Episode 243 Snippets: Jen Galas of University of Georgia Athletics

On episode 243 of the Digital and Social Media
Sports Podcast, Neil chatted with Jen Galas,
Assistant Athletic Director - Social Media and
Digital Strategy, University of Georgia Athletics
What follows is a collection of snippets from the
podcast. To hear the full interview and more, check
out the podcast on all podcast platforms and at
www.dsmsports.net.
@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 243: Jen Galas

Jen’s Career Path
“So I started in sports and when I was in undergrad
at college. I went to the University of South Carolina
and like a lot of people you go into college thinking
you know exactly what you want to do and then you
get there and it changes a million times. I like to say
that I fell into sports a little bit. I didn't play sports
growing up. I'm very uncoordinated. I've always been
a fan of sports and I went to sporting events all the
time — my parents were really into it.

“When I was in school, I was on scholarship and I needed
to graduate in four years to keep my scholarship, so I
needed to find a way to get some additional hours. They
were allowing me to take some hours in the summer and so
rather than taking classes, I did an internship that
accounted for six hours at the time. I had just signed a lease
in an apartment in Columbia and so I needed to stay there
and so I was looking on campus, I was looking around town
and a job in the media relations office at South Carolina
[Athletics] came up and I called, interviewed and worked
there for the summer and then continued to work there for
the next two years while I was in school.

“Then when I graduated — this is something I enjoyed — I
worked in sports comm or media relations for the first ten
years of my career. I got a job at the College of Charleston and
worked there for about eight months — it was a post-grad
internship and then about eight months into it or so I was
offered a full time position at Elon University in North
Carolina. So I left my internship, moved up to North Carolina
and worked there for a couple of years. That's where I met my
husband. He also works in sports and so he actually got a job
offer working with, at the time, it was ISP, and we moved and
he was like, ‘I got this job in Athens. Do you want to go?’
Actually I don't even think he asked me. I think he said, ‘Hey,
I got this job in Athens, we're going to move.’

“So I moved down to Athens. I didn't have a job, wasn't sure that I
wanted to work in sports. I got a job working [doing] marketing for an
apartment complex, kind of to pay the bills. During that time, the first
person I met was Claude Felton when I moved down here. He's kind of
the legend in sports information [at Georgia] and I emailed him cold and
was like, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And he goes ‘Do you know how to stat
volleyball?’ And I was like, ‘I do, yeah.’ He was like ‘Great, can you start
Friday?’
“So I was the statistician for volleyball for a year and I worked with men's
basketball and filled in for some football games for their stat side of
things. Then halfway through basketball season, [Claude] was like, ‘Hey,
we're going to have this graduate assistantship job open. Are you
interested in it?’ And at the time I was like, ‘Yes.’ I didn't love working for
an apartment complex, I had too much time on my hands.

“So I took that and it's sort of been that ever since.
I worked for four years in sports communications
and I worked three years or so in external
operations. My position sort of has been moved
around as it's changed throughout the last couple
of years. And now I work more on kind of the
StratComm side, the external communication side
of things.”

On the pathways of working in college athletics and moving up
through social
“I think there's a path to do it. What I usually tell people who want to
work in college athletics is that I think for a long time, especially when
people are young, they tend to chase a brand and they tend to chase a
logo — and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But I also
think some of the best skills I learned came from working at a smaller
school, came working from a place that didn't have, you know, the
numbers or the resources. And I think that that's a really important
thing. So I always say that if you want to work in college athletics look
for the job that you want and then if you do really well you can get the
opportunities that may be the logo you want or the dream school or
the dream job or kind of whatever that might be later [on].

“I think specifically with what I do…I think that I came up at
a time where things were changing, so I think that probably
helps to get into a leadership position is that the field I've
been in is a relatively new field that I've also concurrently
been doing for a long time. So when those positions come
available, those creative or social leadership positions, you're
seeing a lot more of them now than you ever have before. I
think it creates a lot of opportunities for people who have
been in college athletics for a long time, who may not want
to be the number one AD. I think that's where those
positions, specifically on that side of things, I think you're
just seeing a lot more of them, which is opening a lot of
doors for people to get into administrative positions.”

“We’re working with 18 to 24-year-olds every day,
and that doesn't change, you know, like it's just
like a new group of 18 to 24 year old…That age
group really stays the same. So I think in order to
stay relevant and to stay current, being
surrounded by young adults helps for us to be able
to sometimes be a little bit ahead of the curve on
some things.”

How Jen got into social media specifically
“I was a SID (sports information director) for a long
time and I enjoyed it. I was good at it. I could have
done it for as long as I wanted to do it, but I had made
a sort of a deal with myself that said, ‘The moment
that I don't want to do this anymore or I get bored or
if it becomes too mundane is the moment that I sort of
need to step away from it because I'm taking up an
opportunity for somebody else who really loves it,’ and
I didn't really want to do that. I didn't want that…

“I was a PR major; at my heart. I'm a communicator. That's who I am. And at
the time, you know, it was a confluence of events of me saying, I don't know
that this is the path that I want to take forever, being in sports
communication. Then also the person who was handling our departmental
account, she was leaving, so the timing kind of worked out. So I took on that
role, doing both for a little while, and at the end of that semester I kind of was
like, ‘Guys, I can't do both well. I can do both satisfactorily, but neither one is
going to be to the best of my ability because I'm having to split my time. Is
this an opportunity now for us to make this move into this digital and social
side and take it in a different direction a little bit more’ — I don't want to say
take it more seriously because that's not really it, but saying like ‘Maybe this
is something we really need to look at as a position.’ So I was like, ‘I would
love to do it.’ So I moved sort of out of sports comm at that moment and
started working just in social and kind of our external side and managing our
departmental account. Then that sort of went to take on helping with creative
and then helping with social strategy for our sport accounts and helping with
communication strategies and that type of thing…=

“I've been really fortunate to sort of be in the right
place at the right time. I think for any person that
has seen any type of success in a career or
anything, there's some luck that plays into it too.”

On how social fits into Georgia Athletics from a strategic objectives
perspective
“I think originally it started on the sports comm side of things. I think it
was get information out to the largest audience you can. That's how you
can reach people, how you can get news and information out to your
audience. I think that's probably where it started and then I think over
time…I think you could talk to anybody and they would tell you the same
thing — it just keeps getting moved because over time it becomes like,
okay, well now it's ticket sales or now it's revenue generation — it goes in
a lot of different directions. I work under strategic communications is
probably how it's best described. I work really closely with our strategic
communication side of things too, because I think it puts it under a
maybe a bigger umbrella, to be able to work with development or revenue
generation or ticket sales, whatever it might be.”

On goals and measures of success
“I think it's different for different teams and I think it's
different for different sides of what you're doing. I mean
obviously anytime you're doing revenue generation you want
to make money and so how much money has been made via
whatever channel you might be pushing it out on, whether it
be ticket sales or whether it be merchandise or whatever that
might be. But from a strictly social side, I think at the heart
of it is we want to make sure that we give our student
athletes the best experience that we can and we want to
make sure our fans get the best experience that they can get.

“So a lot of the stuff we do is driven to promote our student
athletes and our coaching staff and also make sure that we
provide a top-notch experience for our fans, not only the
fans who come to Athens and come to games and are here in
person, but also the ones who aren't or can't and making
sure they know that they are also important to us because
they very much are. So I think depending on the team,
depending on the coach, those KPIs can be really different. I
think they can be different from day to day. We certainly
have goals that we set for certain things, but also, at the end
of the day I tell my team you can't be so beholden to a goal
that it doesn't allow you to stay creative, it doesn't allow you
to move within that.

“Goals can change in the beginning of and throughout the year. They can and they
should, especially in a medium that's new and changes all the time — and when I say
new like relatively — but that changes every day and something changes and happens
every day, so your goals should change. Personally speaking, if if I set and said this is
the one thing we want to accomplish all year and if that's the only thing I focus on, that
means we're probably slacking off somewhere else. Something else is suffering because
of that.”
“I think ultimately, my job is — some people will agree with me and some people I'm
sure will disagree with me — but I believe that we work in entertainment. Our job is to
give somebody a bit of entertainment, a bit of joy when they're scrolling through their
phone or whatever. So I don't know that you can draw a like a direct line between like
— I think it's great to say you want somebody to follow you and then come to a game
and then buy a mini plan and then buy a season ticket and think that in a dream world,
sure, I think everybody would want that track, but that's not reality. It's just not. So I
hope that happens sometimes. But I also think treating our fans very equally and
putting our ourselves in [fan’s shoes]. You're like, ‘Well, what would I like to see? What
would entertain me? What would make me happy? What do I want to know?’

“So I think, for us it's talking to our fans like an old friend maybe
and treating them a little bit like an old friend and treating them
like an old friend, and somebody that they trust and somebody
that they can look to for, sometime it might be escape. Sometimes
it's you've had a rough day or you had a busy day and you just
want to unwind and you're scrolling through and you're like, ‘Oh
my gosh, the baseball team’s playing tonight. Let me turn on the
TV or let me listen to the radio or let me watch this really great
interview with the soccer coach’ or ‘Wow, I didn't realize that
track and field just finished second at indoors. How great is that?
Let me look.’ And maybe they go down a sports rabbit hole for 20
minutes that kind of rounds out their day. So ultimately, I like to
think that I'm just talking to friends maybe and not necessarily to
this mass audience.”

On balancing team creativity with a cohesive Georgia Athletics
brand
“We take a lot of pride in letting teams have kind of their own
identity and lean into their voice because you're talking to fans and
the fans of Georgia gymnastics is a very different fan base
oftentimes than a fan of Georgia baseball. And that's fine, that's
great. They should be. You know, a fan of women's basketball is
probably not the same fan as Georgia track and field. So we do our
best, especially we can go into like creative meetings at the
beginning of the year, I like to say that it's a big puzzle. And the big
puzzle is the identity of Georgia Athletics, and each one of our
sports is a piece of that puzzle. So we have 21 sports, so there are 21
pieces to this puzzle that makes up everything.

“In an ideal situation, all of those fit perfectly together. So when you look at
it as a whole, you're like, ‘Oh shit, yeah, that's Georgia.’ There are things that
we’re very particular about color. We're very particular about logo and how
to use them. If you look at a lot of the stuff we do, we we call it the flag. But
especially on social graphics, it's the square with the G in it and that's pretty
much on every single thing that we do, and making sure that we don't go
nuts on having every team has 27 fonts that they use, you know making sure
that when we go into a process it's number one, what's the reasoning? And
number two, how can we make this as Georgia as it can be? And I think
especially in the last couple of years we've done a really nice job of of giving
people some identities but also saying like we know how far to push it and
then we know how to bring it back and I think we've done [that]...But I'm
kind of in the middle of it, so I hope we've done a really nice job of being
like, Oh, like when people ask what are they going to do next? What's this
next thing? And I think that's something that we've tried to at least in the
last several months unless, I think we've really paid attention to doing that.

“Because I think for a while it was very one size
fits all, which I think can work, but I also think
there's a couple of different approaches you can
take to it. And we just sort of said ‘Wait a second,
let's have some fun with it and let's play around
with some things.’”

On communication and collaboration between athletics and
university
“I work incredibly closely with our group on campus. I was in
a meeting with them yesterday. I talked to my counterpart
over there. I talk to her if not every day, darnn well close to it.
Just to make sure that what we're doing aligns with what
they're doing and maybe not even align, but like, just giving
people a heads up of saying ‘What can I help you with?’ I
understand that my account has a lot of followers or if there's
something that you need that you want to get pushed out into
maybe a different segment of a population, not just your
followers, How can I help that?

“And I think the reverse is true. They reach out and they work
with us really closely about …it is not athletics and university
over here. I mean it's not like that…I've talked to [my
counterpart] every single day about something. We work really
closely because I think that relationships work better. I think
everything becomes more cohesive when you collaborate. They
get a lot of eyeballs from our account and we wouldn't be here
without them. I think that's very true, and I think that we're
also really lucky that not only do we have this successful athletic
department, we also have an incredible university. The
academic side of things — it's really incredible to see the success
that both sides have had. There's no reason to fight it. Why
don't you lean into it and showcase what the whole package is.”

On the setup of Georgia’s department and resources
“So football, men's basketball, women's basketball and gymnastics
all have kind of an in-house creative that works with those staffs.
But that being said, we work super closely with everybody. I've said
this and I'm sure everyone says it, that they have the best team in
the world and blah blah, blah. I'm sure everybody says it, but I
would be hard-pressed to find another one that works as closely
with each other. I mean I walk into the football office… they're not
super far away from me, and I go over there all the time and ask
questions or ‘Hey, what are you guys doing? How can we help?’ Or
they can come up and be like, ‘Hey, do you mind helping with this?
We need some help with this other side of things.’ And the same
thing with men’s basketball or women's basketball, or gymnastics.

“We're on a group chat, we talk all the time. We meet weekly as a creative
department to make sure that — no one singular person has all the
answers. So it's nice to be able to bounce ideas off of people. Our creative
staff has come from a ton of different places. We have folks who have
worked in pro, we have people who went to Georgia, we have people who
didn't, we have people who've worked at smaller schools or other larger
schools. So I think that we work really well together.
“Football is a beast. I think anybody would tell you that. But I also think,
too, that we really do put a focus on making sure that we always know
what they're up to and are always willing to lend a hand. And conversely, I
know that if I needed something done for you can pick any sport at all, I
know that I could walk over to football and say, ‘Hey, can you help us out?’
and they'd be like, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ Like I said, I know everybody's
going to tell you that they have the best team in the world…it's really
something special.”

On third-party media coverage of Georgia Athletics and that affects
the content Georgia wants to produce themselves
“I think anybody would be silly to say that we don't appreciate
[third-party media coverage] and lean into that at times. But I also
think — for instance, it's April 11th and we have six teams ranked in
the top ten right now in our spring sports. And I think for us we
think the stories that we tell naturally can just naturally set
themselves apart. When you get to know our student athletes or our
coaches, I think they just naturally come. I don't know that we're
seeking out to say we want to tell X, Y and Z. I think at the end of
the day we set out to promote our student athletes and tell the best
stories that we can. I think we promote them the best way that we
know how and to the best of our ability.

“And then, you know, sometimes that coincides
with the big feature, the feel good story that
everybody knows, but sometimes it's not that and a
lot of times those really big stories — you know, a
feature on Stetson [Bennett] or a feature on Brock
[Bowers] or a feature on, you know, pick a student
athlete that we have — I think that also lends itself
to giving us an opportunity to tell other stories as
well. So I think it just sort of shines a light on one
that then shines a light on the other side, too.”

On how stories flow from sports info to creative production and whether a
story should be produced by Georgia or get pitched to media outlets by the SID
“I think it depends on the story and I think it depends on what it is. I mean, I
firmly believe that, and I may be dating myself a little bit, but I still love the
written word, I still love written stories. And I think that some stories are
better written by a professional writer. I think some stories are better [with]
video. And there are some stories I think are better coming from an account or
coming from your best friend kind of thing, and I think that's part of it. I think
it just really depends on the story and the content of it and what we can do.
“Ideally, ESPN or the Athletic or any local paper or TV station — ideally they
pick that up and they put it out to a really wide margin. But I also love the idea
that if they don't, it still gets told. It just may be told a slightly different way.”

On maximizing the spotlight and opportunity of Georgia’s national
championships in football
“I think that if you had asked me that question last year, the answer
would be very different. And I say that because — it's still crazy to
say back-to-back national championships. It really is. But I think
two years ago, how we prepared was probably very different;
truthfully, because none of us had ever done it. Candidly, nobody
had ever really done it here. We have some folks who have worked
at different places, and then there's a lot of us who have been here
for a little while, especially on the creative team and for a couple
years or however long — I think for us it was that lead up, whatever
you want to call it — I think we were incredibly prepared for what
we were going to do from a content side of things.

“But I also think if you go back and look at what
we did in 2021-22 versus 2022-23, you can tell a
little bit of a difference, I think, especially from
the athletic account for instance, two years ago we
were reacting in real time. We were reacting like,
‘Oh my gosh, this is happening.’ We thought it
could. We always knew. But nothing can prepare
you, I don't think, to do it in real time.

“So if you go and look, it's just like, for the first time in
40 years you get to say Georgia's the national
champions. And I think that was very different. I think
we learned a ton that year. I think we learned how to do
things, timing of things, staffing of things, staffing of
events, coverage of games — figuring out all the stuff
around it. And then when you go into this year it was you
went from being the team that, hey, they finally did it,
they finally beat Alabama, in an incredible way. Then
you go in the next year and it's like, ‘Oh, they're back.
They're here.’ So I think the mindset was a little
different.

“I think we thought about it a little differently from a creative side. I
mean, we still told the stories we wanted to tell and we wanted to focus
on. I'll give every prop in the world to our creative team in football
because I think they just crushed it both years. I think they really just
buckled up and got to work and really did some incredible things and
some really unique touches on some things, making things feel
different, look different, sound different. Make it championship level.
“You know you talk about championship gear for players — I think
every person who works in college sports or even sports in general sort
of also has that, too, like ‘Oh, all eyes are on us now, let's put out the
absolute best stuff that we can do.’ And I think football, I think that
they just crushed it, while still staying true to kind of who they wanted
to be, and who they are known to be.

“Then from sales and merch —I think Georgia still
owns the hot market record for Fanatics in the
college space from two years ago. And people were
waiting a really long time; they were waiting a
really long time to buy that merch, to buy
something with the Georgia National
Championship logo on it. And so people really
spent the money. That's with targeted ads and
that's with email notifications. But I don't think
there's anything that could have prepared us for
that 2021-22 season.”

On emerging tech and platforms and who in Georgia Athletics
is responsible for keeping up with those opportunities
“What I tell everybody is this, especially when it comes to
platforms and things like that, is I don't want to jump on
something just to jump on it. I make sure that there's a plan,
that it's sustainable, that it's something that's not going to be
like, ‘Oh my God, we're super into it today.’ And then like a
week [later] everybody forgets about it and then we just have
these dead accounts somewhere. I don't love that. I think that
if you're going to do something, you can't half-ass it and you
have to go all in and if you aren't prepared to do that, then
sometimes it's okay to hold off.

“I don't know that everybody needs to be on
everything, especially from an athletic
department. Like if you're on a BeReal that seems
incredibly hard to do, to be able to then showcase
all of our sports and promote all of our sports
effectively and not just like me sitting in my office
with the view of the trees behind me. What I do is
not particularly interesting to fans. They're like,

On Jen and her department’s role in revenue generation
“I'm pretty active in it. I mean that's a big part of what I do. A couple of
years ago we put a focus on using social as a revenue stream and so it has
evolved. There's an asset sheet that goes out to a partner, I'm on it before
it's sent to the company to make sure that whatever ideas [are] on that
sheet is something we can actually accomplish. I think that's a huge part of
what we've been able to do is really drill down into what works for us and
making sure that content that we do is not just a billboard for a company,
but it's something our fans want to see. It's something that we execute well
or there's a benefit to them, so maybe it's a prize or something like that
“So we do a pretty decent job of making sure that what we post and what
we get posted to our social channels still make sense with what from a
creative side would typically go on there. We try not to deviate from it a
ton.”

“I think we try to do kind of the menu of [sponsorship opportunities on
social] saying, ‘Hey, these are the things that are tried and true that work.
Sell these first.’ If somebody has an idea, let's talk about it. Let's not just
blindly agree to it because sometimes it may not be possible, but I think
we try to say like, here's the menu, pick from the menu, this is available
inventory. We have an inventory sheet for season-wide things, we save
some things for one-offs that we oftentimes don't sell for like a season-
long campaign in case somebody wants to jump in the middle of the year
we kind of hold some back for a couple of different reasons. But if there's
really great ideas — I mean we're not opposed to any great idea, but we
also want to make sure that — nobody wants to see a million ads on a
channel that you like. Nobody wants to see it.
“So how can we incorporate our partners in something that's going to
resonate with our fans and make them click or make them watch through
for the whole thing or make them engage in some way.”

The most important thing Jen tries to convey to her
students about social, digital and sports
“I hope that they realize that it's an incredibly rewarding
field to be in. It's very fun. You get to experience a lot of
incredible things and incredible moments and work with
incredible coaches and student athletes, and you get to
be a part of that too. But you're going to have to make
some sacrifices, especially early on oftentimes of
working long hours and working inconsistent hours, and
making sure that [students realize] there's a lot more
that goes into the things that fans see on social.

“Almost none of it is decided spur of the moment. There's a ton of
planning involved. There's a ton of revisions or drafts or let's talk
about it; let's make sure this hits the right messaging that we wanted.
Very few things come across that it's just like hit send and hope for
the best; most of that doesn't happen. I also always tell them, too,
that it's okay to really want to work in sports and it's okay to work in
sports and fall in love with it, but it's also okay to fall out of love with
it, too. And I think that's a really important thing. I think there's a lot
of people who are dealing with that now that sometimes it can be a
lot and then sometimes it's okay to say, you know what, I did it. I
loved it. I was really good at it. I enjoyed it. But it's time for me to
move on to something that brings me happiness or whatever it might
be. I think that's okay. I don't think people don't think people say
that enough that it's okay to fall out of love with what you do.”

Jen’s favorite or most vivid memory from her time
working at Elon
“Oh, I have two. The favorite is Elon won the 2009
Southern Conference Championship in softball. It was
the first time a women's sport at Elon had won a
conference championship. I was the SID for the softball
team that year and that was really cool. Just a really cool
thing. Fun fact about that trip, that was the first time
Elon softball had ever made it to a regional that year and
the regional that they came to was in Athens…[six
months before Jen moved to Athens]

“That was a really cool and also the other one is I
was with women's basketball one time and I
stepped on — it was the coldest I've ever been in
my entire life. We were in Boone, North Carolina,
and we stepped off a bus and I was like, ‘What is
this place? It's freezing.’ And it was like negative
eight degrees with a whole bunch of snow on the
ground and super windy. And I was like, this is
awful. And that's just a very vivid memory of me
being like, I hate this. It's so cold…”

What the preparation and execution is like around a
national championship football game
“National Championship week and Bowl week are super
different. So playoff game week, there's probably a lot
more things to cover. From like team outings and things
like that to the national championship game is a little bit
different where it's a little bit more strictly game
focused. But leading up to both, I don't think we try to
deviate away from what we typically would do. You still
approach it like a normal game, but like if you're going
to a race car track to drive around or whatever t

“Then in-game it's being prepared for literally
anything that could happen. So you could go into a
game being like we're going to win and then you
don't. Or you go into a game and you're like, there's
zero chance we're going to win. And have to be able
to really read the reaction and really kind of put
yourself in that moment of being to be able to go
from, hey, if somebody scores or you score and
really navigating the highs and lows of that. I think
you have to pay attention to that a lot, to figure out
what it is.

“Then like I said in 2022, that was just pure jubilation. I don't
know that any amount of planning — I mean we knew what we
were going to do and we had a really solid plan going into it and we
executed it really well. But I think there was also a period of time
where all of us were just like, ‘What? Like what?’ And you wanted
to celebrate but you're like, ‘Oh God, I still have work to do.’
“It was so much fun seeing the reaction videos of fans who are in
different places or in Athens taking over the streets of
downtown…Then you go into championship parades and seeing
just the pure emotion and how much people care. I think that was
such a fun thing to see from our side, from our seat. We care a lot
and it's also to see how much it just meant to people, to be a part of
that and to kind of be taken along for that ride.”

Jen’s favorite piece of content that Georgia's put out on
its digital platforms in her time there so far
“Oh, my God. So I have two really great answers for this.
One happened today. We announced a new Uga today
and his name is Boom. And we did this really incredible
graphic today, it's a dog and it says ‘Welcome Boom’ in
this big almost comic book side. We got to put that out
today and it was so much fun because it's super different
than what we typically do, but the response was always
like…But his name is Boom, like we had to do that.

“Then we did a couple of things a couple of years ago with men's golf that I
thought was really fun where some another men's golf team posted a thing
that said, like, they have three pro golfers in this tournament. They said
something along the lines of like, we have so many people here…really
showing out, blah, blah, blah. Really bragging on [it]. And they're like,
‘Name another team that has as many people.’ And I was like, okay, easy
because they have three and we had like nine and then another school had
seven. So I quote tweeted it from the Athletics account, not just the golf
account but the Athletics account, and I was like ‘9 > 3’. And like that’s all
it said and then it got picked up on the Golf Channel and all this stuff.
“It was a little out of character and I love that it had something to do with
[golf]; like everybody probably thinks oh, there's really good football
content, it was this one very specific men's golf thing that I thought was
just great.”

The most social media savvy coach Jen has ever worked
with in her entire career
“Probably Keidane McAlpine in men’s soccer. I think he
gets it. He understands the power it has. I think he's good
at it. He views it in a really unique way and I think he's a
delight to work with…He just he gets it and he
understands; he always says he probably should be more
active on it.
“Manny Diaz, [our tennis coach] is super active on it. He's
a fun one, too.”

The student athlete whose social media Jen would point to as an example
for others to learn from
“There's a bunch of them that do [well]. We have a bunch of student
athletes who I think do a really nice job [on social]... I think the ones who
are very genuine, I think the ones that sometimes you can tell it's them,
they have a personality on it. They do their best to really showcase who
they are and not necessarily like what they are. I think those are really
fun. The ones that give you insights to things and the ones that aren't
afraid to make fun of themselves or be a little silly.
“We have some baseball players who I think just do a really incredible job
of being who they are and it's super funny. The bigness of the team or
whatever kind of goes away and just you can see them being like 20-year-
old kids, and I think that's really fun.”

The best meal to get in Athens and
where to get it
“Okay. I'm going to give you two. The
best lunch is a place that's like a four
minute walk from my office. So Cali N
Tito's, they have the best fish tacos
that maybe I've ever had. I say all the
time, if you're in Athens for one day
and you come for lunch, I'm taking
you to Cali N Tito's for lunch, because
it's super good. It's really eclectic. It's
kind of a weird place, it's really great.

“For dinner, I would say — I
think everybody would
probably tell you Last
Resort. That's really good. I
also think there’s a place
that's pretty hyperlocal, it's
kind of off the beaten path a
little bit, that does a really
good burger...There are like
seven places I could tell
you.”

Jen is social media overlord for the day, what is the one
change or one addition that she makes to any of the major
social platforms
“So I would probably say that it would be to be allowed to
give a heads up as to what the next variation of an
algorithm is before it happens, so you're not caught off
guard. You're not like, oh, because you have this great
plan for video and they're like not video anymore, we're
going to go straight to photos. And yeah, I would probably
make sure that we would have an understanding of like
what's coming down the pipe a little bit more.”

The next Georgia team to win a national championship will
be ___________
“Oh, well, like I said, we have six teams ranked in the top ten
right now. I think there are some opportunities. I think track
and field is going to be really good this year. I think men's
and women's tennis are two more teams…There are some
opportunities there for a lot of teams. It's a really fun time.
Georgia's not a school that's just great at one single
thing…It’s really fun to be a part of because we have a lot of
really good teams and a lot of really incredible student
athletes, so I think really any of the ones that are coming up, I
think track and field has a good shot in the near future.”

Jen’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“There are so many. If it's not in sports, I'm probably
going to say Thoughts of Dog (@dog_feelings on
Twitter, @ on Instagram) is one of my favorites. I'm a
dog person, so I think that [account] always gives me a
nice little uplift when I see it. Matt Mitchell (@ALostrich
on Twitter) is really funny on social too. He's a
comedian. He's really funny. It's like Southern humor,
but he does a really nice job. I think that one's funny, but
I think if I had to pick it would probably be Thoughts of
Dog.”

Where to find Jen and Georgia Athletics on
digital/social
Jen is @Jenni_Jen85 on Twitter and @jbgalas on
Instagram
Georgia is @UGAAthletics and go to
GeorgiaDogs.com for the list of all team handles

Thanks again to Jen for being so generous
with her time to share her knowledge,
experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to
the podcast, follow me on LinkedIn and on
Twitter @njh287, and visit
www.dsmsports.net.
@njh287; www.dsmsports.net

Episode 243 Snippets: Jen Galas of University of Georgia Athletics

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