Inside The Screen With Jon Koob

SteelSeries is one of the well-known brands in the gaming industry. The Frederiksberg, Denmark based company makes several devices and equipment, the company has more than solidified its name in the game space. The company makes products for consoles, such as headsets, mice keyboards, mousepads, and controllers.

Last month, SteelSeries introduced the Arctis 7X wireless headset just in time for the release of the Xbox Series X the next generation of gaming. SteelSeries Global Director of Social Media, Jon Koob recently joined Inside the Screen with ONE37pm’s Aaron Dukes.

Dukes: How has 2020 been for you when it comes to creativeness?

Koob:  It all depends on your perspective on how you look at it and how you frame this year. It has been a year where I have recognized my privilege more than ever. I have been more in tune with things that I care about and the people I care about more than ever. 

Getting down to what matters to me helped me have freedom during my day job or daily interactions with people—being confident and understanding of what I want to be doing with my life and how I enjoy helping others in my life. 

It allows me to have a little more creative freedom to make a piece of content, send an email, and reply to a text. With everything that is happening, you do your best to help people, contribute to causes that want to contribute to, and have your voice heard in ways that you can make it heard. In all of that, you started to become more confident in yourself; at least, I become more confident in myself in my daily routine. 

Dukes: When you talk to your team about mistakes, what do you share with them?

Koob: If we are not making mistakes, we are not moving at the pace that we need to be. We need to be moving so fast or that we mess up every once in awhile, and we must be okay with that. The more transparent we are with our community when we mess up, the more freedom to give them content at scale.

Dukes: How do you get a job in the esports/Gaming industry?

Koob: When they ask me that question, the first thing I tell people has nothing to do with the type of education or the degree courses. I say go to Angel. Co and find a startup to work for because there are tons of esports startups.

You might not get paid the best but find a paid position. Sometimes there are some circumstances but find a paid job and work for a startup. But, working for a startup, especially in the game industry, you will feel so much pressure coming at you in so many ways that you will find out if that part of the industry is right for you, whether your work is right for you.

Because you are put in those pressure situations and cannot be comfortable, you cannot be content in your day to day work. If you expect to get a raise, grow, and expand your professional well-being. When you work for a startup, you are forced to do a lot of that. I experienced a lot of that. “Oh damn, I was going to get fired type of mindset into companies that I worked for in the past.

When I came into SteelSeries, I knew more about social [media] than anyone else in the company, and I knew that right away. I was able to take reigns right away, and I was off; that is because of the people who trusted me.

Dukes: What are your thoughts on TikTok because I feel it has not tapped into its real power?

Koob: It super green and young right now. The app still somehow has not gotten completely disgusting with ads. Somehow it has not been completely taken over by ads. They could easily have an ad after two to three swipes, and people would still be on it. There would not be any incriminating damage to retention or growth, in my opinion. It is the most addictive app and the way to consume content right now.

I knew [about] Musical.ly, which is more in my head of what TikTok is now. Musical.ly people are dancing and lip-synching, and it is for young girls that was essentially the stigma. There were a lot of people from Musical.ly that carried over to TikTok, but a lot of industries late into last year were relevant to TikTok.

It was not on my radar as something I should be on as a professional. We launched the SteelSeries account in December or January but did not start posting content heavily until late February or early March. We are already at 720k, and we did not have the Steel Series handle. We had to be RealSteelSeries because something else had the account. We were able to get that worked out and got verified. The amount of brand that we built through TikTok over the past ten months, we are reaching a demo that we are not organically reaching on any other platform.

Dukes: Do you think TikTok has impacted your platform more than other platforms [Instagram and Twitter]?

Koob: I’ll do a lot of mini-tests with TikTok specifically in terms of giving away things to drive people to other platforms or putting something in the comment section of someone else’s video. Go check something else out on our Instagram and say “Go comment X” on our last post on another’s influencer’s account from the Steel Series account. I will make it related to the video. Then see all the comments people are making from a comment we made on someone else’s page. Another thing we might do is put a 5% discount code in another TikTok bio that we do not promote anywhere else. 

With a bright mind and future, Jon Koob is sure to do big things in gaming. You can follow Koob on Instagram and Twitter.