Big 12 College Basketball Marketing: #5 Kansas State

Let's continue our analysis of the Big 12 Conference. We'll continue looking at how basketball programs communicate with young athletes from a digital point of view.

We dive into this because websites and digital marketing create an opportunity for coaches and programs to share what they stand for. The internet is always there, and always on. And, as they do on the court, the best programs take advantage of opportunities.

So let's keep moving. Thus far our Big 12 journey has shown us #12 Texas Tech, #11 Colorado, #10 Texas, #9 Kansas, #8 Oklahoma State, #7 Missouri, and #6 Iowa State.

#5: Kansas State

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Coach Martin delivers a great site with great branding. Next Level integration is killer.

Weaknesses: How can I sign up to be a part of the Coach Martin site? The Athletics Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages need a little more K-State feel to them.

Full Scouting Report:

The K-State home page comes at you with a lot. I love the K-State logo at the top, but as you can see in the image below, there's a lot going on. I see another case of Live Blogs used around Football season, making me excited about what is looking like an inevitable basketball version.

If you look closely in the image above, you'll also see a chance to chat with the AD. It's a little more clear in the dropdown menu below -- I even love how they gray out the more critical areas. The shading really draws your attention to his Twitter site. Nice.



Let's drill in deeper. Athletic Director John Currie has a pretty active Twitter site, with around 800 followers. He covers all sports, and gives observational comments, though not much original content. Still I loved seeing this voice out there.

Here's the Fan Zone menu. I love seeing that grey area applied here. Pretty cool, as in a quick glance you see they give quick access to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Nice.

Clicking into Facebook first, you'll see this is mostly a fan page (3500 strong) - not really a community or place where K State is leveraging to share updates on the program.



Similarly, the K-State YouTube page is not very active. From my visit, it looked like they had posted around 2 videos in the last 3 weeks. There's no way to subscribe by your favorite sport, so to me that really limits the value of a potential community.

To be honest, the K-State Athletics Twitter page is one of the more weird ones I've ever come across. See the Bio area. The idea was to let you know who is posting on the page (Sports Information, Web Team, Operations, etc). But they executed this by adding a three letter abbreviation before every post. That's just weird. And to a consumer (or athlete), does it really matter if the post comes from Sports Information and not the Web Team? I don't think so.



The bottom of the home page has a pretty cool graphic to help you connect with the program on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook. Solid.



Moving on to the Men's Basketball Home Page, here, gives you a very similar feel to what we saw on the K State Home Page. A couple things worth calling out. One, they offer a mobile site (here). Cool, as many young athletes are likely checking this out on their phone. I'm betting we'll see more of this in the future, but I'm pretty excited about this step! And, second, you'll see a big callout for Coach Martin's site. Let's check it out.



The Coach Martin home page is sweet. Really sweet. Go ahead and click in here -- I'll stand by. The page is bold, and gives you a feel of a very alive program. Now, let's click on the "View Navigation" button...

NICE. Very nice! There's a basketball feel to it, but you see in one powerful glance what this program values: Academic Success, the Program, Coaching Staff, Highlights... (and Tickets).



Diving into each section gives you access to video and interviews on the topic. Clicking into Academics delivers an interview from Coach Martin on being a student athlete plus a tour of the campus. Really a smart section (no pun intended).


As you'd expect, Highlights takes you to the motherload of video goodness. This is a really deep experience with interviews and game highlights. All I really could ask for would be to take that ability to share that we saw on the Basketball home page and extend it here... And to take some of these Highlights and infuse life into K State YouTube channel.



The Coaches Section is also pretty smart. I like it because they add the point coaches are helping you reach right into the middle. The Next Level is shown right smack dab in the middle of the Coaching Lineup. Nice.



Then, when you click on each coach, you get an image like the one below -- you learn about the coach's style from a player who made it to the next level. This is simple, but really powerful. And it is a reminder that this coach knows how to help you, the athlete, continue your career beyond Manhattan. Love this!


Of course, you can click into the NBA section to learn about Wildcats who have gone on from K State to the next level. A nice combination of visuals and text here, and I love seeing this built into the Coach Martin site, rather than as a link to NBA.com! (Image below)

Finally, we haven't seen a lot of this and it surprises me. As a recruit, the gear you will get to wear is a big deal. As a player, the gear you do wear is a big deal. And Coach Martin shows off not just that you get to wear Nike gear, but that you get to wear the latest styles from Nike. Solid. Really solid work.

In general, I love the Coach Martin experience. I wish we saw some of this pumped into the K State basketball page, beyond a tout. And I wish there was a way to sign up to get updates - Twitter anyone? But Coach Martin seems to get it, and that bodes well for the future of K State Hoops!

So we are down to 4 squads: Baylor, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M. Who's the best in the Big 12? We'll get a step closer tomorrow...