It’s been an eventful and emotional March Madness this year! From Cinderella stories to major upsets, it’s been quite the overall experience for NCAA Basketball.

One of the major elements we are of course seeing along with great teams and players is the growth of social media strategy and implementation for universities who are participating in the tournament, primarily on Twitter.

We have incorporated a lot of social media strategies and campaigns for the University of Louisville this year when it comes to March Madness. UofL has being using their established their social media hub and have been working hard to come up with some innovative and creative campaigns for fans, media, and the UofL community to participate and get engaged in. Stay tuned to what we all have planned coming up to our game in the Sweet Sixteen!

How has social media been used so far in #MarchMadness? There are a lot of strategies and campaigns that have been utilized, and here are just a few of the trends we have seen from a social media perspective:

  • Becoming the platform to go to to respond to fans after a loss and upset: After Wichita State lost yesterday to Kentucky, they went to their various social media platforms and sent out a message to their fans and those who have been supporting them this year. We also saw this when Dayton beat Syracuse as well in the tournament – fans, media personalities, and others got on social media and shared their initial reactions with the world.
  • Rise of Selfies: If this year’s March Madness shows anything in terms of emerging trends, then it would be that of the selfie. From Coach Martin from Tennessee posting an epic selfie after winning their game to advance to the Sweet Sixteen to the President of the University of Dayton taking one while crowd surfing after their upset win, it seems to be  all part of the strategy for creating content that people can share and discuss with each other. UofL has created a campaign dedicated to this as well called #CardinalSelfie, which you can check out here with the photos from fans and others showing their Cardinal spirit during the tournament. So – in case you needed some tips on how to create a selfie, here’s a short video on how to do that. 🙂
  • Infographics and Data Visualization on the Rise to be part of the story: We all like interesting statistics and information, and info graphics for March Madness have created this for teams to utilized and showcase their information in a  visual manner, like this one from Mashable. Whether it is about providing information about brackets or updates from the team’s games, these will continue to be part of the digital strategy to produce information that is visual and relevant for social media strategies.
  • Evolving lessons and best practices for brands: This is an event that creates a lot of opportunities for brands in terms of sponsorship, but a lot are of course monitoring and listening to what event they can get involved in to tap into some real time marketing opportunities, which can be seen here. However, there is a time and place for this, which is one lesson KFC learned just a few days ago during March Madness.
  • Establishing influence by having exclusive content and engaging fans on social media: There are many accounts and the NCAA has been proactive in addressing the role of social media in March Madness by of course setting up branded content and incorporating it into their app. However, we are seeing also the rise of posts on who to follow on social media for the latest and updated content. However, these are not just media personalities, but others that have established themselves with creating engaging and even interactive content for social media. I
  • Social media is getting integrated into everything: It’s almost to the point where social media has to be aligned and connected to all traditional aspects of strategic communications nowadays, and we are seeing this clearly not only with the teams, but also with traditional media. Sports Illustrated put fans on their cover and tagged them with their usernames, which does show again the prominence of social media in society. Also, this is an opportunity for universities to come up with their own branded content whether it is established hashtags, logos, and photo contests to engage, interact, and showcase the personality of the team and university to the online community.

In summary, there are a lot of lessons to be noted for March Madness so far, and we are not even done with the tournament. I am sure we are going to look at these trends and see what we can do to improve these and even integrate them in other forms of social media campaigns. Major props to all of the teams – great work! And, got to of course give a shout out to the UofL Athletic Department and social media team for doing a great job with all of the content, updates, and visuals they are sharing to keep all of the fans updated!

It’s been an exciting time to be a fan of basketball, especially being at the University of Louisville! Looking forward to the game this Friday against Kentucky and Go Cards!

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,
Karen