Social Studies: How The USWNT Connects With World Cup Fans

USWNT Content & Social Media Manager Jimena Panduro (@USWNT) may not be a household name like Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe or Carli Lloyd, but that does not mean the team’s fans are not interested in knowing her. Panduro said, “The funniest thing is one time a couple years ago we sent out a tweet for Alex’s birthday and Alex replied and said, 'Thanks, Jim.' A lot of players call me Jim. But from that moment on, people were like, 'Oh my god, who is Jim? We have to meet him.' There are times when people reply, 'Oh, come on, Jim' or 'Jim, you are so funny.' They think Jim is this dude. Some people know I’m behind the tweets and some people don’t and that’s OK.” Despite the occasional attention from fans and being around the most popular women’s team in the world, Panduro does not feel like a rock star. However, she does find her role empowering. She said, “As a woman and doing these things, supporting these women, it’s just amazing. You almost feel so powerful as a woman. The whole team, the whole gender, it’s like this is how powerful we can be.”

Incorporating sponsors in content:
Sponsored and branded content is something that’s increased more and more the last few years. I remember when I started, it was around but not as impactful as it is now. We try to work alongside them to better understand what they are looking for. Sometimes the connection is easy and the content we produce makes sense; it fits well with what we want to do with our brand, with our players. Some things match better than others. Sometimes things may get tricky and we work around it to see how we can connect it with copy or find some other angle. That’s one that we as an organization have been trying to navigate better. We’re good, but we’re not amazing yet.

Giving fans insight away from the pitch:
The team has been very open with who they are. That’s been a social person’s dream. A second aspect is really getting to know them. If I’m not in the office, I’m on the road with them. I know their personalities. We know their inside jokes. A lot of it is stuff I learned over the years. A huge part of social and what makes any team successful is you need to take away the game parts. The athlete, the winning, they are so much more than that. They are amazing. They are just like you and me. When athletes make themselves available, they do so much more for their brand. They become more approachable.

Success impacting social media:
It’s made it easier, that’s for sure. People in social will tell you if the team’s not winning, things can get ugly fast. We can ask my counterpart on the men’s side to see how different things are. Even though they are working just as hard and are doing everything just as much as we are doing, winning and losing is a big difference. It keeps everyone excited, but we have to be as careful as possible to not enter cocky territory. The players still need to fight for every single game they are playing. We haven’t won anything yet. The team four years ago won the World Cup, this team hasn’t yet.

Taking fans along for the ride:
We’ve always said the advantage of what we do is we provide access that no one else will have. That’s how we are one step ahead. There is always something extra that only we get. If we can capture at least 10, 15 seconds of that it makes a big difference. It really brings people in, people that otherwise would never be in a locker room. How are you ever going to be in the U.S. Women’s National Team locker room? How are you going to be on the bus? There are small details that don’t seem like a lot and are truly not that much of a pull for us but are so important for fans. It’s the stuff you want to see. Them warming up you can see on TV. But them singing on the bus, no one is going to get that but us.

How content is different during World Cup:
Very different. We have a lot of limitations during the World Cup. The biggest impact is we don’t have any video rights. The reason that footage is so important is we use it and re-use it all the time and cut it and put hype videos together. Without it here, it’s about how do we get creative. We have to re-use footage. We did a big car wash earlier in the year, so we use a lot of that. It can be challenging, but we’ve been navigating it pretty well. When we scored 13 goals (against Thailand), that got out of hand. So I’m glad we didn’t have full highlights for that.

Who on team is good on social media:
Right now they all have gone dark, but normally Alex is good. Alex knows what she is doing. She is a good one to be good. Rose Lavelle is really funny. She has a bright future on social if she wants it. Emily Sonnett is really fun.