2 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
How the Giants' social-media team, online sports space trailblazers, keep and grow audience
Always on the go, bouncing from platform to platform, the San Francisco Giants ' social-media department is a little bit of everything, a creative whirl constantly keeping fans informed and entertained.
For a discipline so relatively new, though, the Giants' social-media team is borderline venerable. It was among the first in pro sports to jump into interactive spaces on the internet and has a trail of defunct or obsolete sites to prove it: Giants Tumblr. Vine. Foursquare check-ins.
'We put Lou Seal on MySpace as a rogue,' Giants vice president of brand development and digital media Bryan Srabian said. 'MLB quickly shut that down.'
Srabian started off as a one-man online band in 2010 after the team realized that several departments had social media accounts but nothing that represented the Giants as a team. MLB signed off on a test run.
'We knew we needed to be on social media because Twitter is down the street and our fans were maybe more tech-savvy than some,' Srabian said. 'We really were the first team, so I was tasked with kind of figuring out: what does that mean?
'It was a fun period of people making their brands seem fun. I felt like, 'Well, this is the next generation of connection to the team — and maybe their first connection is through social media.''
The Giants joined Twitter, then Facebook and Instagram. 'I think there were five people working at Instagram at the time,' Srabian said. 'It was a lot of trial and error, but there was this feeling of you don't want to miss out because the early adopters saw a lot more success.'
It didn't hurt that the Giants were beginning their run of three titles in five years at the same time. With fan engagement skyrocketing — Twitter's Jack Dorsey attended the Giants' first tweetup — and sponsors requesting cross-promotions on the team's official accounts, the social-media department doubled in size by 2013 — to two people.
Now Srabian runs a department of seven that flourishes on a dozen platforms, including X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and SnapChat. The Giants' social-media team is behind the scenes at every home game and almost every road game, providing video snippets and packages, interviews, news, the occasional meme and — now and then — ticket discounts.
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'We've moved beyond the point where it's a luxury — it's beyond that,' Srabian said. 'It's a necessity.'
Teams don't just generate interest and resulting ticket and merchandise sales via social media, they also collect valuable data that helps to tailor ads and offers to individual fans, and the reach is international. For Spanish-speaking fans, the Giants have three Gigantes accounts, and Jung Hoo Lee 's interpreter, Justin Han, helps with social media posts for the Korean audience.
@sfgiants Follow Jung Hoo Lee around for a day in the life at Spring Training #MLB #Baseball #DITL ♬ original sound - San Francisco Giants
The department's work spans marketing, community relations and public relations and weaves in aspects of journalism, history, comedy and visual arts. Social media might be the most creative and most adaptable department in the organization as well as the most collaborative, working with the Giants' team photographers, Suzanna Mitchell and Andy Kuno, graphics, design and SFG Productions.
Dreams the way we planned 'em
If we work in tandem
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 21, 2025
Across a dozen platforms, the Giants strive for a consistent voice, which can be tricky given the many accounts and the larger staff size. There are some guidelines — keep things positive, light, conversational — but nothing is too onerous.
'We're always trying to find the balance between super funny, cutting-edge stuff and staying true to the Giants' brand, which is very classy,' said Travis Hall, the team's senior social-media coordinator and TikTok authority.
Unlike some teams, the Giants prefer not to tweak or antagonize their opponents much. When they do, it tends to be subtle. After the Dodgers took the lead in the NL West in 2021, for instance, MLB posted a fireworks graphic and 'we pocketed that one,' social media director Jen Eisenmann said. 'Once we won the NL West at the end of the season, we copied the graphic pretty much exactly and posted it.'
'It was one of those 'if you know, you know' moments,' Srabian said.
Even with less snark than many other sports social-media accounts, the Giants' team must deal with the negative aspects of the internet. Official team accounts make obvious targets for rival fans, or, in the case of the A's, the team's own former fans. The Giants never have turned off comments, as the A's did after announcing their planned move to Las Vegas, but there is still enough ugliness among the responses that it can take a toll.
'The first few years, that bugged me, but there's nothing we can do to change it no matter how nice or friendly we are,' Hall said. 'Even when you're winning, you'll still have people who are negative — but the good thing is you'll see in comment sections that fans will police themselves.'
'We don't feel that every negative comment or troll has to be acknowledged,' Srabian said. 'The joke in social media is when someone doesn't like something, it used to be 'fire the intern' and now it's 'fire the admin! ' So there's a lot of that, but the fans always come first and you want to make sure you're listening to your fans if they have legitimate concerns.'
One thing that the social-media department strives for is invisibility, trying to glide through the dugout and around the field without getting in anyone's way or in any camera shots. They keep joshing tabs on co-workers' inadvertent appearances on postgame shows or newspaper photos. Hall heard about it the most when a reddit forum confused him for Buster Posey after a game ('That was bad,' Hall said, 'but at least I was dressed nice.') Chris Bowersox, the team's social-media manager and YouTube ace, used to be mistaken for former GM Scott Harris.
Giants players quickly grow to trust the social-media staff, who spend time with the team during the spring and go on the road during the season. Patrick Bailey OK'd a 'Day in the Life' segment with Hall for TikTok and Instagram. Lee, Mike Yastrzemski and Luis Matos went out for Korean barbecue together — with Han interpreting — for a YouTube feature. Players and coaches played a 'Flip Cup' game on TikTok for Hall this spring, 'and that's the hardest I've ever laughed behind a camera,' he said.
@sfgiants No matter how many failed flip cups life throws at you, keep flipping until you succeed #LifeLessons #FlipCup #Determination ♬ original sound - San Francisco Giants
For inspiration, the department keeps an eye on what other pro teams are doing with their accounts, especially if something goes viral, but the Giants just as likely to draw ideas and references from pop culture or fashion, art or food trends — or social influencers, many of whom the team welcomes to the park during the season.
'I think the best, most well-rounded social media people aren't only baseball fans,' Eisenmann said. 'If you have other interests, that's a great way to attract a different audience.
'The baseball fan is already going to follow the Giants and is engaging with our content. We want people who might not otherwise be coming to games to see our posts and say, 'Oh, that looks like fun! ''
