Episode 75 of the DSMSports Podcast w/ Jeff O'Keefe of Richard Childress Racing

Best Of... Jeff O'Keefe
Episode 75 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast
featured Jeff O'Keefe, Manager of Digital and Social Media
for Richard Childress Racing.
What follows are some snippets from the episode. Listen to
the full podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or at
www.DSMSports.net
@njh287; DSMSports.net

Jeff's Career Path
Grew up in New Jersey and was a racing fan → Studied PR/marketing
in college → Worked internships after graduation and ended up at
Sunshine-Sachs doing media relations in a number of industries,
beginning as a receptionist and working his way up to Assistant to
the President and CEO, working on a number of accounts
“That opportunity allowed me to grow professionally...You got a lot
more to learn (after college). That taught me a lot more about work
ethic. How to get things done, prioritize things, how to
task...Network, network, network. Network so much because it's
95% of what we did, and that's how I got into NASCAR...”

Jeff's work at Sunshine-Sachs included working in PR for Barbara
Streisand and Bette Midler, among other diverse accounts.
“It kept you on your toes and kept you fresh on how to deal with
certain situations and how to pitch different media...It just taught
you how to deal with a client, in certain ways, but also deal with
media...and think five steps ahead of the game.”
5 years ago, Jeff got his start working for a team in the Truck Racing
Series

“I had the idea that I wanted to work for a team. Under an organization
(like RCR), there are many teams that work in the series. Each team
has a media relations rep...[Jeff describes how the team's media
relations role involved PR, but also a lot more close relationships
with the media embedded at every NASCAR event]...
“Re-learning AP Style was a huge benefit, because you're writing three
or four times per week, and now with digital and social media
becoming so big, you're doing it (even) more now.”

How his role fits into RCR's organization
“I came over to RCR to work with a driver in the Xfinity Series and
handle PR, but at the time they didn't anybody solely focused on
digital and social...I took that on, as well...At the end of 2014, roles
shifted around and they realized they needed somebody solely
focused on digital and social...”

On the goals of his role
“It has multiple layers. You want to drive awareness to who your
drivers are [and] increase their popularity. But, in turn, you have
sponsors who are paying millions of dollars to activate with you
and to have their presence be known. So we work with sponsors
and social and digital campaigns. We work with them to tell their
story organically. I can't stand posts and social messaging that says
'Follow so-and-so on Facebook and get a free hat because they do
this,' and it doesn't work.
We've made a conscious effort to integrate our sponsors organically
and to share their messaging organically, to tell a story, and to
explain what they do and how it relates back to RCR and what we
do.”

On improving sponsor activation on social
“It was definitely an evolution...As (Facebook's algorithm changed),
we saw that posts weren't doing as well if it were over-selling...So
over the past year and a half, we made a really conscious effort to
tell our partner story in that organic way and make it really
interesting for the fan...We guarantee [fans] have used something
(these companies) have made. And there's all these different
tentacles based off that sponsorship that we can tap into and they
can tap into with us; so it provides for a really strong, creative
content campaign each year.”

Sponsors activating with racers vs. RCR
“It's both. RCR has sponsorship that [covers] a season with a driver
piloting the car from February through November. Driver business
managers go out and sell personal sponsorships. So there are
certain places on the driver helmet that they can put their personal
sponsors. They can do digital push for personal sponsors...There is
definitely a mix of personal sponsors and RCR sponsors all-
around.”

“The biggest question for sponsorship is how do you monetize social
posts? How much is that worth? We're beginning to work with a
company, MVPIndex, that has figured out an algorithm that shows a
financial value for social media...”
[Jeff mentions their marketing department uses Repucom to value
exposure of logos all over the place]
“I can't wait. To put a value on social and digital kind of gives you a
financial value to how you're doing your job.”

Promoting drivers vs. promoting RCR
“It's two-fold. Awareness drivers, I don't want to say comes easily, just
because of the media and broadcast and PR push behind them. At the end
of the day, the [more] success on the track, the more people know
them...For us, we're a company that has been in the sport for 47 years. So
it's telling that story of Richard Childress and he's literally the American
dream. He bought his first race car for $20...

We're most famous for being the team that Dale Earnhardt had driven
for...so we have a lot of fans left over from that...But we also need to
bring in new fans, who identify with our younger drivers, as well.”
It's capitalizing on the moments that happen on-track, so you can have
those strong moments on social media. [Jeff talks about what
happens after a racing win, getting content out as quickly as
possible]...It's just, in that moment, and how you can just capitalize
on the small wins, as well as the big wins.”

On balancing content and promotion around all drivers on RCR
“Fortunately, there's enough content possibilities each week that we
can put something up for each of the drivers...no matter how they're
doing. Especially through Twitter – how we use our tune-in graphics
to dive tune-in, how we show practice updates and qualifying
updates, snapping a photo of them with their families on the pre-
race grid, etc.”

“I monitor everything I can. My TweetDeck is almost like Rain Man. I
have nine columns...I'll monitor not only their handles, but I'll put
their names as a (key word)...It's amazing what people will say when
they don't tag a driver...I'll definitely call those people out.”
“None of our drivers have specific PR people outside of RCR. They
have business managers [and[ some of them, we'll work on the
social side with them...and some deals they might need help with.
For instance, 'can you help get this logo in the photo?'”

Helpful Tool: Fyuse app, for 360-degree photo creation for any platform (non-
native)

Jeff's race day setup (if he's not at the race)
“I have two computers set up, an iPad, and a television. And that
command setup is – I can listen to in-car audio, I can follow timing and
scoring, and then I have the race broadcast on TV. And sometimes I'll
try to grab GIFs off the online broadcast that I can put out on Twitter, as
well.”
“You can't infringe on the live broadcast. We don't have access to Snappy
TV...All the live broadcast clips are owned by the partner
(NBC)...NASCAR owns all the (content), so if we want clips, we have to
go through NASCAR and pay a licensing fee.”

NASCAR thriving in the digital and social era
“Over the past give or six years (NASCAR) has definitely taken the bull by
the horns and made social and digital a priority. Prior to a few years
ago, they didn't even own their digital rights. Turner owned the rights
to NASCAR.com...So they got everything back in-house and they've
just been killing it, in terms of content generation. On Snapchat, they're
doing stuff nobody else does in sport...Each week, they send out
reports (with) how big their reach is with digital and social and even
the television ratings. Yeah, television ratings are down, but that's (the
case) across the board...But streaming and everything else is way up.
Social conversation, it's crazy.”
“In this year's Daytona 500...it reached over 48 million people (on social
media)...I think we've been averaging on Sprint Cup day(s), definitely in
the millions for sure...”

What a race day is like for Jeff
“It's nuts. You definitely need to have your morning coffee...We'll take
Sprint Cup race day, for example...We'll get there early in the morning,
right around when the garage opens. I usually try to set an establishing
shot, a photo of the race track and it's still really early with the sun
coming up. And then we just kind of go through the day to capture
things that I might find interesting that the fans will like. That goes
from photos to video, whether it's just scene setting. Vine has become
a big push of mine...It's six seconds and you can be so creative...
Putting pop music and rap to NASCARs has been a fun challenge this
year...Utilize the assets we have in the garage. The guys making final
setups of the car. If drivers have any interesting meet and greets with a
celebrity or an athlete, make sure you get a photo of that and tag them
in the photo, so hopefully they engage with it...

Once race time hits, I'm around driver intros, access on the starting
grid where everybody is. Showing photos, maybe using Facebook
Live to do a grid walk with them. Once the green flag waves, we
usually turn to Twitter to give race updates throughout the race. I'll
focus on all three Sprint Cup teams throughout the race. I'll walk pit
road to get photos or videos of the pit stop. And basically become a
news source that pushes out information of what's going, what
they're saying about the car. If something happens and they're in a
wreck, are they ok and is the car reparable and is the car
damaged?...

If we don't win (then), by the time I'm back in the car and we're
heading to the airport, I'll have a post race graphic to show where
we finished and highlight that with a photo of the race itself. And
then go back that evening and look at if there are any cool photos
our photographer shot, I can push out those.”
“Our focus is on Twitter, whether that is the best practice, I'm
questioning that. While it is important- spread the wealth across
the other networks, especially with Facebook and especially with
short clip videos, because a view count is just three seconds...So if
we can put up a video that is just six seconds long and show a few
of those showing where we are in the race positions, that'll boost
our reach and engagement.

We reserve Instagram for pretty decent quality photos. We don't go
over-filter anymore, we don't do HD on Instagram. We might pull
Getty images to put on there [and] high-quality iPhone images that
I'll take at the track, whether it's a pit stop, meet and greets, etc...So
you're spreading the wealth around, but (right now), it's been a
push on Twitter...I'd rather ideal back (race updates) on Twitter and
focus n key moments and better, stronger content.”

Balancing RCR social and driver engagement with NASCAR social
“We might take key learnings and strong answers from (a @NASCAR
Q&A with an RCR Driver) and create a blog out of it for the website,
share it that way...Driving people to other platforms, it depends on
what's going on, whether it's a sponsor...
Even in-race, we're one of the few teams that'll engage with other
teams...Us and Joe Gibbs (Racing) have a pretty good rapport about
throwing shade at each other. Whoever is doing better on-track, it
doesn't necessarily matter, it's about who's landing the better jabs; and
fans eat it up...I know, for a while, a lot of accounts tried to be like the
LA Kings and tried go that route – we've done that in the pat and we've
toned it back. But interacting with other teams is so key to engagement
for fans, because they eat it up.
And when we're doing it, I'm sitting right next to Boris at JGR and we're
laughing at it...”

Becoming embedded into the NASCAR community
[Jeff talks about a Sunshine-Sachs boss drilling home the importance
of networking]
“There is times when I've created content that, if it's a busy race day
and you know it's not going to get that much traction through
influential accounts in the Media Center...I've literally stood in the
back of the Media Center and emailed every single person in the
media, based on where they sit. Just [asking] can you share this
tweet, can you share this video? Because they're not looking out for
it..so if you just point it out, your piece of content can get that much
more eyes on it.”

Balancing the RCR brand and the changing roster of RCR drivers
“I think a lot of fans are attached to their favorite drivers. So that's a
good thing and a bad thing. So if you have changeover, you may be
losing a driver who has a huge fan base. You may not necessarily
lose a ton of fans, but just think about the amount of fans that you'll
gain with another driver coming in if they're already established and
have been in the sport a while...

“Then if you have a young driver you get the awesome challenge of
establishing their brand and trying to get them known to all the fans
out there. That's one of the coolest challenges anybody can have,
no matter what sport they work in. So the transition period is pretty
cool. A lot of the news happens fairly early in our sport...A lot of the
team switches or sponsor switches happen fairly early, so there's
enough time where fans know what's going on and by the time we
get to Daytona, they're psyched about the new season, what's to
come...”

Share-able Stat: 6.5M viewers watched the MTV Video Music Awards
on TV vs. 16M viewers on Snapchat

Jeff's most memorable experience from his days at Sunshine-Sachs
“There are a few memories, mostly specifically around events. We
hsndled the media for Michael Jackson's funeral. And that whole
process and time frame was just something you could never forget in
your career, and how that week unfolded and what we had to do in
such short time and the staff we had was just crazy...
“I would say that, moments where handling PR for a vice presidential
speech, through Reverend Al Sharpton, of all people. Rev is a pretty
cool guy, not gonna lie. And traveling to London with Bette Midler on
her media tour and just getting to know her people and her...She's just
a legend and she's pretty cool.”

One thing Jeff would change about NASCAR if he were CEO for the
day
“I would make cup races shorter. I would cut them down a little bit [in
length]...”

The most memorable social media post of Jeff's time at RCR
“There have been campaigns and things that we've done have been
really cool. Like bringing back the #3 for the Sprint Cup series,
planning that...The one that shocked me, using humor, was – after
the Cup race in Charlotte in 2014, Matt Kenseth and Brad
Keselowski ended up getting into it after the race...pushing and
shoving, kind of like getting in a fight...

I wasn't even at the track...I had just left to get in the car, because we
didn't win...I see this all unfold as I'm driving home and it blew up
very quick...and all I did from the RCR Account was just put out the
Ron Burgundy meme, where it was his sitting at his desk sitting
with his scotch [saying] 'Welll, that escalated quickly...
By the next day, that single tweet got over 400-500 retweets and just
blew up...We had nothing to do with the on-track thing, but Ron
Burgundy? That's when you put down the mental note, 'noted.' That
was a particularly memorable one just because it was something
that I just threw out there, because I thought it was funny...
You learn very quickly what works and what doesn't.”

The RCR drive that does the best job on social media and why
“Austin Dillion. He gets it, he's young. He is exciting, he likes it, he'll
engage. He focuses a lot on Instagram, and he's really become a fan of
Facebook Live over the past couple of months. Especially when we
showed him the numbers associated with it. It almost becomes a
competition to see if he can outdo his previous one...He did it for
NASCAR at Daytona, back in February. He was the first Facebook Live
that NASCAR did. They promoted it heavily, then Facebook Sports
promoted it heavily...It was one of the top five Facebook Live broadcasts
ever, within sports.
Austin is pretty cool. He gets it, he understands it. He'll integrate sponsor
messaging. He's one of my go-to's that I know I can get solid stuff out
of.”

The non-RCR driver that does the best job on social and why
Dale Earnhardt Jr., specifically for Twitter → He is so engaging with
fans. For somebody who has resisted social media for years and
just jumped on it a few years ago...He has embraced it like nobody's
business. He'll hold Q&A's on the flight home from the track. He's a
night owl, so he'll hold Q&A's late at night, 3am. He'll chat with fans,
he'll respond. He does tune-in graphics...where it's a throwback
photo from that race, something he thinks is cool...He really has
embraced Twitter in such a cool way.”

Somebody who understands social hands-down is Jimmie Johnson.
Him and his team, all-around, do an amazing job on social media.
For a while, he got labeled kind of bland. People didn't like him
because he was so corporate and sponsored. But then he jumped
on Twitter and the stuff he puts on Twitter is really cool. It's raw, you
know it's him. He'll go at his haters...Sometimes it'll get him in
trouble. I believe he might have put the middle finger emoji
sometimes...But his team...what they do on Facebook and
Instagram is just a solid, solid presence that is probably one of my
top athletes to follow.”

Which speedway is Jeff's favorite on the NASCAR circuit and why?
We'll go with Bristol, because that's the first track my dad and I went
to see a Cup race. We've been going to Bristol together for 17 years,
so there's a lot of sentimental value. What I love about that track is
just because I get to spend time with my dad and that's how we
bonded growing up...
Obviously, another go-to is Talladega. Just because it is wild, the fans
are crazy, they're awesome. You see a lot of stuff you never thought
you'd see in your life. It's like a frat party on steroids. But the on-
track competition is some of the most nerve-wracking and
competitive you'll see all year.”

The biggest lesson Jeff learned managing the digital strategy and brand
for driver Ryan Truex
“I would say with Ryan, it was working with a driver who had a lot of
promise...He was running a limited schedule when I worked with him.
Unfortunately, funding is a huge part of what we do for drivers. And if
you don't have a sponsor, you may be the best driver in the world, but
you may not race. And that sucks.
But, working with him, we ran a limited schedule, with a top team. And
keep him relevant, even the weekends he wasn't racing; almost
becoming a brand manager for him, that was probably a big life lesson
in how to keep someone relevant. We finished second in Dover in June
2012 and the next weekend he wasn't scheduled to race...so it was,
'What do we do now? And we did some social stuff and kept the ball
rolling a little bit...”

The best food to get in Charlotte, NC
“Everybody's go-to answer is BBQ, you have to go to BBQ. We have amazing
places here in Welcome, North Carolina. There's one called Southern
Lunch. It is literally what you might picture a mom and pop kitchen lunch
place would be. You walk in at noon and you see probably nine peoples'
grandparents sitting there having lunch. Very, very cliched southern in the
charming-type way.
There's a restaurant in Davidson, NC that is actually rated one of the top
restaurants in the United States. It's called Kindred. It is a shareable where
you and your date will go and the meals are broken where two people can
share them and the food is just so good.”

The RCR driver who everyone will know by 2017
“I've got to go with Austin Dillon. The kid has a really strong brand
presence right now, a lot of fans know him. He's won two
championship in the sport already and, if all goes well and he
makes the Chase, he could potentially be the first driver to win
championships in all three series. I think having a strong season
this year, he will become that much more popular in 2017. And, if I
have anything do with it, so will his social media following.”

Jeff's Social Media All-Star to Follow
“I'm going to say to have the #SMSports hash tag. That hash tag is so
valuable. It's like social media class every day. You meet people,
that's how you and I got connected. That's where you meet people
like Chris Yandle, Jessica Smith is from Under Armour, Karen
Freberg...You just learn so much and you gain so much knowledge
on the hash tag, so I'm actually going to go with the hash tag and
not an account.”

Where to find Jeff and Richard Childress Racing on digital/social
Jeff is @JeffOKeefe on Twitter
RCR is @RCRRacing on all social media platforms

Thanks so much to Jeff for sharing his time, knowledge,
experience, and expertise with the Digital and Social Media
Sports podcast!
Listen to the podcast and find more episodes and content on
iTunes and at www.DSMSports.net.
You can also follow me on Twitter @njh287

Episode 75 of the DSMSports Podcast w/ Jeff O'Keefe of Richard Childress Racing

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (8)

More from Neil Horowitz

More from Neil Horowitz (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Episode 75 of the DSMSports Podcast w/ Jeff O'Keefe of Richard Childress Racing