As with my breakdowns of the ACC (link here), Pac-10 (link here), Big Ten (link here), Big 12 (link here), and Big East (link here) we'll start with the SEC at a conference level and close with my pre-season (or pre-looking at it) predictions. Of course, we'll then follow up by going through this journey program-by-program from least-best to best.
Let's start with a quick overview:
What's Good about the SEC Experience? Big tech investment leads to the best video content I've come across yet.
What Could Be Better? For such a digital heavyweight, Twitter and Facebook presence need work.
Let's dive in...
Hitting the SEC home page, here, it is evident they have made a big investment in video content. It shows. (Yes, in ways beyond the huge headline...) You'll see a large imagery window, and a pretty clear navigation to video by team.
If you mouse over any of the teams, you get access to their sites plus any of the latest posts around that program. Nice!
Scrolling down the home page, I came across this cool little feature: ESPN integration. As you can see in the box in the lower left, the SEC Athletics site plays the latest SEC features from ESPN right here in the home page. Nice. This does two things -- 1) it offers real-time (or so) videos that pump into the site on their own and 2) it serves as a nice reminder for prospective student athletes that the SEC is a high exposure conference. Cool. Very cool.
If you scroll down even further, you come to this window -- your chance to follow along with the SEC on Twitter, Facebook, or Mobile.
But, never fear, you don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the SEC Sports site to get access to these. As you can see here, the News Menu at the top of the site expands to reveal a very prominent entry point into each area.
OK. Enough already. Let's click in. Clicking into Twitter takes you here, to a quick directory of the two SEC Twitter accounts. Both are, to be honest, a little weird. I'll explain...
First, we have the SEC Sports Update, shown here and below. I'm not sure why they need the word "Update", as it feels a little inherent... They are extremely active, leading to a base of over 14000 followers. They cover all sports. And they live Tweet during big games. It's ok -- I just wish they separated out the big sports from each other, and posted more original content.
The other SEC Twitter feed, More SEConds, is here. With just under 200 followers, they will have stories on "academics, community, and athletics." This site is not very active and seems to need a little focus in what you are getting. The idea seems good. I like the idea of having a Twitter site around the academics and community side of the conference. If done well, this could be a hidden gem. But then they add in athletics. (Which is the other Twitter site), making the point of the site a little fuzzy. And there isn't much consistency in posting style or frequency yet -- definitely needed to drive more followers.
When you click on Facebook, it takes you to the image below. Which, yes, also gives you access to what seems to be a creepy man doing a Heisman pose for the Southeastern Leadership conference. (Yes, you can also become a Fan of the SEC as a whole -- 33,500 strong.)
Bizarre.
Moving along, let's get to the great stuff. Video. As you can see, mousing over Video takes you to a well-organized gateway of video goodness. Pick your team or go in at the conference level.
Clicking on the SEC digital network, takes you here. Once inside, you can sort by sport, original programming, or audio. Cool. (Here's a look at the Men's Basketball area which comes packed with game highlights by team...)
Original Programming takes you here, to a collection of SEC video projects - specials on rivalries and content they have created around the squads. To me, this is an amazing infrastructure with potential to get even better! I'm already imagining behind-the-scenes access to all the SEC basketball teams during the season...
The SEC makes smart use of their Audio Content as well -- as you can see here. They pump in weekly teleconferences into the site, and you can click in and listen right from here.
Moving right along to the Men's Basketball home page, below shows you another large image window, with the latest results pumped in. I would love to see more of the SEC digital video (and audio) content here, but we're limited to text and images for now.
Scrolling down the basketball page takes us to a pretty good informational area -- access to the latest stories, videos, and documents (weird, huh?) To the right you'll see is the up-to-the-minute conference standings.
Fantastic information, and it's well-organized. My challenge for the conference is to find a way to do two things:
- Pump in the content from the SEC Digital Network into the Basketball section
- Empower fans to sign up to get new video (or audio) content as it becomes available
OK, as promised, here is my Pre-Season Rankings (or in this case my "Pre-Looking at Anything" Rankings). I haven't fared too well in other conferences, but maybe this journey has made me better?
- Kentucky
- Florida
- Tennessee
- Arkansas
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- LSU
- Auburn
- Ole Miss
- Vanderbilt
- Alabama
- Mississippi State
Andy
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment