It’s that time of year – college football begins! Which means we are going to be witnessing some amazing games, talent, and competitions over the next few months. However, we as social media professionals (and professors) have to realize that the competitions are not only on the football field, but on social media as well.
Social media and sports were truly MADE for each other! I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging in some amazing conversations with some leading sports and social media professionals across the nation, and it’s exciting to see what they are doing for their teams. Plus, these individuals are the true innovators when it comes to experimentation, storytelling, and fan engagement in creative and meaningful ways. From Jessica Smith (blogger & content community manager for Under Armour), to Chris Yandle (Georgia Tech), Russell Houghtaling (University of Oklahoma), Jimmy Sanderson (Clemson) just to name a few truly amazing individuals and professionals.
Where do college teams come up when it comes to social media? Auburn maintains a great list and ranking for each platform here. There were clearly several winners for the debut week for college football on social media. Not only do I love football, but I love how teams have been creative in engaging fans, creating stellar content for social media, and stepping up their strategies to test out new platforms.
University of Miami
Their gifs for social media were amazing! Wow! This was amazing and well done, Miami Hurricanes! Fellow sports professionals, if you want to see what top level animated gifs look like, check out what the University of Miami did here. This is taking images and even infographics to the next level – which is something I think my fellow professors should note and incorporate into their classroom activities and exercises for their students.
University of Michigan
UM has a special place in my heart for many ways – I was on campus there about 15 years ago on a high school recruiting visit. I didn’t go to UM for my undergraduate degree, but Ann Arbor and the culture at UM is pretty captivating. Plus, they are truly the leaders of social media for universities (just check out their social media presence – wow!) However, what the football social media team did here for their first game was create personalized tweets in response to fans, but created images with the fan’s tweets like this one on Twitter. Personalization at the highest level – fans are going to share, save, and remember these interactions for a long time. Excellent job, UM!
Oklahoma
When you think of Oklahoma social media – it’s all about the creative and amazing visuals. Not just stat/game score infographics, but their features, videos, gifs, and updates are all beautifully created. Major props to Russ and his social media team!
USC
Have to brag about one of my schools a bit here! USC seems to always step up their games when it comes to social media for not just football, but all of their sports. From being one of the early schools to showcase Twitter handles for athletes on the scoreboard to their awesome visual content (their hype video was awesome!) They are a team that truly gets the integrated nature of social media and sports strategy.
Georgia Tech
I am a big fan of what they have done on social media, but one thing I think is so cool to see is their latest student-athlete story initiative and feature on their athletic website. What a great idea to proactively share stories from the student-athletes perspective. This is rarely seen or encouraged at times in college sports, but this is a cool initiative. Way to go, Chris!
There were a lot of good forms of content that were shared and updated across the board and it is good to look at some of these teams and learn from them. So, you may be asking yourself – what are some must-haves and dos when it comes to social media for sports? Here are a few things
- Providing true engagement with fans: Posting content, videos, and even graphics are good to a certain point, but you have to strike up the conversation. Do what works for you and your team and fan base – this is where research can come into play.
- Look at future trends and tools to showcase your personality a bit for your team: Always keep your eyes and ears open to new trends and be confident to experiment around with some of them. Research some future updates coming to some platforms, like these from Twitter and start brainstorming some ideas on how to use them, why we need to use them, and how to evaluate/test them for various events.
- Don’t be silent during the game (especially on Twitter): If you are on one platform during a sporting event, it needs to be Twitter and you want to be active on it. If you are pretty much silent for the entire game (and it’s a three+ hr game), that’s not what you usually see. I actually saw this happen this weekend with a team I follow (UofL), and it really surprised because for years, there were updates, gifs, consistent engagement with fans and others across the nation, and RT/shares coming from the athletics account. We will just have to wait and see what happens for the remainder of the season.
- Create a team effort on and offline: Social media teams are all about establishing a proactive, sustainable, collaborative and team-like atmosphere. Like the players on the team, everything matters in creating a strong culture and environment. These take time, but they are very beneficial and crucial for a strong social media presence.
- Follow leading sports and social media professionals + resources: The #SMSports community on Twitter is AMAZING!! Participate in the #smsportschat as well as look for resources being shared with the community. Jessica Smith’s blog is a must read plus Kevin DeShazo’s work with Fieldhouse Media is great as well. Hootsuite also has some great posts on the subject like this one for sports and social media professionals and make sure to follow the PRSA Entertainment and Sports Section as well on social media.
So, these are just a few that I saw that I felt were pretty awesome and stellar. The football (and social media season in fact!) is still early on. We are going to see some amazing things both on and off the field, and as a professor of social media and fan of football – bring it on!
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
