OutKick — the digital media company founded by Clay Travis — has seen strong growth on social media under the direction of Senior Producer Aaron Spielberg.
On YouTube, the outlet has nearly 1,750,000 subscribers. The company’s Facebook page has more than 375,000 followers, with its X account sitting at 338,000 followers. The digital media entity is just under 300,000 subscribers to its TikTok account, while the OutKick Instagram account is not far behind, as it rests with more than 200,000 followers. In total, the outlet had 1.6 million social actions between Facebook, X, and Instagram last month. That represented a 65% increase compared to December 2024. It also featured 21.2 million total video views between Facebook, X, and YouTube, up 129% compared to the previous month.
During the second installment of our Social Studies series, we asked OutKick Senior Producer Aaron Spielberg about the company’s growth in the space, how it has attracted so many followers with its digital video products, and how it has grown engagement on Facebook when the platform has shown such an interest in cracking down on publishers.
*Editor’s Note: Answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Garrett Searight: Let’s start on your thousand foot view of of social media as it relates to OutKick. What are the things that you guys prioritize the most from your social media efforts?
Aaron Spielberg: Well, I think from our social media side, it’s really two things. It’s user-generated content that features viral videos. And then it’s original show content. So we get people into the door with either one or the other, and they like what they see, they stick around, and that’s really the premise. I think, really, it goes the premise of everything, whether it’s user-generated content or it’s the show content. It really kind of all goes back to you.
What Clay (Travis) constantly talked about forever — and I think people lose sight of this — when they try to create contact or they’re running after clicks or what have you, the most important things that we do is just be funny, be smart, be original. But, really, the most important thing is just be authentic. If you can do all those things, the algorithm doesn’t have to be this crazy thing that people look at and go ‘Wow, the algorithm’s working for us’ or ‘It’s not working for us.’ People find it because it’s smart, original, funny, or authentic.
GS: Speaking of the algorithms, especially Facebook and Twitter have really made it clear they don’t necessarily love publishers anymore. and yet you guys get more engagement — especially on Facebook — than virtually anybody else. What has been your secret sauce to drive that engagement that so many other people have not been able to crack that code?
AS: Well, I think that’s easy. And it really does go back to what I was saying about being authentic. A lot of content that we do with the host, it’s reaction type of stuff. So if there are things that are happening that are going viral, we lean into that. If there are things that are happening — you’ll know this from radio — I remember talking to a lot of the talent that I used to work with and I was like ‘Hey just throw your feet up on top of the desk.’ I had talent that actually did that. Just speak to one person.
Let’s just say Clay’s watching the USA hockey game and there were moments in there that he really felt compelled and moved by. He turned around and created content. That content ends up on our social platforms. People like Ricky Cobb or Dan (Zaksheske) or Riley Gaines for that matter will turn the phone on themselves and just speak to whatever is moving them at the moment. That’s not something that they’re setting up and thinking ‘Oh, I’ve gotta do this.’ They feel compelled for this, and we turn the content around and it really resonates because people follow people. They follow brands.
Yes, they will follow OutKick as a brand as a whole and they want the talent that are on there, but they’re following those individuals. We really lean into the individual aspect of it and lean into the authenticity of what they deliver.
GS: When you get content like that or content from your shows, what does the process look like for you of going through and deciding what content works best for which platform?
AS: That’s a good question. I think that the process first starts out with what is in the mindset of what everyone is thinking. I don’t mean our producers or host — and yes, it’s important for our hosts, they’re the ones who authentic about it — but we really try to tap into what we think is trending at the moment or is on the top of people’s mind. The cool thing about Clay or Riley or Tyrus or really any of our hosts is that they look at something and it’s like they’ve unscrewed their head. They’ve turned 45° and then they screw their head back on and they give you this unique take that maybe hasn’t been thrown out there. It’s really just common sense stuff. So we’re not looking to try to twist something or create a narrative. We’re just trying to capture what is in the mindset of everybody in that given moment of time.
We’ll then go out and look for guests that might be able to speak to that, or people that we think or are interested in. You’d be surprised. I mean, not just because we are a center-right leaning platform, but we speak across the board to many different people. You wouldn’t think Bob Costas, or Charles Barkley, or Dan Patrick would be in the situations where they’re like ‘Oh, I gotta be afraid to go on with them because of whatever kind of content is.’ They’re coming on because they want to talk about the common sense pieces to the puzzle, whether it’s you know transgender athletes playing in women’s sports or what have you.
We will then take that piece of content, we then churn it out, we clip it up, we will take the longer form content — obviously, that plays better on YouTube because that’s where folks are going to watch in more of a long for format — and then will clip things for X that are obviously shorter more bite-size. It could be polls. Ricky Cobb has really done a great job with that from his roots of where he comes from Super 70s Sports.
And then Instagram, we have people like Tomi Lahren and we thrive in that area. We spread all those things out so it touches every touch point and the more you’re in those different spaces and on those different platforms, it all kind of combines to ‘This is the Tomi Lahren experience. This is the Dan Dakich experience.’ People see all that. They see the great content and they’re more likely to come back to OutKick.com to get as much of that as they can. Because if you’re a fan of any of those people, you really are searching out wherever you can find it. So you may be very specific to a certain platform, but if you know that there’s more content that exists elsewhere with those people that you like, you’re gonna gravitate to it.
GS: Speaking of YouTube, I wonder what you have found that definitely does work on YouTube. What drives video retention rate? What drives click-through rate and also maybe what hasn’t worked on YouTube?
AS: the things that work really well on YouTube for us are we don’t throw out 50 different things or just say ‘Ok, we’re gonna talking with so and so. We nail it down to one specific topic that folks are going to gravitate to because people want very specific things … When we really think about YouTube, we think about the process of the topic first, then we think about the thumbnail. The thumbnail is probably the biggest driver from a visual standpoint. We want that to stand out. We don’t want that to be something that’s just a picture of the host or screenshot of the show. And we want that to engage.
Then, the tiling of it’s very important because people are searching for very specific search words. Having the person’s name is a very important aspect to work with evoking an emotion. I can’t overemphasize that enough that. You want people to have a specific feeling. You want an emotion to be reached. That is the thing that gets people to click on it.
Once you get them to click on it, then the key with YouTube is that first 30 seconds. You have to really engage, whether it’s a show, or a clip, or whatever it is that you do, they have got to be brought in. If you can grab them for that 30 seconds, the likelihood the combination of duration and click-through rate is really what drives the algorithm to saying ‘Let’s share this with somebody else.’ So if we can capture those two things in for us, that video most likely is going to takeoff and it’s going to hit the algorithm in a way that gets it shared and gets it in the recommendation folder for other folks. Those are really the key things that we do. It helps resonate and push not just that individual show, or product, or clip. It really helps resonate it across the board and helps resonate OutKick cross the board.
GS: We talked about algorithm’s a little bit ago. How much you’ve seen those algorithms — whether it be YouTube Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. — changed in the social media world in the last couple of years?
AS: I could argue that it’s changed quite substantially in the last couple months. I mean you’ve seen what has happened. Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg and kind of the way they’re doing their fact-checking and really sort of being biased towards one side. That has been a challenge across some of the platforms. There have been censorship issues that we’ve dealt with, highly publicized specifically with an interview that we had with Tyrus and Donald Trump.
That’s something that continues to be a challenge. We’re not necessarily always playing on the same field, so we have to really navigate and figure out what it is that we can do and can’t do. It’s not because we’re saying anything that’s wrong or it’s factually incorrect. The content that we put out is straight common sense and I think everyone who would watch it would agree with that. You might not necessarily agree with every take like you wouldn’t you won’t agree with every columnist or every radio show host, but it’s still good content.
That is probably the one thing that is probably our biggest challenge but really, in the end, it’s just putting out great content and then it takes off on its own. If we can do that on a consistent basis, it really doesn’t matter what an algorithm tells us. It’s just gotta be fun, entertaining, and informative for for the audiences that we’re reaching out to in the platform we’re reaching out to.
GS: I think that was everything I wanted to tackle with you, Aaron. If there’s anything else you want to share, I’ll give you the floor.
AS: We’re really just trying to capture the attention the same way other startups and other places have done it. We’ve done a good job of it and I give a ton of credit to our entire staff for being able to do this on a regular basis. I’m pleased at the progress and I really do think that we are on the precipice of doing something that very, very few companies have done. And I really honestly do believe that we’re changing the narrative for the way people are looking at sports media, where culture and sports meet. I think we’re doing something that will eventually be looked back on and thought of in very, very high regard into the innovation of what we’re doing.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
