2024 Social Media Strategy- Increase Instagram Engagement

Before the Manychat experiment, I made a goal to get 1,000 followers on Instagram before the end of the season. That was a goal we reached and even exceed.

As for how did I get them? That was something I had to get my head around, and honestly I struggled with it. After talking to a few other content creators, it is clear most people won’t follow an account unless they’re prompted to. Which really means you have to go find followers. That means sifting through the ‘likes’ on the team’s posts and following every account that falls into your target audience. Some of those will follow you back. Some will leave you on read. Some will be bots, spammers, and scammers. This was time consuming for me, and usually meant an hour a day of just digging through accounts, sending them a follow, and most importantly trying to remember which ones you already sent a follow request that they rejected.

2024 Social Media Strategy- Increase Social Media click-through

Going into 2023 our main social media platforms were Facebook and Twitter/X, with some dabbling on Instagram. The enabling goal here was to leverage social media to drive people to our website for written articles and by extension get them hooked on the show (whether they watch live or recorded).

The goal was to have daily, eye-catching content that increased our social media followers, and by just numbers get more people to read our written work and convert them into live-show viewers. After some coaching from my niece, I landed on three main tasks

2024 Social Media Strategy- Increase Fan-Base Awareness

In this article we’ll talk about my approach to increase just general awareness of the show in the team’s fan base.

Unfortunately, ‘awareness’ isn’t a metric I could measure directly. That would require a lot more polling of the fan base over the course of the season, and we neither have the bandwidth nor the budget to take that on. But, as I’ve learned at work, use the metrics you have to tell the story you can tell. If the Terminal Goal was to increase the show audience, then “more awareness” would mean more people would tune into the show. Right? Please tell me I’m right. I admit we’re making a few assumptions here, and they will probably be my downfall.

2024 Social Media Strategy- Goals and Outcomes

2024 Social Media Strategy- Goals and Outcomes

It’s only January 1st and we’re already talking about how Orange & Black Soccercast will continue to be the first and only show dedicated to Orange County Soccer Club in 2025.

That’s right fans, it’s Producer Andy and it’s Wednesday. If you haven’t figured it out already, not only do I do all the background work for the live show, I also run most of the shows social media. Going into 2024, I made specific goals for the show and our social media presence, so as we start planning for 2025 I will layout some of what we planned for 2024, how we approached those plans, and how it worked in the end.

Does a Young USL Championship Roster Help Teams Succeed?

Does a Young USL Championship Roster Help Teams Succeed?

In the USL Championship there is a clear distinction between teams who develop youth players for bigger stages and those who don’t. Some teams talk a big game and back it up while others focus on different player-development goals. While Orange & Black Soccercast focuses on Orange County SC, and yes there will be some conscious bias here, we do like to talk about the broader USL Championship landscape from time to time. I even asked smart-kid John Morrissey to weigh in. Here we’ll talk about some assumptions of USL Championship roster-age and how much each team focused on young player development – and how that impacted on-field success