Name: Eric Stark
Job: Co-Founder
Company: Slate
LinkedIn: Eric Stark
In 140 characters or less, tell us who you are and how you got to where you are today.
Co-founder of Slate. Saw a pain point in my 8+ years in digital & social at the NFL. Joined up with a team of badasses to create a solution.
What’s one trend in media or marketing that you’re buying or selling?
I’m very much buying that real-time, exclusive access, iPhone-captured content will continue to be more valuable than ever to audiences and sponsors. In many instances, this content is both a brand’s strongest content marketing asset and its cheapest to produce and distribute.
To add to that, I also buy that the stories format is something more media companies will (and should) embrace for their O&O mobile apps. It’s the way folks prefer to consume video on mobile now, and it’s as valuable as ever to own an audience on your platform. So give us what we want on your app too, not just on your IG!
How do you define engagement?
When you enjoy something enough to tell your friends, family, and colleagues they need to check it out.
Then, when they affirm how good it was, you feel that ridiculous tinge of self-satisfaction and personal accomplishment almost like it was you who created the thing in the first place.
What’s a lesson in audience (fan) engagement that every marketer should learn?
From a digital perspective, there’s value in engaging audiences (large and small) across many platforms and many touchpoints in different ways. Going all-in on the one that is giving you the biggest reach / views at the time exposes you in the future.
What’s the project or campaign that you’re proudest of? Why?
I am most proud of the work we’ve done to take Slate from just an idea less than a year ago, to a company and platform helping many of the biggest brands in sports meet their business goals on social media daily.
But beyond how we help them achieve their goals, seeing how our tool makes the actual day-to-day content programming lives of my #smsports colleagues easier and more fun is incredibly rewarding to me.
What are you working on right now? Any exciting future plans that you’re able to share?
From a product side, we’re really excited about the laundry list of new features we are building at Slate that will make it even easier for customers to create branded content on the fly, both from mobile and web.
On the customer side, one innovative sports league, in particular, has some exciting plans to leverage Slate upon its return to action both on its own brand accounts and across its players.
What are you reading, listening to, and/or watching right now?
Right now, right this second, I am listening to the “Focus Flow” playlist on Spotify. I highly recommend it while working, especially if you’re WFH, and finding it hard to focus.
My heavy podcast rotation consists of: The Daily, Up First, How I Built This, Bill Simmons, and The Ringer NBA Show.
I am currently reading Flash Boys by Michael Lewis, I just finished The Last Dance, like everyone in America and I’m contemplating diving in and rewatching The Wire…
As a connected fan, who’s your favorite athlete to follow on social media?
LeBron, on Tuesdays.
What’s a piece of advice you received that you’re glad you ignored?
Don’t quit your good job to help start a company.
What’s one element of the sports industry that you’d like to see change?
I’d like to see higher salaries for junior and mid-level employees at clubs, especially in social and digital. There’s a culture of “you’re just lucky to be working here, anyone would kill for your job” and coordinators, even many managers, have salaries that are really disproportionate to the value these folks are providing not only the teams themselves but the leagues as a whole.
Beyond the individuals, less talk and more real investment in social and digital.
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