Racing Post’s Elliot Hackney on setting the pace in social
Newly-appointed head of content marketing talks to EGR about modernising RP’s video content and embracing Instagram
Racing Post hired Ladbrokes Coral’s former head of social media Elliot Hackney to lead the publisher’s newly-created content marketing function back in August.
Hackney has been tasked with increasing online output for Racing Post, while his new content marketing team will take over social management from the newspaper’s editorial department.
Hackney – a keen YouTuber himself – speaks to EGR Marketing about the publisher’s state-of-the-art new recording studio and the relaunch of popular video series Upping The Ante.
Elliot Hackney
EGR Marketing: How are you settling in at Racing Post?
Elliot Hackney (EH): They are a great company to work for. I love the culture here and what has been implemented from day one. It is a challenge but this is what I was brought in to do, to give their video content a shake-up and we are getting there. We’ve got some really exciting plans coming up and it has been a really bright start.
EGR Marketing: What are your main responsibilities? What have you been brought in to do?
EH: Not only to oversee the content production, but also to guide and help develop the content marketing team. We’ve just taken on some new hires, from video producers to social execs. We are changing it completely. We’ve got a new studio being built towards the end of this month to have a complete change of our current studio setup, complementing our great ICS studios in Leeds. Everything is not only going to feel different but will look completely different as well. We also want to help the content marketing team go where they haven’t been before by taking more responsibility from the editorial team who were legacy managing social here. That has now come into the content marketing team so my guys are doing more on social than ever before at Racing Post.
EGR Marketing: Is the Racing Post keen to modernise its offering with more video content?
EH: The Racing Post content to date has been okay but it has not been made for platform. We need some more thinking about what should go where, how long it should be and which platform it should go on. There is a lot to social media these days and I think they just needed some guidance on the tactics of it all. We’re going for the low hanging fruit initially, and then it will come down to the actual production of video and the new shows we’ve got planned which should really fly.
EGR Marketing: What new content have you made so far?
EH: We’ve relaunched a new show called Upping The Ante which previews Cheltenham Festival 2020 in partnership with bet365 and we are seeing some great results already. People are loving the fact it has returned and we have tripled views year-on-year and for the first time it goes out across our brand network. Also our podcast Racing Riot is doing fantastically well with some big names from the world of racing featuring already.
We have also recently completed some really useful workshops with the tier one bookmakers. We got to better understand their brand proposition, sporting priorities, features and promotions they wish to own. They got to understand what is changing in our world, the technical investment and the distribution changes to roll out content across our brand network. That really helped us optimise our plans for our new show What A Shout, which will be the sector leading racing show. The product was designed to meet the demand from bookmakers and our audiences, and discussions with potential partners and their media agencies have progressed very quickly.
EGR Marketing: What changes have been made to improve the social media strategy?
EH: We’ve reduced our article posts on Facebook because obviously that can harm the algorithm and we have made some subtle changes to the types of videos we are posting. Also we’ve got a huge audience on Instagram of 75,000 followers and we can make a lot more of that. It is a diverse audience which gives us access to more female followers than any other platform, so we can put the more creative content on Instagram because that is where people will be most receptive to it. There are also a lot of other plans in place for our social content.
EGR Marketing: What new shows do you have lined up?
EH: There is going to be a big new flagship horseracing show that is going to have a weekly element and also a live element. The live element is the really exciting part. My background is working on The Kick Off which I created with True Geordie and Lawrence with Ladbrokes Coral and that has been a little bit of an inspiration towards our new horseracing show. Then there are other ideas in the fire for other sports, ahead of a massive event next summer with Euro 2020. There is a ton of stuff going on. Obviously horseracing content is our bread and butter but we’re also going to be branching out a little bit as well.
EGR Marketing: Will the new shows be the straight to YouTube format we’ve seen from you in the past?
EH: The majority will but we are also looking at how we can maximise content for other platforms too. An example of that was Upping the Ante and posting it as a Facebook premiere for people to build excitement as it’s a much-loved show. That had a good concurrent 200 or so viewers throughout which is a pretty good first effort and I think that show is sitting on 15,000 views now which is great for that one post. We are also looking to build content ecosystems around these shows that we are pushing on YouTube so that it doesn’t just live in one place.
EGR Marketing: You mentioned the new studio. What does that look like and was it one of the draws in joining Racing Post?
EH: It is not built just yet but should be being built towards the end of this month. We are still shaping what it’s going to look like but it should be a very new age social studio as the one that we’ve got at the moment is very old school. We want the new studio to be versatile and a little bigger with varying shots as we want flexibility. It will make my life a lot easier because we will be able to achieve loads of different looks.
EGR Marketing: You were at Ladbrokes Coral before, how is your role different at Racing Post?
EH: The reason I came here was for the challenge. We will be producing the content from start to finish and there is a lot more AV at Racing Post. On the social side, my team is now taking on more of that responsibility from editorial, but the draw was to come here and produce a calendar of shows that are going out throughout the year across a varied range of sports. With The Kick Off I had full oversight of the show from conception to launch and that was something I wanted to do more often.
EGR Marketing: Talk to us about your personal YouTube channel. You have a decent following on there, is that a passion project or hard work?
EH: That was launched for the 2018 World Cup. Before then I had always been a watcher and not a poster on YouTube. I was a big fan of all the content that people were producing on there and never really got involved. Then my involvement with The Kick Off and True Geordie and Laurence convinced me to start my own channel. People enjoyed it and it went well, so since then I’ve been developing my own little content series from betting previews to a look back at some of the funny things that have happened around football on the internet that week. Being involved like that on YouTube just gives me a stronger view on what works and what doesn’t, and it all helps when it comes to posting shows on Racing Post. It keeps me abreast of all the newest ideas on there.