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, and #8 Oklahoma State.
#7: Missouri
The Digital Scouting Report
Strengths: Coach Anderson is up on Twitter. Lots of ways to follow the Tigers through social media.
Weaknesses: With all these ways to follow the Tigers, I wish we felt it in the athletics site!
Full Scouting Report:
Hitting the Mizzou home page and you get a nice setup of News and Video only a click away. I liked seeing the GameDay blog blog for the Football game, and am betting we'll see some of this come basketball season. 
We're going to zoom right in on the Fan Zone Menu. As you can see below, there are two things we need to dive into: the Mizzou Mobile iPhone App and Social Media. You probably also noticed this is a ridiculously-long menu. Don't worry, I won't click through everything here. Just the good stuff.
Like we saw with Kansas, Missouri has an iPhone app. They didn't offer much of a description here, but visually it looks very similar to the KU app, which would mean news updates and video highlights at least. I hope they add in live audio of the games, if not live video.
OK, let's move on to the "Social Media" callout. Side note, I'm not a huge fan of calling out social media for many reasons. First, outside of people in the marketing industry, who really knows what "Social Media" is? I don't believe the average high school (or college) athlete goes home to check out their Social Media page. Now I understand why they do this -- the dropdown menu is already long enough. Which brings me to my second point: If you have a Facebook and Twitter presence, elevate it. Bring it to the home page. Pump it through the site. Don't hide the things we love about you!
Clicking ahead on the Social Media takes us here, to the Missouri Twitter and Facebook Directory. Mizzou does a great job of offering you many ways to follow the program -- you can even become a Friend of Mizzou Compliance. Really.
Now Mizzou doesn't just have options to follow the program, but they have some pretty good options. The Missouri Athletics Twitter account is here (shown below). This is a pretty active feed, with 3200 followers and coverage of all sports. It feels very much like a live blog during games - making me feel excited about what we'll see come hoops season.
Coach Mike Anderson is up on Twitter, here. He's got around 1200 followers, and does a good job of being insightful in his posts -- he just needs to be much more active.
Assistant Coaches TJ Cleveland and Jeff Daniels are also up on Twitter, with around 200 and 70 followers respectively. Both are shown below (and clickable here and here); neither are extremely active yet.
Moving ahead to the Missouri Basketball section, here, and you'll see a big callout for their Facebook and Twitter pages (nice). The MU home page layout of stories, headlines, video, calendar feels even more powerful when you see it come to life inside basketball.
Clicking on the Video tab takes you here, to Mizzou All Access. Sadly that means you need to fork over $9.99 a month to take advantage of this site. (Cue disappointed music)... I didn't invest.
Continuing to look around the basketball section, I was excited to see a Recruits section (shown below). You have access to lots of info on the University and Columbia. But really not much information at all on what it means to play for Coach Anderson in what is a crazy, dynamic system.
In fact, if you take a look at the image below, the Mizzou Basketball media guide, you get a feel for what it means to play in the program. The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball. I love that. It says it all, the style. The system. The athletes you need. This is what needs to pump through the site. The site should feel intense, alive, active. And it just misses on those points.
But Mizzou has the infrastructure in place to make this happen. The foundation is here. They have video content ready, a Twitter and Facebook presence. And most importantly they know what they stand for. All that's missing is bringing that energy together.
Come back tomorrow as we move into the upper half of our Big 12 journey.
Andy
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