Monday 25 August 2014

The Thing About Football - AFL Digital with Anne


If there is someone I have job envy for it is Anne. Those who know me know I love my AFL and Anne has a pretty good job!  She is lucky enough to be one of the faces behind all the social media content from the AFL. She explains below some of the tasks involved in being Social Media Coordinator and Video Producer.  On the side Anne has a great lifestyle and fashion blog which you can check out here: www.whatyouwantblog.com
Michelle




 by Anne Fedorowytsch

I’m happy to say I’m one of those annoying people who love their job. I began my role as Social Media Coordinator at the Australian Football League (AFL) midway through 2013. I was brought on as a casual for the second half of the season to take some of the load off the other two team-members.
Unfortunately my time at the AFL came to an end on the final siren of Grand Final day. However, I was fortunate enough to be offered my role back at the start of this season with an increase in hours, which was brilliant.
It’s been all systems go since the beginning of round one. For the first time this year I’ve taken on the task of covering games. This sees me in the office all weekend and in charge of our social accounts on a Friday night and all day Sunday. On Saturdays I have a separate role of Video Producer where I select and produce the individual and match highlights for three out of five games.
Working on game days, while full on, is a lot of fun. Since early this season we’ve been using SnappyTV, which allows us to cut highlight videos on the spot and share them on Twitter and Facebook literally within minutes, sometimes seconds, of a highlight happening. We are, however, restricted by the broadcast right agreements and only share a maximum of eight videos per game in line with what the Video Producer is cutting for AFL.com.au. Snappy has been fantastic for our engagement and the fans have really embraced it.

What I love about covering games is creating the content for the moments that matter, the blockbuster games, the nail-biters and everything in between. It’s that feeling of satisfaction knowing that people are retweeting and favouriting ‘my’ tweets, liking and sharing the Facebook posts I write, looking at the photos I’ve put on Instagram, and watching the Snappy videos I’ve cut.
It’s an exhilarating experience and certainly keeps me on my toes right through from when I start to when the day of football is over.
Besides the weekend I’m also in the office every Monday and I work from home Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Social media never switches off and there’s always plenty of content from the website to share right through until 10pm.
Right now we’re in the midst of gearing up for the #AFLFinals. From a social point of view we’re hoping to be bigger and better than ever before. I am a mad footy fan myself, so I can’t wait to be involved in all the September action.
Beyond the close of this season I’m fortunate enough to be sticking around for the trade and draft period. I missed out on this piece of the pie last year so am really looking forward to seeing how our strategies change once the season is finished.
Until then it’s all systems go for September. Bring it on!