A Conversation with Kelsey Sweet: TikTok Strategy, Experimentation, & Collaboration
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This is the 17th post in the “A Conversation With” series, where I interview smart humans about their experiences in marketing and social media. You can read past features here.
This month, I interviewed Kelsey Sweet, Social Media Strategist for the Buffalo Bills, whose work focuses on influencer marketing, TikTok strategy, and cause marketing. In this blog post, we dive into wacky TikToks, analytics, mental health, and more.
Tell me about your career path and how you ended up in your role at the Buffalo Bills.
I’m from Buffalo originally; I graduated from Nazareth University in 2015 with a degree in Communications & Media. While at Naz, I interned with Athletics my junior and senior year, and interned with the Buffalo Bisons in between. After college, I moved to Arkansas and worked in minor league baseball as a Special Events Coordinator. A year later, I moved back to Buffalo and worked for the Bisons for two years as their Social Media & Sponsorships Coordinator. In 2017, I joined Pegula Sports & Entertainment as a Social Media Editor, working across the Bills, Sabres, and Bandits, as well as with outside clients. This fall, I moved to the Bills full-time as the Social Media Strategist.
What does an average workday look like?
It’s different every day. Now that I’m just on the Bills side, there’s more structure. We play on Sunday and Wednesday is our media day. I’m in the office every day; our offices are attached to the fieldhouse and practice fields. We have standing weekly meetings for TikTok brainstorming and long-term content planning. Whatever is going on on the football side dictates what the week looks like, particularly whether we win or lose.
We’re in planning and strategy mode during the off season. We can pick our heads up from out of the weeds and get a 10,000 foot view. We plan for the draft, develop assets, and have things like mini camp and training camp, then pre-season. It’s always pretty busy, but it’s a good kind of busy.
The Buffalo Bills have a pretty unhinged approach on TikTok. How did that strategy come about? Did you go all-in on that from the start or was it gradual?
When I started our TikTok, the biggest part was helping leadership understand what the platform was: it’s all about engaging the next generation of fans. Whether they love the Bills, Josh Allen, football, or not even football! It may just be starting to foster a love of football in general.
From the jump it was really important to not be mom and dad showing up to the party. It wasn’t realistic for us as a brand to just be doing dances. Our players aren’t going to learn 3 different TikTok dances per week.
We approached it differently than other brands did. Some things we posted won’t make sense, and that’s okay–TikTok is such a different platform than the others we’re on. Our TikTok content doesn’t get posted everywhere else. We try to stand out by design, in a good way. We want to be different from other NFL teams. The move toward this wacky approach has been gradual though, not insane from the start.
What advice do you have for getting leadership buy-in for newer platforms like TikTok?
Start with your organizational goals, first and foremost. There has to be an A-B correlation of who you’re targeting and why you need to be on that platform. For us, we’re targeting 12-24 year olds, and they’re on TikTok.
If it’s something that hasn’t been done before in your social strategy, that could be a new opportunity for your organization. TikTok doesn’t make sense for everyone, though. You have to create content specifically for it and be consistent. You can’t do it just to do it.
One of my favorite wacky Bills TikToks is the ‘organic footballs’ one–tell me how that came about.
This idea had been coming up in our weekly TikTok brainstorming meetings for months. My coworker James is from a rural area outside of Buffalo and enlisted his neighbor, who’s actually a farmer, to be in the video. That’s a really good example of a crazy video that actually translated well to other platforms.
What has your team learned about TikTok since joining in 2019?
Taking risks is one of the biggest things we’ve learned. There’s a fine line we toe; sometimes because of how we’ve built our TikTok, we can be a little more out there. Our team has done a good job of learning what the line is and not crossing it. TikTok’s algorithm doesn’t hurt you if something doesn’t do well. It’s truly a platform where you can throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. If it doesn’t hit a million views, that’s okay.
What helps a video gain traction on TikTok?
Knowing your audience is important and has been really helpful. Our content always ties back to our goals. Most of our videos always have a payoff at the end, and it helps to pair it with a caption that doesn’t give away exactly what the content is. Also, using TikTok’s features to add text and closed captioning helps videos perform better.
What advice would you give to someone just getting started on TikTok?
It can be daunting when you’re first starting on a platform, especially TikTok! Everyone’s algorithm is different. Whether you’re a small business or a big corporation, tying everything back to your goals will help you narrow in on what type of content to create.
Set manageable goals. Try to post 3 times a week when you’re just getting started. For example, when we were just getting started, we tried narrowing in on trends with particular players, repurposing mic’d up for TikTok, and then one other piece of content per week.
How do you generate content ideas?
We have a weekly brainstorm. Sometimes players bring ideas to us, or our PR team, and even our IT department! There’s tons of collaboration. It’s cool when players have ideas. We love building relationships with them so we can understand what they’re into and what they’re down for.
What’s a post you’ve created that you’re really proud of?
Our team creates so much cool stuff! More broadly, our team has a great balance between silly stuff and repurposing other things coming down the pipeline for TikTok.
I also oversee our cause marketing content strategy, so now that I’m full-time with the Bills, I’m excited to dive deeper into that. November is Native American Heritage Month, and my friend who is indigenous and a chef is going to be our guest chef on 11/19, making food from her culture. She’ll come in before the game to prep, we’ll interview her and get B-roll of her prepping, then put out a feature after the game about what her heritage means to her. Creating content that has meaningful ties to the community is really special, and I love that it’s part of my role with the Bills.
What’s a post that flopped, but you learned something from it?
We meet with our analytics team bi-weekly and review the top and bottom stuff. When something’s not performing well, we examine why that is and if it’s something we can control and change. For example, a press conference might not perform well on YouTube, but those are part of the workflow and they all get posted.
Our Bills By the Numbers video podcast gets posted in full on our YouTube each week, and it crushes! When we share straight up clips from the segment on Twitter and Instagram stories though, they don’t perform well. Now we’re looking at it critically and revamping how we’re promoting it so it’s more engaging and views will continue to rise on YouTube as well.
What misconceptions do folks have about running social media for an NFL team?
People think it’s a cool job–and it is, I love what I do! But you also sacrifice a lot. It’s great for me right now and works for my lifestyle. It’s not all glamorous and flashy, though. Sometimes you’re grinding at the office until 7pm, sometimes you miss stuff with your family or friends.
How do you demonstrate the impact of your work?
We have our bi-weekly analytics meeting, and the League also sends weekly recaps for social media specifically. The drill TikTok we made was actually the most-interacted with club post across all social platforms in the NFL. It’s so funny to me that it was that successful because it was quickly thought of and created on a whim. I loved it! Something so silly is just relatable and engaging enough to really take off. When something like that is highlighted by the League, it gets sent around internally to leadership.
In the Media & Content department and on our social team, we look at TikTok month over month and see how we compare to other teams in the League. We review video volume, views, etc., and report back to our associate producers on what did really well. We’re in constant communication about the numbers.
How do you take care of your mental health and avoid burnout?
It can be tough, but you both have to communicate your goals and when you’re feeling burnt out, but also be a team player. I try to communicate my needs and ask for a work from home day when I need a mental reset. Setting boundaries can be hard and scary, but it’s worth it. Managers are people too!
Where can people find you/your work?
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