Big East College Basketball Marketing: #6 Syracuse

Let's keep moving through the Big East Conference, looking at how programs market themselves to young athletes (or fans) online. This is our chance to see how coaches and programs in a power conference stack up against each other -- and how they share what they stand for.

Thus far our journey has shown us #16 DePaul, #15 Seton Hall, #14 U Conn, #13 Notre Dame, #12 Louisville, #11 Pitt, #10 Cincinnati, #9 Rutgers, #8 Georgetown, and #7 St John's.

#6 Syracuse

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Very cool, very prominent, very innovative ways of getting people into their Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Blogging areas. And a great Blog.

Weaknesses: Visually, there's a lot going on, distracting us from the amazing parts.

Full Scouting Report:

Checking out the Syracuse home page, here, and you are immediately hit with one of the best entries into Social Networks I've come across. Not only are the 4 places you can enter (Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, and YouTube) super prominent and bold but they come with a message: Follow the Orange 24/7. Wow.

In fact, I like this image so much that I'm going to zoom in even further for you.

Clicking on Twitter takes you to a directory of everything Twitter or Facebook. As you can see below, it's a pretty solid and well organized roster of Twitter, complete with names and sports.

The Athletics Twitter page, known as SU Orange Empire, is here. They have around 900 followers and keep this pretty active - but really just give game updates and news updates as a feed. It's good they are active, I just want the insight and personality you'd expect with a name of Orange Empire. (Side note: Great name!)

Which is where Assistant Coach Rob Murphy comes in. Here's his Twitter page - he definitely offers personality. (I just wish he'd post more often!) He's right around 600 followers, and is very original. Nice.

Assistant Mike Hopkins is up on Twitter, just not linked to the Syracuse Twitter directory. He's fought through his lack of publicity and still built around 800 followers, and does a decent job, though he's also not very active.

The Orange Empire Facebook page is here. They've got around 3100 fans, which could be higher if they didn't require you to be approved in order to see the content. I did become a fan and can say that Syracuse uses Facebook well, as a method of regularly inviting me to events.

Moving on, I absolutely LOVED the Syracuse blog. Here's the link in case you want to visit. Really, you should. They do a nice job of giving you updates but with insight and personality. I loved taking the story of Coach Boeheim's 800th win (wow) and turned into a story about Coach Boeheim and what he's meant to the program. Sample this:

In 1976, when Roy Danforth left Syracuse University, the athletic department was ready to conduct a national search for a new coach. Jim Boeheim paid a visit to the Vice Chancellor and told him in no uncertain terms that HE, the lowly assistant with no head coaching experience, was THE man for the job. More than that, he told them he’d leave immediately for his next job if a coaching search was started. Nevermind that he didn’t have a next job at the time. Out of all the words that can be used to describe Jim Boeheim, competitive is one that most would agree on.

Don't you kind of feel like hugging that blog?


The Syracuse YouTube channel is here, with 56 videos across all sports. It's ok, the content is good - you just can't separate by sport. They didn't extend the Orange Empire branding here, which I wish they did, as it was really starting to grow on me!

Backing up to the home page again, you'll see that the Fan Zone Menu offers you access to the Blog and Social Networks. I'm really not sure the average fan (or the average young athlete) knows what the words "Social Networks" means. I'd much rather see this spelled out, even if it meant more items on the dropdown menu.


Please come with me as we move on to the basketball home page, here, and turn your attention to the box on the right hand side of the page, with "Video" selected.

I'll zoom in to make it easier. And you'll see a very cool piece of the site. They have built in Podcasts into the site itself so you can click and listen right from the Hoops home page. Solid. Now all we need is to filter this -- make sure you only get basketball podcasts to listen to from this page!

Scrolling down the page, you'll see that the basketball page offers a collection of links for additional info on the squad. I'll click through a couple.


Orange in the NBA. Great job of extending this Orange Empire branding into the other parts of the site. Solid work. As you'll see below though, there is definitely an opportunity to make this site more deep as it relates to the athletes who've moved on to the next level. Clicking on one of them takes you to their page on NBA.com -- missing out on the chance to tell us how they impacted the University... and vice versa.

The title is a little wordy, but I love this idea: "SU Former Player Websites." I can't believe no one else is doing this - it just makes sense. I just wish they took this insight and then gave us more of a visual look at the players behind their websites (and the websites themselves of course).

Syracuse offers a Media Guide you can flip through online and zoom in where you need to. It's definitely a solid piece.

I clicked on the Syracuse Coaching staff, super excited to see more about a group that includes one of the best of all time. And, as you'll see below, they do a nice job of elevating email addresses to make it easier for you the recruit or fan to reach out to them. As we saw with Nebraska (read it here), they should also consider using this as a way to get people into their Twitter pages. If you are looking at this page, that's definitely something that'd interest you!

Clicking on All Access takes you here, to a sea of videos and a request to register or sign in to fully engage with this area. You can filter by sport. It's all solid; I'd just love to see this content flood into the Orange YouTube channel and create one fully charged video area.

Coach Boeheim also has a site dedicated to his Coaches vs Cancer platform, here.

This site has a blog, though it hasn't been updated since May, here. I love seeing this, just wish we could see Coach Boeheim's take on the season. 800 career wins = great potential for a unique view on the sport.

And the site also serves as an archive for Coach Boeheim content that's out there, ala the Louisville Cardinal Clips. This is solid, it just needs to be updated more frequently and a little easier for people to find.

And, with that, that's a wrap. The Orange have a pretty powerful brand and they are set up well. With a little more in-season content on the current program, things could really take off.

So, what's next? It's time to move into the Big East's Top 5. Come back tomorrow... this is just starting to get good!

Andy

Big East College Basketball Marketing: #7 St John's

Let's keep moving through the Big East Conference, looking at how programs market themselves. How they are communicating to young athletes online. It's our chance to see how coaches and programs in a power conference stack up against each other -- and how they share what they stand for.

Thus far our journey has shown us #16 DePaul, #15 Seton Hall, #14 U Conn, #13 Notre Dame, #12 Louisville, #11 Pitt, #10 Cincinnati, #9 Rutgers, and #8 Georgetown.

#: St John's

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Great Twitter integration, and a nice combination of Program+Assistant+Player Twitter presence.

Weaknesses: Outside of Twitter, not much basketball content here.

Full Scouting Report:

I was pretty excited to check out the St John's site. (Shown here.) It was reported that the University hired an independent news source, fan Peter Robert Casey, to Twitter during their games. (Not a bad gig, article here). And if you click here, you'll see that Casey does an extremely nice job on Twitter. But none of this action was evident as we hit the Red Storm home page.


What you will see is a prominent St John's Twitter icon in the upper right, which rotates with the St John's Eye of the Storm blog (killer name!) and Facebook page - icons shown here.




You'll also note that at the top of the page (shown below), you'll see another place with easy access to Facebook and Twitter. Let's click in.

The Red Storm Facebook page is pretty well done. They have about 2300 fans, and deliver a pretty active combination of posts, shared updates, and video interviews with athletes. In fact, as you'll see in a minute, they do a nice job of connecting their Facebook page to their Blog. On the other hand, I will say the Facebook picture they've chosen (of their Twitter page) is a bit weird. I don't know, it just kind of takes away from this community.

Clicking on the Twitter icon takes you here, to a large directory of Social Media stuff. (But no mention of their in-game Twittering). A really solid job here.


The St John's Basketball Twitter page is here, with 870 followers and a nice job of engaging their community, sharing the St John's love to members who post, and of course providing access to new articles and videos that hit the St John's site.

Assistant Coach Chris Casey is up (although not that active) on Twitter. He's got around 80 followers and displays a little character... I just wish he did more often.


St John's is the first school I've come across to hype the Twitter page of one of their players, Junior Forward Sean Evans. He's active and you can't help but feel more connected to the team if you dive in here.



The Red Storm has a great Blog name and logo, the Eye of the Storm (here). The blog does a great job of providing original content - loads of 1-on-1 interviews, which is great. I just wish there was a way to cut right into basketball (or the sports you care about).


Clicking on the Video Icon takes you to a monster database of videos.... Lots of stuff, though nothing new since July. Why no YouTube?



Moving on to the Men's Basketball page, here, and you have a feel that is very much like many of the other of the schools we've seen. But we're in the upper half of the Big East now, and this is where we start to see separation in programs. So scroll down the page with me...

The bottom half of the site shows you how they pump in St John's Twitter updates into the site. Solid work!



It's hard to see it in the basketball page image, but the center of the site has the red box, shown here, that allows you to access the St John's Twitter page and Blog.

That's the extent of the experience that's available in the Basketball section. I'm a fan of getting the most out of what you have and it is clear that St John's is maximizing their presence on Twitter and connecting via their blog. Both are well done, I just would like to see more of a connection with Coach Norm Roberts and this year's squad. If they can add this, then leverage the 1-2 Twitter-Blog punch they are building, we're in business!

Up next, our top 6: Marquette, Providence, South Florida, Syracuse, Villanova, and West Virginia. Who's going to win this thing? Come back next week.

Andy

Big East College Basketball Marketing: #8 Georgetown

Hi everyone, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I'm definitely thankful to be able to check out a conference filled with inspiration from top-to-bottom in how they communicate with the world of fans and young athletes. Thus far our journey has shown us #16 DePaul, #15 Seton Hall, #14 U Conn, #13 Notre Dame, #12 Louisville, #11 Pitt, #10 Cincinnati, and #9 Rutgers.

Let's keep moving.

#8 Georgetown

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Innovative Blog ticker at the top mixed with a solid blog/Twitter 1-2 punch.

Weaknesses: The Basketball section definitely needs a go-to-player.

Full Scouting Report:

When I checked out the Georgetown Athletics home page, here, a couple of things really grabbed me. First, the Twitter logo. Talk about out there on its own. The "make it obvious to follow you" side of me loves it. The "make it feel a natural part of the site" part of me doesn't so much. Let's click ahead...



Georgetown has a very good Twitter page, here, with 1900 followers. They do a great job of sharing original content and posts from the blog.



The other impressive thing that hit me from the home page is the header. Take a look at the image below and you'll see that the latest blog post is elevated here, in the blue bar beneath the main navigation. It's simple, powerful, and I love it!



Clicking into the Hoya Insider Blog (shown here) is really good. They add a personal touch that makes the content extremely interesting. Check out this sample, and feel what it's like to really be an Insider. Nice.

"Media day tends to be pretty hectic. After an address from the new commissioner, John Marinatto, eight schools stay in the theatre area for the first 1 hour and 15 minutes visiting with print media. Coach Thompson, Austin, Chris and Greg were pretty busy throughout, with reporters from virtually every school, as well as national reporters like Jim O'Connell from the Associated Press, Dick "Hoops" Weiss from the New York Daily News, Andy Katz from ESPN and Jeff Goodman from FoxSports.com."

OK, back up to the home page and you'll see you can also access the Hoya Insider Blog from the Promotions menu. Cool. You'll also see there's access to Social Networking, which is our next click stop.

Diving in takes you here, to a choice of following the Hoyas on Facebook or Twitter. I like this, but really wish they would elevate Facebook and Twitter into the Promotions menu as individuals, not lumped together as "Social Media." Sadly, though, the Facebook link was broken when I checked out the site.
Clicking on to the Basketball Home Page and you'll see the Hoya Vision All-Access callout on the right hand side of the page.





First, let's zoom in. Some good original video content is elevated right here, into the site. Nice!



Unfortunately, when you click in for more, you are greeted with this requirement to buy access at $9.95/month... and then (as you'll see below), there is no listing of what you actually get as it relates to basketball. I want the Hoya Vision to know I came from basketball and offer me a Basketball-Specific Insider.




As you'll see in the next two images, the Basketball site also offers access to a large amount of content on the program. I'll point out a couple of them.

First, I clicked into Hoyas in the Pros. As you can see, Georgetown offers the information but not the inspiration. I was hoping for more about the monstrous collection of amazing Bigs to come through DC, from Ewing to Mutombo to Hibbert and Jeff Green.



Clicking into the Hoya Newsletter takes directly to a sign-up form. I have no issues with having the form, but wish they'd give us a little sample first. Recall how Minnesota delivered their newsletters (link here, my review here). Georgetown could do a lot better to offer up their latest newsletter online and then allow you to sign up for the next one!



And, finally, the Hoyas offer up their Media Guide as an online magazine you can view or print as a PDF.



That's it. Georgetown has the elements to dominate. They just need to share a little more and get us more information and connection around basketball. Come back tomorrow as we move on to #7! Who's going to win this thing?

Andy