Pulse
Sports Marketing SGG MEDIA
SGG Media: attract customers via live streaming influencers
Boasting over 2,500 influencers and 67.5 million followers, SGG Media has become a powerhouse social media sports marketing company. Sitting down with G3, Troy Paul, Co-Founder and CEO, explains how this network drives engagement for clients, the significant potential for direct to platform live streaming and why iGaming is the next avenue for expansion.
Troy, you co-founded SGG Media in 2020. What hurdles did you face when launching the company, and how have you overcome them?
Every hurdle that a startup goes through in the beginning - finding our identity. I grew up a huge sports fan and sports gambler. I saw that in the last couple of years the way I was consuming sports information was shifting from going to ESPN and reading articles online to exclusively social media. I was finding out team news, trades and rumours through Twitter and my favourite Instagram creators. It fascinated me.
With the legalisation of sports betting in the US, I thought there was a media play to be had with influencers and content creators in this changing landscape. To tap into this SGG began to sign up what's called 'micro influencers'. Te industry standard term for a micro influencer is an account that has roughly between 5,000 and 100,000 followers.
Tis isn't the ex-athlete or the Jake Paul's of the world. Tis is your everyday sports fan who grew up in New York, unless it was a massive New York Knicks fan. Tey created a Twitter and Instagram account where they would exclusively post Knicks content, whether it's trades, news, rumours, lines, memes, all things Knicks all the time. Tis account built up a following of roughly 20,000 to 30 ,000 followers that were highly targeted in New York and basketball.
Te struggle this account had was that they're still a small fish in a large pond. If they were going to major media companies and operators trying to pitch advertising or to create content for them, it's difficult for the operator to sign them on just because they don't move the needle enough.
Even though they have a great audience, they're just not quite at that level to be worth the time.
accounts we deem best. If it's a post about Boston Celtics who are in the finals right now, we can run that post with only Boston Celtics accounts. We can have creative control over that content which has really helped optimise our campaigns, as well as ensure quality compliance and make sure we're doing everything the right way.
Troy Paul Co-Founder & CEO SGG Media
Now, there are thousands of these accounts on social media. SGG's goal was to create an environment where these small accounts came together under one umbrella and make some waves. Tat's what we started to do.
We started to sign these micro influencer accounts. In the early days, it was one or two or five at a time. Over time, we continued to grow and eventually hit a few hundred. Today we represent a few thousand.
How did SGG Media manage and leverage such a big network to drive engagement and growth for your clients? What strategies have you found to be particularly successful?
Trough a lot of pain at the start. Working with two influencers can be a lot, let alone 2,000. Tere was a lot of trial and error involved with optimisation, especially when you're working at such scale. We found major breakthroughs when we started to work with some third-party partners in AI to optimise our campaigns.
We're at a point now - and this took many years and a lot of mistakes - where when we run a campaign that goes into a third-party vendor, designs a tweet for instance, and put in the language, the compliance language and the graphic itself. Ten we can click a button and it can be distributed to whichever subset of
Te way people consume media has drastically changed in recent years. How has SGG Media adapted to these changes, particularly with younger generations cutting the cable cord and shifting to social media platforms for their entertainment?
It's interesting to see. I'm 26 now so I guess I'm getting a little older, but if you even look at people my age, we're watching our favourite sports games with multiple screens going at once. We have the game on the TV. We're probably streaming it and not using cable. Ten we have our phones out and we're on Twitter and Instagram the whole time to see what news is coming out during the game.
It's such an evolving landscape. And you're correct, even since 2020 the game has changed. Te most exciting arena that we've been diving into in the last 18 months has been the idea of live streaming and that anyone can be a live host. Anyone can commentate on a game, a moment or on some news.
You don't have to be a well-trained media personality. You can just be a content creator with a platform and go live directly to your followers on Instagram.
Tat's exciting. It changes how live streaming content can be delivered. It also changes where major leagues or media outlets can stream their content. It doesn't have to be through a production studio on television. It doesn't even have to be through an OTT network on a major website. You can run live streaming distribution
NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA P157
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