Harvard-Westlake Athletics created the Student Social Media Team to give students a chance to create and post content for the school’s social media accounts. Sophomores, juniors and seniors are able to join the team and earn physical education (P.E.) credit for their participation.
Prior to the creation of the team, Athletic Director Jason Kelly was in charge of managing all of the school’s athletic social media accounts. The accounts relied on coaches to pass information regarding their players and game scores. The creation of the new Student Social Media Team shifts the focus to students in charge of controlling the social media accounts and determining the content that is produced. .
Kelly said the previous content creation process was difficult and inefficient given the large number of sports that the school supports.
“It becomes difficult for me on a particular game day to be able to manage all of the accounts and give as many of our teams day-to-day coverage,” Kelly said. “In the past, I’ve relied on fellow athletic directors to be at games running the HW [school] athletics app [and to tweet] for me. I’ve relied on coaches getting information to me, but it is not always reliable in terms of how quickly that [information] gets to me.”
Kelly said his main goal with the new team is to bridge the gap between himself and more media-oriented students, combining visual aesthetics with efficient content creation.
“ I’m a 52-year-old man trying to be relevant in a young person’s space,” Kelly said. “ Having young people who consume social media making decisions, helping design and create calendars and giving us ideas of where we should go next is an important thing to do. When you’re [an] old guy like me, it’s better to have younger people as your mentors because they just know what’s fresh, and they know what’s exciting.”
Student Social Media Team member Micah Rossen ’25 said the team has contributed to creating more efficient and informative posts for the school’s social media accounts.
“My experience with the social media team so far has been fun,” Rossen said. “I think that the efficiency and quality of the posts have improved a lot since we have been allowed to take part in the team.”
Student Social Media Team member Michael Schneider ’24 said the media team works well together.
“Our meetings run smoothly,” Schneider said. “We never really have any issues. It’s like we’re all in agreement all the time.”
Elijah Williams ’25 said he enjoys the content that the team produces.
“I like to see individual highlight reels [that] show off people’s skills and talents,” Williams said.
