Marc Jiang: YouTuber, Podcaster, and #HopkinsEntrepreneur
This is part three of our #HopkinsEntrepreneur series, which will be featuring non-traditional entrepreneurs in our highlights during July-August. The series is TCO Labs’ contribution to expanding the definition of entrepreneurship and bringing awareness to different ways young innovators can bring their ideas to life.
Many college students are thrilled when they build an Instagram with a few thousand followers. In that case, Marc Jiang certainly has a lot to be proud of: hundreds of thousands of people turn to him for the hottest news in the NBA via his Youtube, Instagram, and Podcast, the Swish Factor.
What started as a passion project has become a social media empire for Marc, a Junior studying Psychology and Marketing at Johns Hopkins University. Given the demands of academics, extracurriculars, and a social life, Marc’s ability to amass such a following is impressive in and of itself. However, what really makes him stand out to his fans is his seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of the NBA.
Given that the NBA is thought by some to surpass football as America’s sport of choice over the next decade (largely due to the controversies the NLF has been embroiled in), there are no shortage of fans eager to hear Marc and his co-host, Franco, analyze games, draft picks, and NBA drama.
Marc is the perfect mix of thought-leader, social media guru, and #HopkinsEntrepreneur. Here is the story of The Swish Factor, in his own words:
Tell us the story behind The Swish Factor.
I spent all of my time in high school doing three things: studying, watching basketball, and listening to other people talk about basketball. Midway through Freshmen year at Hopkins, I decided to start putting my thoughts out to the world. I started a basketball podcast where I could distribute long-form content and an Instagram page for short-form content. The podcast kept failing and the Instagram page kept growing.
Three months later, I decided to quit podcasting and start making YouTube videos. My YouTube channel “MDJ” soon proved to be a massive success, accumulating 20,000 subscribers within three months. With a newfound audience on YouTube, I relaunched the podcast as “The Swish Factor NBA Podcast,” and rebranded the Instagram page as @swishfactor.
This time around, the podcast grew steadily as I promoted it through my existing audiences on YouTube and Instagram. “The Swish Factor NBA Podcast” currently has a 5.0 rating with over 100 reviews on iTunes.
How did you get The Swish Factor brand off the ground?
I had no budget, no long-term partner and no business knowledge in the beginning, so all the marketing I did was intuition. I utilized my network of friends on Facebook to help spread a post announcing the launch of the podcast. I remember personally messaging about thirty people just asking them to share the post. The video attached in the post accumulated 2,000 views in two days. However, very few people started listening to the podcast because of it; most people who saw the post weren’t interested in basketball to begin with.
On Instagram, I simply created a page and started posting content: memes, parodies, highlights, artwork, etc. I used popular basketball hashtags like #ballislife or #NBA to find random people who might be interested in my page. Then I would get their attention by either liking their posts or following them, all in hopes of a “follow-back.”
Slowly but surely, I built the page from zero followers to 10,000 in three months. After that, many of my posts started hitting the explore page on Instagram and I started getting consistent, organic growth. I also began collaborating with other basketball pages of similar following size, intermingling audiences with similar interests.
What has been the biggest challenges you have faced with your journey so far?
This sounds corny since it’s what every self-help business guru says, but my biggest challenges have always been inner challenges. When you have an idea, the initial phase is always exciting. But the excitement slowly starts disintegrating once the novelty fades and you realize how much more work needs to be done. Here’s an example from personal experience:
“Hey I want to start a podcast. Wouldn’t that be awesome? It can’t be that much work. Oh wait, I need to get recording equipment. I need to find a quiet place to record on campus. I need to figure out how to get the podcast onto iTunes and Google Play. What is an RSS feed? Why do I have to tag my audio file? How in the world do I market an amateur podcast that has zero listeners and is hosted by a kid in college?”
When the tasks started piling up and the results didn’t come, it was hard to not give up. Luckily, my motivation for doing this (initially) didn’t depend on money, fame or “results.” It was just to share my thoughts with the world.
What are your next steps for The Swish Factor, and what is your dream for it?
During these past two years every long-term plan I’ve attempted to make has been quickly derailed by sudden opportunities and roadblocks, so I don’t have a long-term plan for Swish Factor or any of my online entrepreneurial projects. I’m keeping my eyes open for ways to expand my audience even further, through collaborations with other basketball content producers and companies.
What advice would you give to student entrepreneurs who are looking to start a podcast or fan following?
There’s a lot we can “get away with” as entrepreneurs. We can get away with not having enough money or not having much experience, but we can’t get away with time. Building something from nothing takes time, and it takes work. Time is a zero-sum game, so spending time building something means spending less time on something else. I’m not the one to tell you what to spend less time doing because I don’t know you and I’m not living your life.
The only thing I would universally caution against is sacrificing sleep long-term. It’s just a bad idea. Don’t do it. Everything else is on the table in my opinion: family, friends, video games, parties, academics, club sports, rewatching “Game of Thrones” every weekend, dog video compilations on YouTube, etc. Some of these you would never even think to sacrifice, and that’s ok. Just know that you will have to sacrifice something. And be prepared to do so.
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Follow Marc and The Swish Factor to stay up to date about everything NBA:
YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/mdjiang
@swishfactor: https://instagram.com/swishfactor
Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/y9ywtbja
