Big 12 College Basketball Marketing: #12 Texas Tech

It's time to dive into the Big 12 Conference. We're going to look at how programs are communicating to young athletes from a digital point of view.

Why?

It's hard to imagine any young athlete making his or her choice on their college without taking a glance at the program's website. That's not to say that websites are the only factor. I'm not saying a kid will turn down a chance to play at North Carolina because they liked the website of East Carolina better. But what I am saying is that websites and digital marketing create an opportunity for coaches and programs to share what they stand for. Young athletes are going to check you out. What are you telling them? The internet is always there, and always on.

That's what makes this journey exciting.

And that's what I'm going to do -- break down the Big 12 from a digital point of view, from less best to best. There's no science here, just my impressions. I'm pumped for the challenge and hope I can make this journey a fun one to join me on.

Here we go.

#12: Texas Tech

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: A pretty nice Facebook site, integrating in Twitter and YouTube.

Weaknesses: If you're looking for basketball content, this isn't the place for you.

Full Scouting Report:

I was pretty excited to get in to Texas Tech. Pat Knight. So I hit the home page here and of course was drawn right into the Twitter logo. So far, so good.

As you can see here, the Twitter logo rotates with the Facebook logo. Both are Texas Tech'd up in the red and black - which I kind of like. It feels really clean, and I like it. What I don't like is that they rotate. These are both pretty big guns. Give them a permanent home!

You'll also see the expanding menu on their home page. Mousing over the Multimedia tab hits you with a 1-2-3 punch of Facebook, Twitter, and Podcasts. I double clicked into Facebook (image below and link here). The site is ok, but it's the two tabs of Twitter and YouTube that really intrigue me.



Clicking on the YouTube tab takes us here, to a Facebook page that ports in their YouTube channel (which you can also visit directly here). I'm a big fan of this for a few reasons. Naturally it is a great way to get people aware of your YouTube channel. But it also makes updates easier -- once Tech posts a video on YouTube, it automatically gets up on Facebook. Nice. If only we got some Hoops videos... maybe in a month or two?

Similarly, click in on the Twitter tab and you can see the latest posts on the Texas Tech Twitter page (which you can also access here). As we saw in their YouTube tab, as soon as the Tech team posts on Twitter, it updates here. You don't need to visit Twitter or have a Twitter account to catch their latest. Smart.



If you aren't one of their 1700 followers and want to know what the Tech Twitter page is like, you can click here or see the image below. They do a decent job of updating through key games - very live much like a collection of live posts during games. They also share pictures through the action. (As implied by the name, this covers all sports).

What you don't find anywhere on the site, or even on the Tech Athletics followers from what I could easily find, is any basketball twitter references. But I dug around and found Assistant Coach Stew Robinson is up on Twitter, here. He's only got about 75 followers (yes, I am one of them), but he is pretty insightful and does a nice job.

OK, you thought I'd forgotten. Podcasts. As promised, here's the Tech style of Podcasting. It's good - you can see a full list of what you get. But you don't have any ability to subscribe by sport. So you need to come back and visit often. It's nice that the content is here, but the idea is to not make people remember to come back and get it. Make it easy.

OK, in my search for basketball content, I hit the section here. There's a nice window for visuals and a call out to Raidervision All Access. I'm game.

As you can see, you can go in and sort this by sport and pull out basketball content. It isn't easy, and it looks like nothing has been put up since last March when the season wrapped up. Again, the content is around - just need to make it easy to raise your hand and learn about the program.

I'll close with the bottom of the basketball site. I'm not sure why this shows up. You'll see the Other basketball links on the right (Big 12 Basketball). Which I wish was played up more as it is -- you know Tech is selling the conference when they talk with recruits. Why not do the same on your site?

Then look at the lower left, under "Sponsored Links". Electrical Wall plates? I'm not sure if this is a revenue source for the program or what, but it is just weird.

That's it. Stay with us tomorrow as we continue down our Big 12 journey.

Andy