How a social media wizard is growing Tennessee basketball's profile

Mike Wilson
Knoxville

Rick Barnes has given Kellen Hiser one directive about the Tennessee basketball social media presence during his tenure as coach of the Vols.

“We want to create a love affair with our fans,” Barnes told Hiser, the associate director of social media strategy for Tennessee athletics.

Hiser did just that last fall when he noticed the Vols trailing other SEC teams in Instagram followers. He brainstormed ways to grow the account with former VFL Films on-air talent and producer Maddy Glab.

They came up with TMUtv, an Instagram-specific video playing off the phrase “Turn Me Up” coined by former UT guard James Daniel III that played to the younger Instagram audience.

“A lot of this stuff springs up from trying to find a creative solution to a problem we identify,” Hiser said. “How can we get people to talk about Tennessee in this area?”

Hiser and his team address that question constantly. They help manage 45 accounts — a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account for each of UT’s 14 varsity sports and an overall athletics page.

TMUtv is the crown jewel of Hiser’s work so far — a quirky, quick and playful video posted on IGTV and Instagram stories. It features recurring segments such as Vols singing karaoke while in a cryotherapy tank, having Yves Pons say something in French and Barnes playing Connect Four against his players.

“Our goal is always for our fans to feel like this as much their program as ours,” Hiser said.

It has worked and fans have responded to Hiser’s creativity, such as tweeting a game through the eyes of Smokey — the live UT mascot — and another with only quotes from the movie "Elf."

UT is the second-most followed basketball program in the SEC on all platforms behind only Kentucky. The Vols gained almost 45,000 Instagram followers and more than 25,000 Twitter followers last season, when they rose to the No. 1 ranking for the second time in program history.

They ranked third last season in total Twitter interactions — combined retweets and likes on a post — behind only Duke and North Carolina.

Hiser and his team capitalized on the “one fly, we all fly” pregame dunk routine in particular. The video from Admiral Schofield’s edition before UT’s win at Florida in January generated more than 2 million views.

“Kellen’s work on our social media has been incredible,” Barnes said. “Social media presence is very important to programs these days. It makes a difference. What he and our video team put together with TMUtv last year was great. I even enjoyed watching those each week.”

Last season, Hiser looked for a way to increase interest in a Christmas break game against Samford. He elected to tweet the game from the perspective of Smokey on the official UT basketball account, calling it the Smokey Takeover

The account was filled with pictures of Smokey around Thompson-Boling Arena and featured dog-related puns centering around Jordan Bone’s last name.

“We wanted to find a way to change it up and get more eyeballs on the account that wouldn't have been aware of it otherwise and use a game like that to our advantage,” Hiser said.

A year earlier, Hiser's challenge was a 9 p.m. tipoff in December against Furman. He tweeted that game with Buddy the Elf quotes.

“What is going to continue to drive us to stand out in this space is we have to be willing to take a risk,” Hiser said. “I think, especially around college social media, we create in our minds that the stakes are so high with recruiting and ticket sales so we get risk-averse. …

“Our riskiest stuff is when we find success.”  

In August 2018, Hiser got involved as Tennessee and Connecticut prepared to announce the return of the women’s basketball rivalry. A UConn social media staffer suggested a script between the teams' Twitter accounts. 

Hiser wrote an edgy back-and-forth to lead into the announcement.

“There was a little hesitation that maybe there was an edge and more confrontation than they hoped,” Hiser said. “We did it and it played off well.”

Hiser started his focus on UT social media as a graduate assistant for media relations in 2014. He especially focused on setting a new tone for the basketball program’s accounts when Barnes arrived in 2015. 

The Wyoming native was hired as a full-time media relations employee, then the department decided to create a dedicated social media team in 2017. Hiser jumped at the chance to lead it.

“I firmly believe Kellen is the best in the country at what he does — no hyperbole,” said Tom Satkowiak, UT's associate athletic director for communications. “His ability to consistently generate compelling and engaging content, while balancing the appropriate amounts of sensibility and personality is a rare gift. His work with our basketball accounts, specifically, have given the program an endearing social media personality and voice that really resonates with our two most important audiences — our fans and recruits.”

Kellen Hiser, Associate Director of Social Media Strategy at Tennessee Athletics, records an Instagram story with his handheld phone stabilizer in Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday, July 23, 2019. Hiser is the genius behind UT basketball's Instagram and Twitter among other social media platforms.

Josiah James — the highest-ranked recruit Barnes has signed at UT — spoke to that when he arrived at Tennessee in May. Hiser told James they would get him on TMUtv. 

James excitedly responded he watched every episode last year.

“That is everything I want to hear,” Hiser said.