Written by Taylor Middleton
Graduate Assistant, Dr. Richard Lapchick and The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports
I am a proud graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where I also competed as a track and field athlete. During my time on campus I gained not only an interest in sports marketing but I landed a first-class mentor. After working with Markeisha Everett, Assistant Athletic Director of Marketing during my senior year. My mentor helped me understand how my interests could turn into a career which brought me to a recent opportunity with The Winning Edge Leadership Academy and their partnership with Facebook. As a current graduate assistant with Dr. Richard Lapchick in the DeVos Sports Business Management program I have learned a lot but I am always looking for more experience to further my knowledge in marketing. Thankfully through Facebook's Black Creative Network, I had the opportunity to polish my skills in marketing and explore the business of social media.
After learning about the program from my mentor and having a conversation with Corinne, I started working on a project with Erin Kane of The Clarion Agency and their client, Arike Ogunbowale, a guard for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings. My objective for the project was to advise on content ideas and share how Arike could leverage Facebook and Instagram to increase her engagement.
Coming out of the first few meetings with The Clarion Agency and the team at Facebook, I performed an audit of Arike’s social media that identified opportunities to grow her audience. Using data from the audit, I developed and shared a social strategy that highlighted Arike’s personality and showcased her interests on Faceboom and Instagram.
Throughout the project, I was nervous because I knew I had a lot of great ideas but I did not know where to start. As a student-athlete competing and training at the collegiate level, I didn’t get the opportunity to participate in many internships. I knew this would be my first test to show my ability. I was not feeling the first draft of my audit. I felt it was not up to par and it was too bland. After a lot of trial and error and working with my network to find additional resources I delivered an audit I thought was worth presenting to the group. I got great feedback from Arike and The Clarion Agency followed by the green light to continue the project.
That green light, meant it was time to actually put together a strategy. Social media is a fast paced platform with trends changing all the time. To get a better understanding of the full capabilities with Facebook and Instagram I met with Nick Marquez, Lead of North American Sports Team Partnerships at Facebook sports. We discussed the different ways I could suggest consistent execution of content on Arike’s platforms to meet her goals.
At the end of the project, I delivered social content calendars for the two different platforms. It was a lot of hard work and I spent many nights making sure everything was in order because I really wanted to show I was capable of providing Arike what she wanted.
Overall, this experience was amazing! It taught me the value of the work I want to do and want to continue doing in sports business. What has been even better is watching Arike’s account grow since I provided my deliverables. Her Instagram started at 109K at the beginning of May and is now sitting at 114K and counting. I am very appreciative of The Winning Edge and Facebook for giving me this opportunity. I learned throughout this experience to always find a way to do something better, never settle, and always push yourself past a surface level of work.
