K atie c ouric

Expand Your Content Horizons
Tim Greenberg shares findings his team discovered by analyzing the
content that performed most optimally over the last year. In 2016 alone, the

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World Surf League had 1.4 billion Facebook interactions and video views
and 124 million total video views on a single post, which was the top video
of any sports property last year. Greenberg’s team sheds light on why
certain pieces of content outperform others. Although you can’t predict
virality, he says that you can get pretty close. He knows from experience
that a video of a drone filming a dog and its owner riding a longboard will
do pretty well; it’s almost guaranteed to get good engagement. And the
highest-viewed piece of content that his team created over the last year,
which was actually the number one sports-related piece of content across
the board online, was a video of dolphins surfing waves. This success
brought up a lot of questions for him about what that means for his business
and industry. His company puts on the largest surfing competitions in the
world—and naturally talks a lot about surf contests—but it also tries to
represent surfing as an aspirational lifestyle and extend the content to
people who want to learn how to surf. So he had to ask himself if a video of
dolphins surfing is relevant—is it related to the business?
Over time the answer to that question has become yes. The success of
the video gave his team permission to have a wider conversation with fans.
Surfing is about more than the very narrow spectrum of the competitive
sport. It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And
because it takes place in the ocean, a piece of content related to that visceral
experience is valid to people who want to know about and aspire to surf.
Ultimately, the content did tie in with the brand’s message.
The top ten videos related to sports content in the last year were all of
the same nature. The other nine videos were not pictures of the sport itself,
but they were related. They consisted of half-time shows, or a behind-the-
scenes moment where an athlete gives a hockey puck to a child, or of an
anthem being sung by a marine. “It was all the moments that happen next to
the event, it wasn’t actually the sport that captured people’s attention,”
Greenberg shared.
Examine subjects and moments related to the atmosphere of the world
in which your brand exists. What type of content can you promote that
creates a heartwarming connection or excites viewers about what you do? Is
there a way you can offer them an aspirational or particular lifestyle
experience? Perhaps you’re unaware of how interesting the small moments
in your world are to other people.

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Greenberg’s team did a Facebook live event of creating the world’s
first-ever crowdsourced surfboard. They used the live platform to ask fans
their requested dimensions for the board and had Hayden Cox build it in
real time. This is just one of many fun ideas that the World Surf League has
experimented with. Their team is constantly looking to try new things,
feature products, broadcast sunsets, and so on—essentially, they don’t limit
themselves to talking about contests (their product) and look to create a
whole lifestyle experience related to the World Surf League. They aim to
give fans content that’s fun and interesting.