Want to grow an audience without gaming the system? Carolyn and Erin sat down with coach and creator Alex Chan to unpack why consistency beats clever hacks, how engagement now outranks follower counts, and the simple ways tennis pros and niche creators can turn content into real opportunities.

Alex has been a tennis content creator for over a decade, is a PTR certified coach, and provides brand marketing and social media consulting. In addition, he worked at USTA Mid-Atlantic for 13 years.

You can learn more about Alex or contact him at the following: 

Website: www.alexchantennis.com

Media Kit: Click Here

Socials: Instagram | Amazon | TikTok | LinkedIn

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A Transcript of our Conversation with Alex Chan About Tennis Content Creation

Carolyn: 0:07
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin. And this is part two of our episode with Alex Chan. Alex worked for USTA Mid-Atlantic. He’s a coach and he’s also a tennis content creator. If you want to learn more about his background and how he became a tennis content creator, please go back and check out part one. But here is part two.

Erin: 0:27
We’re now starting to, you know, do the types of stuff that you do and grow an audience. But how have you been successful at growing that audience? Is it just because you were in the space so early? Is it your stuff is just, are you going viral?

Carolyn: 0:39
Like, you know, is it because you’re likable?

Erin: 0:41
I mean you’re super.

Alex: 0:42
What was that? Um I mean, I would say like uh just being a space for a while. I I wouldn’t say that’s a benefit, actually, because I you know I have grown audience, but like uh you know, over time people just your accounts they they drop out, they become become inactive. So like I think there was a period of time where I was like, okay, I feel like my engagement could be stronger, but it’s not matching what I’m thinking. I think it’s because of that. And unfortunately, like the algorithm sometimes will misinterpret that, say, oh, people are not engaged, whatnot. So it does, it took some time to kind of really rebuild it. Especially there was I think there was one year where I did take a relatively longer break from social media. And again, that doesn’t, yeah, generally speaking, algorithms don’t like it when you take a take a break, right? Um so yeah, so that’s obviously that’s a benefit. Uh, but yeah, I would say being consistent. I always tell people like if they want to be a good content creator, uh if nothing else, just be consistent in posting so that you’re not just training your audience, but you train the algorithm. Also, you’re helping yourself too, because just like in tennis, the more repetitions you have, the better you get at what you do, right? So I try to lay it back to tennis people that are in the space, like and they get it, they understand, oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So like where I see a lot of downfall is people that they’re really interested and they um for some reason they just can’t post. They don’t want to, or not they don’t want to, but like they have so much uh like nervousness or fears, anxiety, yeah. Anxiety.

Erin: 2:01
Yeah. You know, we tried to be we try to be really good about our sound, which I’m very proud of us. We are, but I think at one point Carolyn was like, we just we we have to throw episodes out there, and we have built, you know, over five years, like so many episodes and such a good following for the podcast, you know, and we’re really proud of that. But um, I see people’s numbers sometimes on social media, and I’m like, are those like you know, and you know, Alex, there’s a bunch of people out there that are like, I’ll grow your audience for you. It’s like, are those bots don’t ever do that? Yeah, I know. No, we we never would, honestly.

Alex: 2:31
Yeah, you know, I just said for people that are watching, don’t ever get tempted by that. It’s just I will say that one one benefit like uh now on Instagram, like that’s another trend right now in 2025, is that yes, followers do matter in many ways, but it is becoming less relevant for your success. It’s more about the uh engagement on your posts, and uh you can have you know you can have less followers, but like and tremendous uh engagement on your posts, and you can be very successful. So like I I would not necessarily put too much um yeah, I wouldn’t too much be too much focused on follower counts necessarily. It can help, yes, it does look good if you have 10k followers versus 500, but uh it’s more about the content you put out there and is it reaching the target audience? You know, I’ve talked to some people where like um you you can have a very specific niche, and but you might be the only person that is talking about this very specific niche. And I say specific niche, I’m I’ll give an example. I’ll I want to shout out uh uh play tennis practice yoga, for example. Uh so Margaret, so she has a somewhat pretty specific niche. Like she is a tennis coach, but she also specialized in yoga as well. So I told her before, like, yeah, like they’re not, I mean, how many off top of your head, like how many people you know are like experts in both of this space? So she actually, even though like she has access to potential brand deals and partnerships that people that have you know three, four, five, six times her following would not necessarily have access to. And that’s what she could uh sell herself essentially, yeah, is this aspect. So I feel that’s why right now there’s a lot of opportunities for uh tennis people that are not yet content creators. Um, there is a lot of opportunities out there that they can help grow their business but by posting uh good content that will bring bring value to their audience. Uh that’s why I said it’s not too light. Yeah, you can you can have a very small, relatively small following, but it can actually reach your goals as a as a coach by putting stuff out there.

Erin: 4:27
Can you tell us about trends and best practices for content creation?

Alex: 4:31
Yeah, uh right now, I said there’s a lot of opportunities out there. I’m gonna say, let’s I want to focus on let’s say Instagram, for example. Uh you find a lot of times uh things that are happening in TikTok, like a few months later, those trends come to Instagram. There was a point where like just talking head videos were not a thing on Instagram and then became now people can just talk, and that’s great. It used to be a thing where you have to use a training audio in order for your pay your post to blow up, and now that’s not the case. You can make original audio and it can still be great. Uh so there’s a lot of opportunity where you can do like longer form content essentially. Uh it used to be like it used to be post like less than 10 second videos, and that’s the you have a higher chance of that blowing up. But now it’s not necessarily it’s not necessarily that. It’s uh it go back to what what value does your content bring to your audience? Is it entertaining? Is it educational? Nowadays, if you want to have like the best chance of really growing your page, you have to kind of combine like multiple elements to your to your content. Like it should it should it should be like for example, yes, educational content could still be valuable, but now it’s more so education and entertainment. You have to make sure that that is engaging for it to blow up. You know, nowadays it used to be like uh like hooks, for example. Initial hooks, uh, that’s very important nowadays. So that’s a trend. Like the first few seconds, you really have to get them to stay and watch the video. So it used to be it’s just one type of hook that you could use. Now it’s probably better practice to use two or three if you can. There is the uh the visual hook, the audio hook, and the text hook. Uh so the visual hook is you know what what you’re showing the video, so like I don’t know, it’s like I don’t know, something exploding in my background. Okay, that that that would that would that would hook you, right? There could be like uh the text above my head or something that that tells like you know what the video might be about. It kind of teases it. That’s a text hook, and then what I’m saying or the sound that you hear from the video is the audio hook. So if you can, you we want to find a like like do two or three of those if you can. And yeah, that’s and then it does again, it takes practice. Like sometimes uh yeah, you have to that’s why it goes back to what I was saying, you have to post uh often, regularly, because you start you start learning what works for your audience, what worked with the algorithm. And then when you find something that does click, you want to double down on that. The best creators will, once they find something, they will double down on that format and keep on pumping out content. I mean, they’re they’re all different content, but there’s like it’s like a similar like template. They find a way to template their their winning formula and do it over and over again. And then their audience are trained to like, okay, expect that too, so like which is good. Um I guess one other quick uh uh actually not shout out, but like another trend I’m seeing is like LinkedIn. I’m seeing that becoming more and more uh prominent of a platform for uh for content creators. Really? A lot of people sleep on it, but they’re gonna be able to do it.

Carolyn: 7:25
Okay, yeah. I haven’t even thought of LinkedIn. Are you seeing Pinterest Pinterest too as well?

Alex: 7:30
Pinterest that’s always also actually, yeah. I mean, that’s continues to be a thing. Like there one uh aspect of Pinterest is that a lot of the content you post there is evergreen, and uh, you can people can search it on Google and so forth. So there for some people, yeah, that that would actually make a lot of sense to be there as well. But talk more about LinkedIn.

Erin: 7:48
Tell us more about LinkedIn too.

Alex: 7:49
I I interrupted. That’s a platform where uh they are pushing out more like kind of public content from from people that are on there. It used to be very much like kind of private, it’s kind of almost like the the the uh what’s it called, the the boring, I don’t know, social media is like, oh that’s what professionals ever do. But now uh yeah, I mean think about it. A lot of professionals are there. I mean, you’re a lot of people have great knowledge or great experience that they can share and they put it out there. And what I would say, what LinkedIn does a great job at is uh notifying you of content that is being engaged by other people that are in your network, and then so it actually has a good job at actually really connecting you to a lot of people that would be relevant for the content or for your for your business in general. And then they’re also now doing video content too. So the video is starting to pop up more on uh LinkedIn. But for people that are not as comfortable with videos, like just text posts, are growing people’s page and growing people’s influence in the in the space. So I would highly recommend to the people and want they should definitely use that as an opportunity to grow.

Carolyn: 8:49
Yeah, and I haven’t looked at my LinkedIn profile in years. So that’s the first thing I’m gonna do, Alex. I’m gonna let you know if and then putting out the podcast to LinkedIn too. And that’s a great point. Right.

Alex: 8:59
And then the benefit of that too is the people that you know engage in your content. I mean, there’s a fairly easy way to see what their what their background is and who they are. You know, you can’t wait to see that on LinkedIn. Oh no, no, no, on Instagram, sorry. You can’t really see like people follow you, like yeah. So then they’re they’re private or or like they don’t really show their face on their but on on LinkedIn, yeah, yeah. Most time you will see their face. And mostly usually you will find their title and then oh yeah, this this guy, this person is uh, I don’t know, the uh the the president of this brand or something. This this person does XY, you know, that it makes it easier for networking, you know. So uh that’s a lot of opportunity. You know, if you look if you look for sponsors, that’s that’s another way you can go in and look at go there.

Carolyn: 9:38
Well, Alex, since you have played, can you tell us your most memorable moment or craziest moment on the court?

Alex: 9:45
Oh yeah. Um well so we so I I actually have a I guess a different answer for that. Not necessarily me playing, but I do have mem a very memorable moment uh on court. So it’s actually when I was working at USTA and there was this big event that it was a it was like this event is probably the most like uh uh physical, I would say, the most physical work I had to do, but also very rewarding. Essentially, every hour there was like a there’s like three or four groups of kids that funnel into like these uh like two like uh what’s a youth-sized tennis course, let’s say that there’s like so there’s like uh every hour there was like it could be hundreds of kids like they’re coming through this this area. And I was constantly there um running drills for like hours on end. It was it was from like what eight or seven or eight a.m. till like four or five p.m. that whole day. Right? I got I got a little break, but it was it was very grueling. But uh at one point, I remember that the first time I did this event, uh, I was still kind of figuring out what was going on, and uh at one point kids stopped coming in. I’m like, okay, that’s weird. Uh but the other kids that were on court, they stayed there. And I didn’t know what was going on. So now I’m gonna spoil you a little bit. This event was the White House Easter egg roll. So I was helping out at yeah, at the White House, right? And then the reason why they closed off the kids from coming in was because a special guest was coming through to play tennis on court, and that was at that time it was uh President uh Barack Obama that came in. And so I was at this, yeah. So I did the White House Easter egg roll like uh four times, and each time he he actually showed up. It was like his like second term. So he showed up every every year and hit with like some of the like the tennis pros. Like I say tennis pros, I mean like Caroline Wasniaki was there, like Francis Teafo was there. There’s actually some people that were there, like that were serious players. So he came in and he also hit with the kids. Uh but that was a very unique type of experience.

Carolyn: 11:36
Is he good at tennis?

Alex: 11:37
He’s actually decent. Yeah, he’s pretty decent. He’s just good at sports. Yeah, he’s decent uh playing, so he was rallying and everything. So very charismatic, um, for sure. Uh so yeah.

Erin: 11:48
That is impressive because sometimes I can’t rally and I’ve been playing for a long time.

Alex: 11:51
Yeah.

Erin: 11:51
I know, right?

Alex: 11:52
Yeah.

Carolyn: 11:54
Thanks again to Alex for coming on the podcast. We’ve included Alex’s contact information in our show notes, and we hope you follow him on Instagram, which is at AlexChantennis. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon.

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