanted to put in place for the tournament. Some of these aims included the growth of the club’s social media channels, working with other media broadcasts such as the BBC, and making sure that we inform, educate and entertain our audience with top quality content. It’s important as a club to “utilized social media specifically to improve customer service and help produce development” as if a “sports organisation effectively uses the internet and data mining for information, it can create targeted communications with fans and build brand loyalty” (Pekka Aula, p43, 2010). All these aims can be seen and interpreted from the media day VT that I created for the club’s twitter page.
This VT shows a good representation of just a few of the roles I had to complete as the team’s media officer. The whole media day event was organised by me, meaning that I was in charge of getting reporters and journalist to attend, getting all the interviewees prepared for questioning, and timing everything to make sure it ran as smoothly as possible. The VT that I made was a crucial tool to try and get broadcasters and journalists to attend as “the use of social media as a marketing and communication tools opens up new types of personal communications between the organisation and the consumer” (Newman, p16, 2017). Looking back at the media day I feel proud that I was able to set up this event. However, one of the main issues that we faced on the day was that a large proportion of the journalist that agreed to attend did not turn up. This is where my content creating skills came into play as I was able to create a positive feel to the event, making it seem that there was a high media attendance and interest in the team’s story.
Another figure that was crucial in helping me prepare for the tournament was Joe Towns. Even though I was working for Cardiff Met WFC, I was also using Cardiff Met Sports TV equipment and facilities. This meant that Joe was able to give me advice and feedback about some content ideas I had for the tournament. This advice and feedback was crucial looking as it gave me the drive to make sure I thought thoroughly about every piece of content that I produced for the teams channel, as I knew Joe would be watching and would call me out on any errors I had made. He would also suggest some improvements and ideas that I could use for future content. As the club’s media officer, I was also in charge of everyone that had access to the club’s social media accounts, with one of these people being Luis Hadgj. Luis also came out to help with the team's social media accounts in Slovenia. Even though he tried his hardest and carried every role that I asked of him, he still often made some crucial spelling errors as he was in charge of tweeting updates throughout the team’s matches. One of the biggest mistakes come when he posted about the team’s full-time result, accidentally spelling “Women’s” as “Womans”.
This tweet was important as we knew it would receive a high amount of media attention due to the success of the team’s performance and result. Looking back on the experience, even though I did have a discussion about the issue with Luis afterwards, I wish I could have been more involved with everything he posted throughout the matches, even if this included him sending me a version before it went out live to ensure this problem wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Lastly, one of the biggest growing influences I had on my work came from the players themselves. With all of the content I was producing mostly being about the players, it was important to get their opinions and feedback as I didn’t want to offend anyone, or post anything that they wouldn’t want to be seen online. During this role, I was keen to try and create a positive relationship with the players as I aimed to become a part of the team and gain their trust. You can see how this started to develop through the stadium tour VT that I created with goalkeeper Estelle Randall.
This VT came from Estelle just wanting to get involved and have a go with at filming with our camera equipment. As she starts walking around, asking teammates and staff questions, I knew that we would be able to create a great feature out of this that would also show off the personality of the some of the players. However, the main disappointment I have with this video come again with some of the spelling mistakes throughout. Looking back, I should have made sure that I tripled checked everything as it was Luis that was responsible for writing out the taglines needed for the video.
Utilising new technologies and the sporting environment to help create content
In the world of media, trends and technology constantly changes and improves each and every day. Going into this role I had to make sure that I had access to the best technology and equipment so I could produce as high-quality content as possible. Apart from the VT’s, the biggest change I brought to the club’s social media accounts was the introduction to new and exciting team GIF’s. These GIF’s were designed so they could be used in any situation, with some of these being goal celebrations, matchday previews, team line-ups, full-time results, great saves, and many others.
GIFs
As you can see from these GIF’s, they were cool, stylish and were able to bring the team’s twitter timeline to life during the team’s champions league run. The reason I was so keen to get this GIF’s ready in time for the tournament was because of how well I knew they would work on social media. For example, Bristol City FC are known for their great and hilarious goal celebrating GIF’s, with most of these getting more views than top premiership clubs.
It was this type of community that I was trying to break into as I knew that even if just one of these GIF’s did well online, then it would bring a whole new type of audience to the team, allowing it to grow in popularity. In this modern era, it’s easy to see how social media now allows fans to come together and support different and new team as “cultural differences become meaningless . . . there are no differences in ethnicity, income level, or age . . . we are united in just enjoying the sporting event” (Tuchman, p3, 2009). Overall these GIF’s worked perfectly, with many being shared on pages such as the BBC, Sgorio and the Welsh Women’s Premier League.
Other than the GIF’s that were made pre-tournament, I was also able to produce a lot of content straight from my smartphone. My smartphone allowed me to produce content on the fly and have it up on the team’s social media in pages in seconds. For example, if I quickly wanted to get clips up of the winning goal or highlights from a match that had just finished, I was able to just screen-record the footage from the live-stream and have it up on the team’s social media pages straight away. One of these clips includes the winning goal that was scored in the win against ZNK Pomurje.
With a constant demand for new and entertaining content, sports and social media are now able to control the “production and distribution of content: deciding the what, when and where of audience consumption” (Schultz, Caskey and Esherick, 2010). Even though the clip did really well online and got a lot of media attention, I wish I was able to either credit the broadcaster for allowing us to use the footage, or even put our own branding on so people that watched it on another account such as the BBC would know where the video originally came from. I was also able to edit small videos easily on my phone. One of the best examples of this is an edit I made on the plane home from Slovenia showing the quick reactions and skills from our coach Izzy Taylor.
“Much of the increase in sports and social media is “fuelled by new technology and defined by interactivity, audience fragmentation and empowerment, and instantaneous access” (Schultz, Caskey and Esherick, 2010). This means that being able to create these types of features and using the latest technological advances to create content helps massively in modern sports broadcasting. A lot of content used online from sports matches does just include the goals or highlights of the game. This is a trend that is used broadcasters such as Sky Sports and BT Sport as they often create extra content from matches, as they focus on showing highlights such as ‘the top skills of the month’ and ‘the funniest moment of the season’.
In conclusion, the whole experience of working with Cardiff Met WFC is something I will never forget as I feel improved me not just as a content creator, but as something entering the media industry. Even though I am proud of all my achievements with Cardiff Met Sport TV, I felt that some of my best work came during the tournament and the fact that I was able to give the team the publicity and coverage that they deserved made me very proud to be a part of that team. I was able to form great relationships with players and staff, and when I heard positive feedback from every member thanking me for my contribution to the team, I knew that I had made a good impression and completed my aim in doing my job to the best of my abilities.
References
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Kahle, L. and Close, A. (2011). Consumer behavior knowledge for effective sports and event marketing. New York: Psychology Press, p.p132.
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Kettler, R., Hou, Z., Teague, L. and Opitz, L. (2019). 5 Ways to Connect with Your Audience Emotionally to Drive More Engagement. [online] Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting. Available at: https://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/how-to-connect-with-your-audience-emotionally-to-drive-more-engagement/ [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
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Newman, T. (2017). Social media in sport marketing. London: Routledge, p.16.
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Pekka Aula, (2010),"Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38 Iss: 6 pp. 43 - 49
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Schultz, B., Caskey, P. and Esherick, C. (2010). Media Relations in Sport. New York: Fitness Information Technology.
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Tuchman, R. (2009). The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live: An Insider's Guide to Creating the Sports Experience of a Lifetime. Dallas: BenBella Books, Inc., pp.1-5.