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Social Studies: Whistle Sports VP Joe Caporoso On Relatable Content, Growth

Whistle Sports is a little over four years old now, and the video-producing outfit has found a niche focusing on entertainment, sports culture and humor for a targeted audience of millenials in the 13-34-year-old range. Whistle Sports VP/Social Media Joe Caporoso (@WhistleSports) was one of the digital media company’s first eight or nine employees and said the first few years, “It’s been crazy watching us grow." Among the initiatives taking place for Whistle Sports is the rollout of three new shows on digital platforms. Caporoso said, "One of the things we’ve tried to avoid doing over the past few years is put ourselves into a box and limit what we can do as a company. We can do a little bit of everything, and that’s something our leadership has preached to us."

SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follow: @FamousLos32, has a different type of humor, but funny and completely in touch with everything in the NBA.
Favorite app: Twitter. It’s where I get all my news.
Average time per day on social media: 10 to 12 hours.

Philosophy for Whistle on social media:
Make sure we stay in front of the best ways to distribute video content on social platforms and continue to remain family safe and brand safe. A place where you are not going to see alcohol advertising or anything that would be viewed as explicit content, while also finding a way to be funny and entertaining.

Determining what content is acceptable:
We have pretty consistent brand standards that we’ve maintained over the years. We don’t want anything with curse words in it, people consuming alcohol or noticeably intoxicated.

Finding inspiration:
We’re at our best when we are posting content that is really accessible and participatory -- backyard sports, trick shots, different memes. Anybody can be a digital creator and shoot their own content from their own phone or camera and get featured on a place like Whistle Sports.

Engaging with fans:
It’s being really consistent. We have a great team who lives 24/7 on the social platforms and is very responsive to videos people send and constantly posting a high-volume number of videos every day. It’s also framing the copy around our videos to encourage people to comment, share and engage. We always try to include a call to action when we put something out in the world. We’re not having a one-way conversation with our audience.

Relatability:
If you see somebody at a high school run up behind someone and put up with a little basketball hoop and film them doing a dunk cam or see somebody doing a water bottle flip on a skateboard, you are like, “My friends have done that, I can do that. Let’s go make a video.” Whereas if you see a straightforward video of LeBron dunking, that’s great and people love watching that, but you can’t necessarily do that yourself.

Platforms with most success:
We've had a lot of success particularly on Facebook and Instagram in the past year or two. Short-form video fits well for us and it resonates with our audience. We are seeing very good organic growth and organic response on those platforms. It’s an audience that has come to expect us posting a high volume of content and they check back every day.

Working with brands:
That’s a huge part of our business, if not the biggest part. We are lucky that we have such a big and growing sales team that has been able to develop relationships with brands like Nike, Under Armour, Gatorade -- the biggest sports brands out there who are looking to speak to younger sports fans in an authentic way on social media, which can be challenging. It’s a different style of marketing. How do you post videos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and not seem like you are repackaging a TV commercial? How do you actually do a campaign that feels natural and organic to the platform? They can work with us and get connected with the right influencers, the right platforms and be authentic when they are talking about these products.

Growth plans:
We’re trying to play in as many spaces as we possibly can and work with as many platforms as we possibly can. A couple years ago Verizon go90 wasn’t a thing, but now we are on season two of “Dunk League.” Facebook Watch wasn’t a thing a year or two ago, and now we’re in the process of making “Next Trick Shot Superstar” hosted by Chad Johnson. That’s the third show we’ve made for them.


If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com

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