Visual and audio media are the most important part of any social media account, with people’s lessened attention spans in the current day, and eye catching visual is one of the best ways to make somebody want to look at your post. Today I want to look at one brand that I feel has done this very well the San Francisco Shock, and Overwatch League Team who recently just won their second championship. Despite being undisputedly the best team for most of the League’s history, they aren’t hated by many fans like other dominant teams in sports, such as the Patriots or Golden State Warriors, instead they are one of the most popular teams, and I think their social media is a big part of why they keep so many fans.

Their social media is focused on connecting the players with the fans, as well as showing off the team’s accomplishments, both achieved with both pictures and video. We’ll first look at their Twitter, which is nearly completely concentrated on putting out video’s that the fans can enjoy and get to feel closer to the players themselves. If we look at the post below we can see that the video is not only funny, but it also shows a player finding themselves in a situation many fans could relate to, making the pro’s seem more human to the fans, who outside of social media, only get to see them at their peak performance. The video not only is one the fans will enjoy but achieves some of their marketing goals as well.

Their Instagram, however, hardly features any videos in comparison. It goes about connecting their fans with the players by showing the team in their daily lives as they go through the Overwatch League Season. Looking at the post below we can see the Shock players behind the scenes as they practice for an upcoming match, utilizing the medium of an image to show us how they are living. It’s a different way of connecting the fans to the players, but it’s effective nonetheless as Instagram is the account of theirs that gets the most interaction.

The San Francisco Shock will continue to be a popular team for a while based on their social media regardless of if they keep crushing, or have a poor season, they know how to make their star players look human, and connect their fans to them in a way no other team in the league has quite figured out how to do yet, by using images in a way that suits images best, and videos in a way that suits videos best.