How a 40-Second Video Won March Madness

You better check your bracket, because University of Oregon basketball player Sedona Prince won March Madness this year with this TikTok.

The video shows the men's weight room at the NCAA tournament stocked with rows of training equipment. What did the women’s weight room get? A single rack of hand weights and a stack of yoga mats. In Prince’s words, “this needs attention.”

In less than 24-hours, the 40-second iPhone video went viral with 10.5 M views on TikTok, 17.5 M views on Twitter, and multiple features on networks such as CNN and ESPN.

A movement was born. Thousands of athletes went online to share their experiences, the San Antonio Spurs donned the jerseys of women’s basketball greats, and the world was shown that there is plenty of heavy lifting (no pun intended) still to be done to combat gender disparities in sports.

The NCAA quickly reacted, upgrading the women’s weight room and addressing other inequalities in the athlete’s meals and lodging. However, if you are thinking with your social media brain, we are left with a few lessons learned:

• Don’t underestimate your audience’s power. Anyone can be an influencer if they speak up, so listen to your audience’s needs and give back when you can.

• Everything is connected. Even though this video started on TikTok it went viral on every platform imaginable. Think about how your content is being interacted with across social media, not just the platform it is posted to.

• Don’t count Gen Z out. TikTok, which has 689 million monthly active users worldwide, has become the sounding board of a generation. Gen Z has grown up and it’s time that we recognize, value, and learn from their voices as consumers.