TJ Barnett: Where Research Meets Fun
As I sat there twiddling my thumbs, I wondered if this interview would even happen. Did my email seem professional enough ? Is my outfit too casual ? Are the questions I’m asking dumb? A chime interrupted my doubtful thoughts. I looked up and saw a man in a casual t shirt, hair pulled back into a relaxed bun, with an eager smile. My worries slightly faded away. I perked up with enthusiasm and introduced myself, and gave him a quick run down of how the interview would go. I felt as if I was talking a mile a minute and that maybe I came off a bit too strong. Once I was done, I took a deep breathe in, awaiting whatever was to come next. He let out a smile and small chuckle, and replied, “Well, my name is TJ Barnett and I’m excited to get to tell you about myself today”.
I asked him to tell me about the journey to where he is now, and he really took it back to the beginning. He recalled in high school the business program he participated in, and how that was the foundation of a lot of things he did. Once admitted into college at the University of Kentucky, he was a Marketing major, which built upon the basics he’d learned in high school in. During his freshman year (2015) at UK, he helped start FinanceU, and became the Chief Operating Officer (COO). FinanceU is a platform where students could essentially build their own scholarships, through crowdfunding, to help avoid student debt. He credits FinanceU with teaching him not only how to start a business, and work in a team, but how to “operate a brand on social media”, which would become essential to his daily work life years later, unbeknownst to him. He also had several internships and shadowing within SB Nation, as a media member where he wrote and edited creative blog posts, participated in post-game interviews and gained an understanding of how to represent a professional or collegiate sport team on social media and blog networks. In October of 2016, he started an internship with Foogi. As the marketing strategist, He helped create the strategy of what marketing looks like at the company. At the beginning of 2018, he was promoted to marketing manager, heading the inbound marketing. This included generating monthly newsletters for clients, managing social ads, and managing the company blog. He then moved into realtor marketing, specifically working for Atlas Trust, where initially, as a marketing associate, he was responsible for learning Facebook Ads, and running them for each piece of their content. He also helped strategize what type of content should be pushed out to appeal to the local audience, which in turn helped him gain a better understanding of “how people think and what different forms of media appeal to them”. He was promoted to Director of Marketing and Client success at Atlas Trust in April 2018. In this position he was in full control of media production content including what would be posted and when it would be posted.
When I got the name of the person I’d be interviewing it came with a short title attached : TJ does social media content publishing for the NBA/WNBA. I was going to interview someone who works for the National Basketball Association. It’s not every day that somebody gets to say that, hence my nervous temperament before the interview began. Finally after many internships and other projects TJ told me about, we got into his current position : Digital and social content publisher. The position became available in July 2019, when he’d applied. They didn’t get back to him until September, where he’d interview three more times, just to get turned down for the first position. Luckily, he got the second position and has worked for the NBA- Fantasy and G- Leagues and the WNBA. He currently manages all of the social channels for the WNBA, including its website and app. He is responsible for live tweeting during the games and coverage with the focus on daily output.
With this position requiring daily output, I wondered what a typical day would look like in his life. “ My day usually starts around 5pm, and I’m usually just researching content and stats, and learning information about things that may be relevant to upcoming games. Once the game comes on I’m usually working from 7 to 1 AM, real time reacting on the social networks. From 1 to about 2 AM, I am scheduling tomorrow’s posts and fixing the website”. I thought back to how relaxed he looked when we first started the interview — his unpretentious nature due to the fact that he hadn’t started work for the day yet, as our interview started at 2 PM, hours before his workday starts. Thinking about my life right now, without class, my days are similar. I wake up later in the day, eat, then prepare myself to watch sports for the rest of the night, and once the games are over, I watch highlights of said games. Though most people might be daunted by the late nights and early mornings, this is already the life I live, making this career seem even more feasible, and this interview all the more fulfilling.
I asked what motivates him the most, or keeps him coming back. He admitted that this job was a lot of pressures first, but his eternal drive to continue to get better and consistent keeps him wanting more, and working hard. He told me how he likes that this position allows him to continue to be creative and challenges his mind to produce fresh content. Because technology is always changing he is constantly learning how to adapt to the new technological culture. With Twitter adding Fleets, and Instagram adding Reels, he was forced to act quickly, and create an initiative specifically surrounding the newly added tools. With TikTok blowing up during recently, he had to figure out how they would capitalize on it. To do this, he researched similar or popular brands and how they used TikTok and went from there.But majority of the time we talked about the new advancements in social media one video came to mind : there’s a Reel on the LA Sparks Instagram ( which does a great job in my opinion with using Reels to showcase their athletes personality’s) with Te’a Cooper dancing in various clips to Cardi B’s most recent single, Up. I thought about how without Reels, am I have not otherwise have seen Te’a Cooper or her personality. This really made me think how these technological advancements are used to reach more audiences and how different content can expose fans to different things. It dawned on me that these posts are marketing strategies created by people who work alongside TJ. In that moment, it had all come full circle. The content we see, the medium we see it in, and how we receive it is all strategically planned out.
Throughout the interview, TJ mentioned his faith in God and how he believed that his steps were ordered regardless of how everything turned, out ranging from FinanceU disintegrating, to him not receiving his first position with the NBA. Even looking at his Twitter page, his background picture is a SpongeBob meme that usually says “Imma head out” but instead says “Imma praise God”, with Matthew 6:33 verse quoted in his bio. This hit home for me, as I have always believed that God has a bigger plan for me, and that whatever is going to be for me, is already worked out in his will.
As we reached the conclusion of the interview, I wanted to ask him a few questions regarding the future for aspirants friends like me. I first asked what is something he knows now that he wish he he’d known before he started. He grinned mockingly, and recalled how he thought he knew everything, but looking back, wished he done more research and really took the time to understand how to go viral, and convey a story. I asked if he could go back, what is something he would tell himself, and he reply to research more and not to put so much pressure on his self, and to have fun. I asked if he had any advice for someone like me what would it be, and he gave me three mean tips:
1. The reoccurring theme here, make sure you research whether that other brands, or simply how to creatively produce content.
2. Start something on your own — to understand/ get practice, and to be apart of the community.
3. Another reoccurring theme here, have fun.
Overall, though I am still not completely set on what it is I want to do with my career, talking to TJ opened my mind to just the process. If he had been closed to just one thing, or disappointed by every closed door, he wouldn’t be where he is now- getting to watch and talk about sports on social media and get paid for it, something that most people do for free. It taught me to trust that with hard work (AND RESEARCH), I can achieve great things, and have fun while doing it.
