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Joining the Jazz halfway through this past season, Angie Treasure had the opportunity to take what she had learned at her previous jobs, mix it with her involvement inside NBA Twitter and the fact that she has lived in Utah her whole life to produce a voice on Twitter that would become known across the industry.
Like fellow Jazz member Donovan Mitchell, Angie’s rookie campaign was about learning, developing, and then dominating. A month after the Jazz got knocked out of the NBA Playoffs by the Houston Rockets, Treasure opens up about landing the job with the Jazz, how to build a unique voice on social media, and why it is okay to take risks. Edited highlights appear below:
Getting Her Start In Social Media (19:22)
“I have kind of a weird winding road into social media. I was an English major at Weber State University and when I graduated, I couldn’t find a job. So, I worked as a florist for a year and a half and started up Twitter as a thing to do on the side.
Me and my oldest sister needed something in common because we tend to butt heads because we are about 10 years apart and so we started talking about the Jazz. So I got on Twitter and slowly kind of became part of Jazz Twitter. Then, I got a job at a local blogging company which turned into a job at a local news station where I did content. Then, they kind of gave me the reins for their social and from there I moved over to the radio station, owned by the Jazz where I was the digital director there. A year and a half into that job, this job opened up, so I applied and six interviews later they made a decision and decided to hand the reins over to me.”
On Taking Risks (34:00)
“It was like one in the morning and I @’d Vivant Arena, which is where we play our games and just said, ‘Do we have tunnels?’ I thought just because I @’d them that maybe it wouldn’t get picked up or maybe it would, but it blew up pretty quickly and then ended up on The Jump. Some people were like you’re going to get in trouble for that, but the team president came in and gave me a fist bump, so I felt I felt okay about it. There is that really nervewracking feeling though when you hit send and you’re like, well this could go either way. I also feel like that’s how you know you’re doing your job, right? If you’re super safe, no one’s going to talk about you.”
Social on the Sidelines is Presented to You By:
On Hiring Personalities and Anonymity (38:44)
“So I think in the past, and maybe this is the attitude with some teams, is that team twitter should be anonymous and it is, but I also think teams are hiring people with a known internet presence. I think it’s okay to know that I run @utahazz. I don’t know if anonymity has as much value as we once thought it did. I think it should be clear that it still has team objectives, but to me it’s still like a team broadcast hiring talent. You should have someone behind the rains who maybe has a little bit of a name of their own.”
On Teachable vs. Non-Teachable Skills (42:56)
“I would always hire someone that gets something that’s kind of intangible and hard to teach. I don’t know how you would teach someone, ‘Hey, here’s how you develop a Twitter voice.’ Either you know how to do it or you don’t. You have to hire people for their strengths and then decide whether or not they’re teachable and can figure things out on the fly. I think that’s what the Jazz did with me. They knew I’d have to learn all the new software, and how to cut things together, but I figured it out fine. It’s the other things that it’s harder to teach people.”
On the One Thing She Wish She Would Have Known Starting Out (51:37)
“My first season was a little unique because I came in and I was automatically very concerned with doing everything and I think I would have told myself it’s okay to delegate a little bit. This is my first time ever managing a team and I think I wanted to learn how to do everything so I could do it all and I also wanted to prove that I wasn’t dead weight in this weird way. So, I think if I could go back, I would say, ‘Hey, don’t burn yourself out.’ Like it’s okay to take a night game off. It’s okay to trust your team with more responsibilities.”
