Since graduating recently from Rice University, guest writer Juliette Richert is continuing her education by listening to as many podcasts about politics, culture, and society as she can get her hands on.

Given Aaron Rupar’s half a million Twitter followers, his work is obviously popular, but why? As a millennial, I haven’t turned on cable TV in more than 5 years. Like much of my generation and the country, I get my news from the Internet and social media. Using short videos to share news stories on his Twitter feed and in his writing with Vox, Rupar connects Internet and social media users to the world of TV watchers, shedding light on the filter through which much of America receives news and information.

In 2017, Rupar was working as a journalist with Center for American Progress and had only a couple of thousand followers. That number has since soared after his “John Kelly” post (as seen below) was retweeted more than six thousand times, the most retweets he had received up until that point. This successful tweet propelled Rupar from a meager 4K Twitter followers to nearly half of a million, a 10x increase in followers over the past 3 years.

John Kelly on Fox

Rupar is now an associate editor for politics and policy at Vox, an avid Twitter user, and self-labeled liberal. He’s refined his beat from politics to primarily Congress, the Republican party, and Trump. Rupar publishes short pieces for Vox nearly every day, designed to give context around current events. His quick response time, sense of humor, and easy-to-read writing style make Rupar a strong reporter. Rupar’s Twitter feed, which he updates more than 30 times a day, has a critical and often satirical take on politics and the White House.

His most popular tweet from each thread gives a brief look at what people found interesting or important, but his long threads give you the chance to dig into the details of the event minute-by-minute, without ever having to watch the whole thing. Rupar’s Twitter feed is fun to explore, and you can easily get lost in rabbit hole-threads. Along with entertainment value, his work provides access to video that many people might not see otherwise.

Scrolling through Rupar's feed

Rupar’s time on Twitter and his success as a journalist at Vox have a symbiotic relationship. His Twitter following has helped Vox by indirectly growing their audience and increasing traffic. In order to make his Twitter threads, Rupar has to trim down longer videos. This process allows Rupar to engage with news as he live-tweets and construct rough outlines of his written pieces for Vox. In his writing, Rupar frequently uses short videos pulled from his Twitter-feed to contextualize the topic, providing audio and visual context that is difficult to replicate with words alone.

“With Trump everything is a spectacle, so it lends itself to video.” - Aaron Rupar

Videos provide context for the viewer to experience and understand the news, according to Rupar. Rupar’s discovery of SnapStream in 2017 was well-timed with the presidency. Trump is the most frequent face seen on Rupar’s feed (rivaled now only by his new daughter, Mia). Trump’s wild oratorical style and polarizing statements certainly help Rupar catch the attention of his audience. However, Rupar is confident that when Trump leaves office (whether that be in 4 more years or a couple months), there will still be high demand for news clips on Twitter.

“It’s one thing to have an opinion on politics, but if you have the video with it…people like to see people saying things” - Aaron Rupar

Why are some people ditching TV and paying attention to shorter clips of news? News consumers feel pressed for time and are exhausted by the current news cycle, so shorter clips are a quick way to consume news. If a video isn’t interesting enough, I’ll skip around to find the highlights. Rupar basically does that work for you.

Social media is also crafted to keep us moving down the feed, consuming as many posts as possible. Instead of competing with other TV stations, reporters now compete with puppy videos and memes for their audience’s attention. Best to make your post eye-catching and to-the-point in order to grab back their attention. Plus, there’s something priceless about seeing things for yourself.

President Trump at a rally in September

Video isn’t going anywhere because it gives you and your audience the ability to make up your own mind. How are you giving your audience the context they deserve?

SnapStream 9.4 brings you a new clipping interface, pre-roll and post-roll branding on clips, integration with Kaltura, and many other bug fixes and improvements. You can see these new features in action by watching our on-demand webinar. Here’s what we’ve added and improved: 

A few of the highlights:

• New Clipping Interface 
• Pre-roll and Post-roll Branding on Clips 
• Kaltura Integration

New Clipping Interface 

SnapStream 9.4’s new, snappier clipping interface will look familiar to former SnappyTV users. It gives you more fine-tuned control of in and out points during clip creation. You can configure SnapStream to automatically create an out point once you pick an in point (you can customize this—for example, you can set the automatic out point to occur after 10 seconds each time). Then, refine that out point and you’re done. 

The software will also show you a zooming trackbar that automatically sizes to the length of that clip. You can then go forward or backward by frame or second. The in and out point thumbnails allow you to quickly preview the clip’s start and end frames. You can also loop the whole clip or loop the last 2 seconds. 

To begin, use your mouse or keyboard to select an in point on a video. 

Pre-roll and Post-roll Branding on Clips

Give your brand one look in one place. With SnapStream 9.4, you can easily add custom branding, such as your company’s video intro, to your clips—no need to spend time using an additional video editor.

Simply upload and save your desired brandings for pre-rolls and post-rolls. Then, select the specific brandings you want to use from a drop-down menu as you create clips. 

To get started, go to the “Admin” tab and choose “Brandings” on the left-hand menu.

Kaltura Integration 

Natively export your clips in SnapStream to Kaltura. Kaltura is our newest integration with an OVP. SnapStream now has native support for 14 cloud storage, OVP, CDN, and MAM services—and is always adding more based on customer requests. 

To start using our newest integration, go to SnapStream and set up Kaltura as an external account. Don’t use Kaltura, but are curious? Learn more.

More

SnapStream 9.4 has many other bug fixes and improvements, like updates to the clipping hotkeys and the option to auto-minimize task pop-ups. Please read the full release notes.

Schedule Upgrade to 9.4

(Usually 1 hour) 
SnapStream’s support team will perform the upgrade via a remote session.

Watch On-Demand Webinar: SnapStream 9.4

See SnapStream 9.4 in action. 

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Earlier this year, ESPN killed its WatchESPN App. Now, all of ESPN’s streaming content is bundled into the ESPN app.

You might have been using the WatchESPN App to screen grab content you could then post to your sports team’s social media page. You can’t do that with the main ESPN app—it detects when users are trying to screen grab content. However, there’s a way you can still clip and share your sports team’s memorable moments—with SnapStream.

Clip & Share Moments from Live Video & Broadcast TV  

With SnapStream, you can clip and share any moment from broadcast TV and your own live video feeds. Specifically, you can create screenshots and frame-accurate GIFs and video clips. Then, with just a few clicks, you can email that content to anyone, or instantly post it to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. 

Make Clipping & Sharing a Collaborative Process

If you and your colleagues are live tweeting one of your team’s games, you can do so collaboratively—for example, you can divide up the work so that certain people create clips, and others look at those clips and decide which ones to post. SnapStream makes it easy to have that kind of workflow. It enables users to set clip points, and create and save bookmarks of those clips. Then, your colleagues can access those bookmarks and choose which ones to post.

Crop Clips for Instagram & Snapchat

SnapStream makes having Instagram and Snapchat-ready posts easy. There’s no need to use an additional editing tool. You can create screenshots, GIFs, and video clips with square dimensions, 9:16 dimensions, 16:9 dimensions, and 4:3 dimensions right within SnapStream.

SnapStream makes live video and  broadcast TV social. Our technology lets users instantly capture, create, and share video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Major League Soccer, and the Arizona Coyotes.

Much of the national conversation about the 2020 presidential election happens on TV—and being able to search, track, and clip that conversation can give your election coverage a leg up. 

Find Exact Moments

Maybe you missed a candidate’s appearance on a news show, or simply didn’t catch a particular comment she or he made during a debate. With SnapStream, you can search through the closed captioning text and program guide data for all the TV shows you have recorded to instantly find the exact moments you’re looking for. 

You can search for a particular candidate’s name (such as “Bernie Sanders”), and even refine your search to find narrower matches (such as “Bernie Sanders” and “Elizabeth Warren”). 

Track Mentions with TV Alerts

With SnapStream’s TV Alerts feature, you can get consistent emails about the search terms that matter to you and your reporting. 

Each SnapStream TV Alert is made up of one or more search queries (ranging from simple to advanced). You can set up an unlimited number of TV Alerts, and dictate the frequency and time of day you get them.  

For example, you can set up TV Alerts for the search terms “Bernie Sanders,” and “Elizabeth Warren” to appear in your inbox every day at 9 AM. 

Additionally, you can send TV alerts to as many people as you’d like. 

Clip Videos for Increased Engagement on Social Media 

Did a candidate say something surprising on TV? Did a commentator or spokesperson make an interesting, insightful comment about the election? 

While you can write out a tweet or Facebook post quoting what was said, doing so takes away a lot of the nuance. Creating a video clip of that moment and sharing it on social media would be more powerful. Your followers would not only get to listen to what was said, but they’d also be able to glean additional context, such as tone and body language. 

They’d also be more likely to engage with your posts. On Twitter, for example, tweets with video get 10x more engagement than those without. 

With SnapStream, you can clip any moment from broadcast TV to create a video, GIF, or screenshot. You can then instantly share that moment to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. You can also vertically crop clips for sharing on Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok.

SnapStream makes broadcast TV searchable, and live video and broadcast TV social. Users can find any moment and mention on TV by searching closed captioning data and setting up TV Alerts. They can also instantly capture, create, and share video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Politico, CNN, and the Media Research Center. 

The deadline for finding a SnappyTV alternative is approaching. SnappyTV will shut down on December 31. Twitter LiveCut, the tool Twitter has replaced it with, has limited functionality. 

To keep your momentum on social media, it’s important to find a powerful SnappyTV alternative that enables you to record, clip, and share moments from live video and broadcast TV. 

With SnapStream, you can do everything you did with SnappyTV—and more. Here are three SnapStream-powered sports social media posts that got over half a million views. 

1) LSU Football's FB Clip of Marcus Spears's ESPN Appearance 

LSU Football alumnus Marcus Spears appeared on ESPN’s Get Up! show after the LSU Tigers won their first game against the Alabama Crimson Tide since 2011. Using SnapStream, LSU Football clipped his appearance on the show and posted it on its Facebook page. 

The post got more than 600,000 views, close to 9,000 shares, and almost 10,000 likes. 

2) The St. Louis Blues’ Tweet of the Stanley Cup Final

The moment many have waited a lifetime to see happen!!! Celebrate, St. Louis!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/xTzDHsiO8Z

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) June 13, 2019

In June 2019, the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup for the first time. 

Their social media team tweeted a video clip of the final few seconds of that fateful game—and the players hugging each other and celebrating their historic win. That tweet garnered 2.2 million views, more than 15,000 retweets, and close to 50,000 likes. 

3) SportsNet New York’s Tweet of a Quinnen Williams Moment

No comment @QuinnenWilliams 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/BIFB7BYQLc

— Jets Videos (@snyjets) August 3, 2019

During a press conference, Quinnen Williams, a defensive tackle for the New York Jets, had an awkwardly funny moment. 

SportsNet New York clipped and instantly posted that video on Twitter. It went viral, getting 3 million views, more than 7,000 retweets, and more than 28,000 likes. 

Looking for a SnappyTV alternative?  With SnapStream, you can ingest HLS and RTMP streams, natively export content to a variety of third-party services, record and search TV, and do a lot more. 

SnapStream Product Demo (watch now)

SnapStream makes live video and  broadcast TV social. Our technology lets users instantly capture, create, and share video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Major League Soccer, and the Arizona Coyotes.

SnappyTV is going away December 31, 2019—meaning users have just several weeks left to find an alternative (LiveCut, the tool Twitter is replacing SnappyTV with, has limited functionality). 

You should ask these three questions as you search for your new solution.

What kind of streams does this tool support? 

Depending on your organization’s needs, you might use either RTMP or HLS streams, or both. However, Twitter LiveCut doesn’t support HLS streams—it only supports RTMP streams. 

When doing your research, ask what streams the product you’re considering supports. Having the option to use multiple types of streams gives you and your team flexibility.

Does this tool have broad native support for CDNs and OVPs?

You might also want to be able to natively export the clips you create to a variety of third-party services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and YouTube. Twitter LiveCut does not support natively exporting to any third-party platforms. 

If you need to use OVP, CDN, and MAM services, make sure the tool you’re considering natively integrates with them. That way, you won’t have to resort to manually downloading clips and then uploading them to third-party services.

Does this tool record TV in addition to live video? 

Having recordings of broadcast TV in addition to recordings of your own video feeds can give you more content to use. You can bolster your organization’s social media accounts by creating and posting video clips, GIFs, and screenshots from your own feeds as well as from broadcast TV. 

Make sure that the tool you’re evaluating has a built-in Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to easily schedule recordings of different channels. Closed caption-based search is another powerful feature. It can make finding great content easy. 

For example, say a leader at your organization gets invited as a guest on a news program. A tool that enables you to search through the closed captioning data to find that TV appearance, create a clip of it, and share that clip to your organization’s social media accounts can ultimately lead to more engagement from your followers. 

Looking for a SnappyTV alternative?  With SnapStream, you can ingest HLS and RTMP streams, natively export content to a variety of third-party services, record and search TV, and do a lot more. 

SnapStream Product Demo (watch now)

SnapStream makes live video and broadcast TV social. Our technology lets users instantly capture, create, and share video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Politico, and the Arizona Coyotes. 

In July 2019, Twitter announced that it would be sunsetting SnappyTV by December 31, 2019, and replacing it with LiveCut, which is now part of its own Media Studio. 

If you’re looking for a SnappyTV replacement for your social media team, SnapStream might fit your needs. We’ve been making TV social since 2015. Here are some of the features our hundreds of customers, including BuzzFeed, Politico, and Talking Points Memo, use to share TV and live video to Twitter, Facebook and a variety of other OVPs and CDNs.

Tweeting and More Direct Social Sharing

Using SnapStream to tweet a moment from ESPN. 

With SnapStream, you can clip a video or create a screenshot or GIF and instantly share it to your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts—all within one interface. No need to manually download a clip or open a new tab. 

You can customize permission settings to control which users have the ability to share content to your organization’s social media accounts. 

Editing Tools

Using SnapStream to vertically crop a clip to a 9:16 aspect ratio. 

You can vertically crop clips within SnapStream for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. You can crop clips to a number of dimensions—square, 9:16, 16:9, and 4:3. 

And regardless of which social media channel you want to push your content to, you can use SnapStream to add watermarks (such as your organization’s logo) and meme text.

TV Search and TV Alerts 

Searching for TV mentions of the term "Microsoft" with SnapStream. 

Need to find an exact moment of TV? SnapStream’s TV Search uses closed captioning text and program guide data for all the TV shows you’ve recorded to instantly find “a needle in a haystack” on broadcast TV. 

SnapStream’s TV Search can comb through your entire library in seconds (even if your recordings go back for years). The advanced language algorithms correct the transcripts and make them more readable. They also identify syntax clues that make your search more reliable and useful. 

You can search for your organization’s name, the name of a public figure, and more. You can also refine your search using boolean and other operators (for example, you can search “White House” or “Oval Office.”) 

If you want to keep track of a particular keyword, such as “Houston Rockets,” you can create a TV Alert and get a notification in your inbox whenever that keyword is mentioned on TV.

Integration with 3rd Party Services

The 3rd party services SnapStream supports. 

With SnapStream, you can get your video files where they need to be by natively exporting them to a variety of cloud services. 

SnapStream has native support for a broad set of cloud storage, OVP, CDN, and MAM services: 

• Box.com 
• Dropbox 
• Google Drive 
• OneDrive
• Google Cloud Storage
• Amazon S3
• Azure Blob Storage
• YouTube 
• Vimeo
• Ooyala 
• Brightcove 
• Sony Ci Media 
• Frame.io

After you push your video files to a cloud service, you can archive them to save storage space within SnapStream.

Workflows

An overview of how SnapStream's Workflows feature works. 

Workflows in SnapStream let you save time by swiftly automating tasks using simple dropdown menus. 

You can configure Workflows to trigger on certain events (such as “Recording Finished” or “Clip Created”) and then take a sequence of actions, such as moving or copying a file, or exporting a file to a third party cloud storage provider. 

SnapStream Product Demo (watch now)

SnapStream makes TV social. Our technology lets users instantly capture, create, and share HD quality video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Politico, and CNN.

In July 2019, Twitter announced that it would be sunsetting SnappyTV by December 31, 2019, and replacing it with LiveCut, which is now part of its Media Studio. Both tools let you create clips from live or recorded feeds, and also let you directly share clips to Twitter.  

However, there are a few differences between the two tools as well (note: we aren't covering other tools, such as SnapStream, in this post. You can learn more about SnapStream's features here). 

Twitter LiveCut Only Lets You Directly Share to Twitter

It’s important to post your content to a variety of social media channels, so you can reach different types of audience members (for example, Instagram users tend to be younger). 

SnappyTV would let you directly push your content to a variety of social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. However, LiveCut will only let you directly share videos to Twitter. If you want to share a video you created with LiveCut to another social media platform, you’ll have to download the video file and manually post it, which will delay how fast you can get your content to Facebook and YouTube.

You Can't Create GIFs and Screenshots with Twitter LiveCut

GIFs and screenshots are some of the most popular types of content to use on social media. They help add variety to your social media strategy—and a great GIF can go viral and become part of the online conversation. 

While SnappyTV would let you create GIFs and images in addition to video clips, LiveCut only lets you create and share video clips.

Twitter LiveCut Doesn't Support CDNs and OVPs

Third-party Content Delivery Networks and Online Video Players like Brightcove and Ooyala are integral for many organizations. While SnappyTV supported a few different CDNs and OVPs, LiveCut does not support any third-party platforms. 

That means that with LiveCut, anytime you want to upload a clip to a third-party CDN or OVP, you’ll have to download it and manually do so.

Twitter LiveCut Doesn't Support HLS Streams

Your organization might use a variety of content stream formats, including both RTMP and HLS streams. 

You can ingest both RTMP and HLS streams in SnappyTV. However, with LiveCut, your only option is to use RTMP streams.

SnapStream makes TV social. Our technology lets users instantly capture, create, and share HD quality video clips, GIFs, and screenshots to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, as well as create square and vertical clips for Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. SnapStream's customers include BuzzFeed, Major League Soccer, and the Arizona Coyotes. 

SnapStream Product Demo (watch now)

SnapStream 9.3 brings you clipping across recordings, new task notifications, 3x playback in the web player, and more than 75 bug fixes and improvements. You can see these new features in action by watching our on-demand webinar. Here’s what we’ve added and improved: 

A few of the highlights:

• Clipping Across Recordings 
• New Task Notifications 
• 3x Playback

Clipping Across Recordings

SnapStream 9.3 lets you clip across recordings without missing a frame. Did your show start early or late? No need to worry. As long as you’re recording a feed continuously, you’ll get a merged timeline in the player. 

To get started, load the recordings you want in the player and clip across them. The result? A seamless clip from point to point.

New Task Notifications 

The revamped notification system in SnapStream 9.3 lets you minimize, dismiss, or even retrieve tasks later. You can control how much of your screen notifications cover. 

To minimize a notification, click the “-” bar on the top-right pane.

3x Playback

Save even more time watching clips with 3x playback in SnapStream 9.3. 

Every single frame will play at 3x the speed. And the pitch corrected audio means you won’t hear chipmunk voices. 

To play a clip at 3x the speed, go to the playback speed settings in the player and select “3x.”

More

SnapStream 9.3 has over 75 other bug fixes and improvements, like improved HLS recording. Please read the full release notes. 

Schedule Upgrade to 9.3

(Usually 1 hour) 
SnapStream’s support team will perform the upgrade via a remote session.

Watch On-Demand Webinar: SnapStream 9.3

See SnapStream 9.3 in action. 

It’s not enough to post a video clip directing fans to a livestream

If you're part of the digital media team for the athletics department at a college or university, it’s likely that you’re working with restrictions—your conference probably has an agreement with a television rights holder (such as ESPN) that limits how many videos can go on social media feeds while a game is live. And if you work in pro sports, you know that some leagues have their own posting rules. 

Todd Politz regularly navigates those types of restrictions. As the director of digital media at Louisiana State University Athletics, he oversees best practices for all of the social media accounts for the school's 21 varsity teams. 

For each of those sports, there are one or two individuals who actually make the social media posts, as well as multiple others (such as photographers, videographers, and secondary communications assistants who are clipping from SnapStream) who contribute to content during a live event.

Throughout his 20 years at LSU Athletics, Politz has seen social media change how fans engage with their favorite college sports teams. He’s also mastered how to smartly work within the social media restrictions LSU Athletics faces as part of the Southeastern Conference’s agreement with ESPN so he can create genuine connections between fans and the LSU Tigers and Lady Tigers. 

Here are his top tips on how you can do the same for your college or university’s athletics department to drive your fandom.

Use Video Clips to Drive Fans to the Livestream

Ladies and gentlemen, @josh_smith8 with the game-tying home run! #GeauxTigers🐯

💻: https://t.co/gcTZ1gI5k6 pic.twitter.com/3xxozYC4Rz

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) May 5, 2019

A Twitter post with a video clip of an LSU Baseball game and a link to the livestream.

Specifically, ESPN dictates that the Southeastern Conference schools in its agreement can only post 10 videos and GIFs per live game for each sport, with the exception of football and men’s basketball, for which schools can’t put any videos or GIFs directly to their social media accounts during the live event window. 

Politz notes that he and his team do their best to promote ESPN’s livestreams of their events. Typically, they’ll include a link to the livestream on WatchESPN (or the platform the game is being played on) when they post to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. 

And although some sports at LSU can’t be streamed live, Politz says “there are certain allowances ESPN makes to let us use clips from a game that is going on as part of our social media strategy.” 

Politz often uses SnapStream to clip parts of a live game and put those clips on different social platforms to drive fans “to either the livestream or the fact that an event is going on.”

A look at the social media universe of LSU Athletics.

Be Selective About the Clips You Post

OH MY HILLIARD!!! The freshman with no concern for the moment. He strikes out his career-high NINTH batter to strand the bases loaded.
LSU 1, MSU 0 https://t.co/XLLEs9KofD pic.twitter.com/qI7xWvdcct

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) March 31, 2018

A video clip LSU Baseball posted on its Twitter account during a a game. 

Politz notes the importance of being selective about the clips you post. Just because you can post 10 videos per live game for some sports doesn’t mean you should. He brings up LSU baseball as an example. 

“It’s rare that we will have 10 really strong moments in a game,” he explains. “Of course, we’re trying to not dilute our feed with every strikeout.” 

He and his team look for moments that they think fans will appreciate, such as home runs, touchdowns, and other game-changing plays that put an LSU Athletics team in the lead. 

Be the First to Get your Game Clip out There

WHATEVER IT TAKES 😱 pic.twitter.com/mlKxPwqfQM

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) May 23, 2019

LSU was the first to post this video clip (ahead of other organizations). 

Politz says that he and his team can put out a clip of a memorable moment within 45, 60 seconds of it happening and engage fans. 

“By the time they're finished cheering and enjoying it with their friends, we can have it where they can relive it on social media.” 

However, he stresses that getting the clip out quickly isn’t enough. You have to be the first to post the clip. Timeliness matters. 

“If you get your video out there first, you’re probably going to have the best opportunity for it to go viral,” he says.

Use GIFs to Turn Small Moments into Big Ones

The Baton Rouge boy making plays already... @JrStingley pic.twitter.com/5oPAnkKc7I

— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) April 6, 2019

An example of a GIF on LSU Football's Twitter account.

Capturing and posting the “little things” that happen during a game can be extremely impactful. 

“You can have a small moment that we create a GIF out of that is very ordinary,” Politz says. “However, it ends up having a big impact.” 

He brings up a hypothetical example. If LSU’s baseball players stack hats on top of one of their teammates in the dugout, it would be great to create a GIF out of that moment. 

“They stack 30 hats on top of each other, and you make a very quick GIF out of that to talk about baseball traditions or superstitions or things like that and use it not necessarily right after it happens, but later on, to talk about [it] being…. time to rally,” Politz says. “You can use something like that to re-engage what was a great moment from a previous rally into today's game.”

And sometimes, certain moments that happen in a game can go on to define a narrative amongst fans, like the “rally possum” baseball game LSU played against the University of Arkansas in 2016. LSU was losing when suddenly, a baby possum ran onto the field. After LSU facilities staff captured the possum, LSU ended up winning the game. In fact, they won 12 out of their next 14 games.

“It’s still referenced when our team is behind,” Politz notes. 

He says he and his team use SnapStream to create GIFs as much as they use it to create video clips. One benefit of GIFs? 

“You can hold onto those moments that will be instantly recognizable to your fanbase, but you can use them two, three years later, and they still resonate.” 

At SnapStream, we make video social, whether it's from TV or an in-stadium feed. We're what LSU Athletics and other college athletics and pro sports teams use to grow their fandoms by instantly capturing, creating, and sharing high-quality video clips, GIFs, and images to a variety of social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.