In two years, One True King (OTK Media Inc.) has had one of the most impressive ascents of any gaming organization. They continue to recruit many of the largest content creators in the world, host ground-breaking events in the streaming space, and have built a large portfolio of name-brand sponsors. Obviously, the streamers affiliated with the org receive most of the attention, but there are also many figures working in the background helping build OTK.

Take, for example, YUNGJEFF. The long-time Twitch fan that previously worked in the music industry has been almost solely responsible for OTK's official social media presence — growing their following to more than five hundred thousand on Twitter alone. In two short years, he has established a unique approach to social media management, by balancing professionalism with humor and authenticity. Inven Global spoke to Jeff about his work with OTK, what content he's most proud of, and what changes he'd like to see in the social media space. 

You've been involved with streaming for quite some time, but you're most known for your work with OTK. How did you land the gig with OTK specifically?

I was working at Facebook, and had a lot of downtime when I started working from home during the pandemic. I'm a creative person, and I wanted to do some side projects. I really liked watching Twitch, so a big project I started was Peepo Pieces — basically The Onion for streaming.

I'd make funny headlines and photoshop images with a small article. It was funny react content for streamers to look at, and I would tweet every article that happened. Eventually, it caught on. Some of the OTK people liked it a lot, so that gave me a name in the space. 

Then when OTK was initially announced, they posted a few job listings — one of them for a social media person. And since Peepo Pieces had a presence on social media and with OTK's members, I applied. They sent a list of seven trial questions and told me to answer three — I sent answers for all seven within an hour. 

Also, when they initially announced OTK, they stated they were going to do a cooking stream as a first collaboration. I noticed they didn't have any graphics set up for that, so I did some quick images for that and messaged every OTK person at 2am. None of them followed me, so it was a shot in the dark. However, Esfand responded an hour later and tweeted it out! I mentioned that during the rest of the interviews, and the rest is history.  

Do you believe taking the initiative is essential in finding success in the industry?

Oh, absolutely. In the streamer space, they get so many DMs — they're not going to read through resumes themselves. The greatest thing you could do if you're interested in getting work in this space: show them something that directly benefits them and can help them in a way where you become an asset to them. I'm no graphic designer — it was only some Photoshopped heads on a little graphic. But they ended up using it. So if you have some sort of skill set, and you think you can be useful — shoot your shot. 

You’ve been working with them for about two years now — what are some of the biggest changes that have occurred in social media management compared to when you started?

When we first started, it was a lot of just posting when things happen — events, videos, etc. Recently, community — posts and engagement — have become a lot more important for one to stay relevant. Keeping your posts at the top and always having things to post about — it brings to life your social media so much more. 

There are a lot of other orgs (no discredit to them) where they only post when something happens, or when a new video's out. One thing I've done on their socials since I started — I have never missed posting a day. I've always tweeted something every single day for the past two years. It keeps it active. Having a very steady post rate is really good for social media. It keeps people engaged, and it's a fun thing for people to know what's happening. So being consistent when it comes to posting on social media has become huge.

What do you believe sets OTK's social media game apart from other orgs in gaming?

Our community is very, very invested in all of our streamers and what we do. OTK seems very much like a group of friends (streamers-wise), and they really are behind the scenes too. So I've tried to mirror that friendship around the content creators in the org, and I think that's one thing that OTK does well. 

Also, I'll reply a lot from the OTK account to tweets, almost like a friend is replying to one of the streamers. It's about giving it life, not just being an org account. It keeps the fans involved, makes it fun for the creators, and gives them more incentive to respond. Because the tweets are engaging, it's not just like you're replying to a bland company account — it's fun to actually get involved with the social media aspect.

What have been some of the biggest challenges for you since you’ve helped build up OTK?

It's a challenge getting that good middle-ground of being a brand account, on top of trying to be funny and having the OTK voice of friends having a good time. You want to be seen as a brand, and you can only get too crazy. So it's finding that fine line, and it definitely took a few months when I started to get that down. 

It's always fun to bounce ideas with sponsors and brands with OTK. Because they're such a unique company. When it comes to tone and voice, I don't think any other content company has the tone that OTK has. I would say we feel less corporate-sounding than any other ones. 

Of all the content you've produced with OTK — what are you most proud of?

Surprisingly, it's actually the stuff not on the OTK account (which I'm very proud of, too). But it's actually some of the "spinoff" events we've done, like the OTK Games Expo we did in June. That was a big event for us, so we made new socials that were all linked to OTK. It was my first experience in practice with OTK running two accounts at the same time.

Getting to engage on both, growing the account, and seeing how people would interact — like a new IP in the company starting from scratch — was really cool. And that event went super well received. We had a big stream showcasing indie games and did a whole thread of every game at the event. Everything with that was challenging, but I'm super proud of that account. I'm super excited about some of the other events we have coming up as well.

A lot of gaming organizations have multi-person social media teams, but I was surprised to hear that you handle the responsibility almost entirely on your own. Is that true? How do you manage that?

Obviously, it would be easier with more people. We do have a graphics team, marketing director, etc. that helps a lot when it comes to events and stuff. So I wouldn't say I'm the sole voice behind it. But in terms of the things that are tweeted, it's all me. But it definitely helps in terms of the tone and voice of the company — to have one person running it. Because I completely understand the brand of OTK, and how they want to be perceived online. I can imagine with more people, it gets more confusing, and you have conflicting ideas — there are benefits and also downsides to it. 

What’s the biggest change on social media that you’d like to see — whether it be Twitter, TikTok, or anything like that? What's something you’d like to see change?

I wish Instagram would stop changing everything every three seconds. I feel like I've seen the Instagram algorithm change one-hundred times in the past week, and now everything is going to short-from content — which isn't for me. 

For other social media (more referring to the gaming sphere), I wish a lot more orgs and companies in the OTK-sphere would interact more on social media. It just makes it a lot more fun, and makes for a collaborative space. Esports orgs do it a lot together when they're playing each other in games or something. But I feel like there's definitely a lot of collaboration in the social media space to be done. 

That's something that hopefully in the future gets done more. I know the OTK and OfflineTV account have interacted a few times. And the person who runs their account is great — it's been fun to interact. Hopefully, that's something that changes here soon, because it makes it more fun and collaborative, and the people like it. 

Thanks so much for talking, Jeff! When I know someone's a passionate music fan, I like to end things by giving them a chance to highlight an artist they want more people to listen to — who is that for you?

Aries — every one of his songs are god-tier. I've literally never heard a song that I don't like by him. He only puts out bangers. And when he does, it's like Christmas morning. Oh my god, he's so good. He has a decent amount of plays, but he should be so much bigger. He should be as big as The Weeknd at this point. I will vouch for that till the day I die.