We recently connected with Robyn Swaby & Kiara Slaton and have shared our conversation below.
Robyn & Kiara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
At She Hoops Elite, we hope that our legacy will forever be recognized as the club that brought women’s basketball back to South Florida. We are committed to creating a community for all experienced female players that have a passion for the game. Through our endeavors with local partners, vendors, players, and enthusiast, She Hoops Elite will always be a name affiliated with safe playing environments, great competition, and the place where women can always come to stay in the game.
Robyn Swaby, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
She Hoops Elite Women’s Basketball Club provides multiple platforms for female basketball players here in South Florida. We are committed to creating opportunities for every player to stay in the game by providing players with continuous opportunities to stay active in leagues, open runs, exhibition games, camps, and clinics. This allows them to play with other women of their own skill and elevated caliber in an organized, fun, and competitive setting while continuing to play the game that they love.
Owners, Robyn Swaby and Kiara Slaton, collectively bring more than 16 years of experience within the Business, Accounting, Finance, and Sports Industry. Having held multiple roles in prestigious collegiate institutes as players, coaches, recruiters, and trainers, these two women understand the industry of women’s basketball. They recognized the deficit in platforms for women to play organized basketball post-graduation and welcomed the opportunity to pool resources and talent; Thus a company was born with a vision to create such a place.
As an elite women’s basketball club, we nurture women to be in sync with their destiny. Whether they are driving right or left, shooting or dribbling; they are in control. The best thing that brings our company together is the various outlets and the opportunities that we provide for women to participate and be productive within their community. Our basketball programs bring women together and empower them to be the strong pillars within our community. She Hoops Elite motivates these women to a level of excellence that is far above the rest. We are proud to be known as the club that brought women’s back to South Florida.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Our marketing team has worked diligently to grow our social media presence over the past 6 years to a following of 14.7K followers on Instagram @shehoopselite. Most recently, our most viral post features a reel from our 2021 SHE League Summer Shootout that hit our peak engagement number of 1.3 million views.
We utilize our social media in order to feature and highlight our players, platforms, mission, and supporting organizations. Each year we’ve found new and innovative ways to advertise our company to our followers to ensure that our message and our mission hits our target market.
One of the most important tips to building your social media presence is to be consistent in the quality of your content. If you were to ask the team, consistency is the number one key to increase followers and engagement. It’s great to capture pictures and videos from events, but without a catchy caption or posting during peak times of the day your content may or may not reach our intended audience.
Automation apps and social media calendars all played a huge part is creating this routine posting schedule. You have to know what type of content your audience wants to see. We’ve connected all of our social media platforms to be consistent with one another and its catered heavily to the wants and needs of our audience.
Have you ever had to pivot?
The biggest challenge in our career began in March of 2020 with the announcement of COVID-19. Lockdowns and quarantine mandates changed the way we were able to interact with our peers and engage in physical, in-person contact. We no longer had the luxury of working out at the gym or shooting hoops on the court but we still have 400+ women looking to us for their fitness needs and wants so we had to get creative!
She Hoops Elite was no stranger to a challenge and we immediately brainstormed on new and innovative ways for our community to engage with one another. During quarantine, we launch our SHE FIT Instagram Live Series which highlighted one of our players every week leading us through a fun and engaging virtual workout. Due to the high number of participants, we also launched our SHE ASKS series where we interviewed one of our members and highlighted their accomplishments or business both on and off of the court.
Our inability to gather not only gave us the opportunity to connect with other local women’s basketball organizations of course, but it also created a platform to collaborate with other organizations across the nation.
The bonds that we’ve created from the pandemic experience, continues to play a part in our growth physically and virtually. Keeping our community engaged is one of the main reasons She Hoops Elite was started, so no matter the obstacle thrown our way, we will always find a way to keep women in the game!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.shehoopselite.com
- Instagram: @shehoopselite
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SheHoopsElite/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shehoopselite/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shehoopselite
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtpTgp18uZOpMsYSXkAoKoA
Image Credits
Kiara Slaton, Hope Mayes