UFC Streamlines Social Media Operations with Socialie

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Fighting Social Media Chaos with Precision

UFC, the global leader in mixed martial arts, manages one of the most extensive social media operations in sports. With hundreds of millions of followers across platforms, UFC constantly produces and distributes high-quality content, engaging fans, athletes, and partners worldwide. UFC needed an efficient, scalable solution to streamline content delivery and meet audience demand.

The Challenge: Heavyweight Battle Against Manual Content Workflows

Eric Yee, UFC’s Social Media Director, handles content creation and distribution for UFC events, athletes, and partners. His role includes overseeing a complex operation that delivers event-driven assets, supports athlete engagement, and ensures alignment with UFC’s brand. The UFC’s manual processes for delivering content were time-consuming, inconsistent, and lacked scalability.

• Managing multi-platform content distribution. UFC handles thousands of media requests each month, but manual distribution across several platforms slowed their workflow. “Athlete social helps take content that our social team collectively has captured. It could be anything from face-offs to stylistic content or specialty shoots. And then we leverage Socialie to deliver that content to the athletes,” says Eric Yee.
• Streamlining athlete content. Without an efficient system, athletes struggled to manage social media posts, diluting the UFC brand impact. UFC needed to deliver pre-approved, branded content to athletes while maintaining individuality.  “Socialie is great for the athletes, because they don’t have to think about taking the photos. They don’t have to think about things like, ‘What should the hashtag be?’ ‘What should the copy be?’ That’s all delivered to them via however they sign up for it. Most of the time, it’s by text message,” explains Yee.
• Strengthening relationships with stakeholders. UFC’s social team worked tirelessly to deliver value to partners and sponsors but lacked an easy way to provide them with ready-to-post content, making the process inefficient and inconsistent. But now, explains Yee, “Our athletes are leveraging our expertise on social media to populate their feeds.”

“We don’t limit our athletes to just fighting. We try to show off their personality as well, and we empower them to do that through content capture and asset delivery.”

Eric Yee, Social Media Director, UFC

The Solution: Socialie Enters the Ring and Delivers a Winning Strategy

Before implementing Socialie by PhotoShelter, UFC’s workflow was slowed by operational inefficiencies affecting content distribution and athlete engagement. Socialie provided a streamlined solution that enabled UFC to achieve operational excellence.

• Automated content distribution for athletes. Socialie enables UFC to automate the distribution of on-brand content directly to athletes.  “Socialie is a one-stop-shop for them. They don’t have to think about it. They just hit review and send,” says Yee. This automation has reduced the time athletes spend managing their posts while ensuring brand consistency, allowing the team to focus on expanding reach.

• Building trust with athletes and partners. Socialie allows UFC to deliver valuable content to athletes and stakeholders, empowering them to grow their social media presence while fostering stronger relationships with UFC through consistent, high-quality media delivery. “It’s also great for the UFC as well. In return for our work providing content for media tune-in and all of that to our athletes, we’re building relationships with these athletes that we may see 3 or 4 times a year when it’s hard to build in-person relationships,” Yee adds.
• Expanding social media reach by an additional 289M+ followers. UFC champions and top athletes use Socialie to post UFC content across their personal channels, which expands reach exponentially. Every event now triggers a ripple effect across platforms, amplifying UFC’s content far beyond the main brand channels.

“We have groups set up in Socialie. It could be our active Power Slap fighters, it could be the fighters on the reality show, or it could be broken down by event. That way, we send a mass message – great for me, low effort – but each of those groups get their own specific tune-in assets… for them to post to their social media accounts, and they’re active in it.”

Eric Yee, Social Media Director, UFC

Socialie Powers UFC’s Victory in Content Distribution

Socialie has transformed UFC’s ability to distribute content effectively, engaging millions and strengthening relationships with athletes and partners. By solving their content distribution challenges, UFC is now positioned to scale even further.

“We work closely with a lot of partners, be it Monster, Prime Hydration, etc. So it’s huge for us to be able to create that content – we know it’s brand approved – and then highlight that individual brand’s product and send it off to that brand for them to really lean into the brand association and partnership. It couldn’t be any easier.”

Eric Yee, Social Media Director, UFC

Go Behind the Scenes with UFC’s Social Media Director