Eagles’ all-sports agreement helps student-athletes build social media brand
After a season of success that saw Eagles student-athletes reach an audience of more almost 300,000 people on social media, Georgia Southern University and INFLCR are extending their athletic department-wide partnership.
“It is important for us to tell the Georgia Southern story through our departmental social channels. Through INFLCR, our athletes are able to tell their own stories on their personal accounts through provided content and we are excited to be able to continue to help them grow their personal brands,” said Megan Leben, Georgia Southern’s Director of Social Media and Engagement.
Student-athletes, coaches, and staff from all of the Eagles’ NCAA varsity teams access to photos, videos and graphics created by Georgia Southern Athletics and delivered through the INFLCR platform and mobile app, to share on their personal social media channels.
During the first season with INFLCR, Eagles student-athletes logged more than 18,000 sessions in the INFLCR app to view more than 20,000 photos and videos uploaded by the Georgia Southern Athletics staff. Using technology such as Artificial Intelligence-powered tagging, the content was delivered in personalized galleries for each athlete, coach and other brand ambassadors.
During the season, 296 active athletes downloaded and shared more than 9,000 of those content items to reach their collective social audience of more than 300,000 followers.
Georgia Southern was INFLCR’s first department-wide partner from the Sun Belt Conference; the company now serves more than 100 NCAA clients including representatives from every NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision conference and has more than 22,000 athletes who use the platform daily.
“We are excited to continue our relationship with Georgia Southern and to see all the Eagles continue to grow their personal brands and the GATA brand through their social-media storytelling in these historic times,” INFLCR founder and CEO Jim Cavale said.
“We talk a lot about being ready for the moment, and Georgia Southern is proving that by providing their student-athletes with the content to tell their stories as they make those moments. This real-time storytelling capability helps them grow their brands, and helps Georgia Southern grow its brand as well.”
A great example of the brand-building strategy was Eagles senior cornerback Kindle Vildor. An All-Sun Belt Conference selection who was drafted by the Chicago Bears, Vildor used the content provided by GSU to grow his Instagram following 137 percent during his final year with the Eagles.
“This audience is something Kindle can leverage in his pro career,” Cavale said. “He did a great job on his social media to grow that audience, and Georgia Southern helped him do so by providing great content that he could use to tell his story.
“In the future, when student-athletes will be able to make money on their Name, Image and Likeness, growing an audience through organic storytelling will be the key to creating sponsorship value. But right now, even before the rules change, this should become a recruiting story for Georgia Southern. They are investing in and helping their student-athletes grow a personal brand they can use to generate NIL value for the rest of their lives no matter how the rules ultimately change.”
How It Works
INFLCR’s platform helps clients like Georgia Southern send internal media and national photography content to personalized galleries for each of their athletes, coaches and other brand ambassadors.
Those athletes and brand ambassadors are able to access their content galleries through the INFLCR mobile app, and can then share the content to their personal social media accounts.
After the fact, Georgia Southern is able to measure the increased audience engagement coming from the much-larger collective audience of those athletes and brand ambassadors.
Georgia Southern plans to use this approach to bolster their online presence in a way that impacts event attendance, recruiting, fundraising, and other strategic goals.
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