SEC College Basketball Marketing: #10 Auburn

Let's continue our journey, looking at how programs are communicating to young athletes (or fans) from a digital point of view. Websites and digital marketing are the great equalizer -- a place where every program can 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.
Let's keep moving.

Thus far our journey has shown us #12 Alabama and #11 Mississippi State.

#10 Auburn

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: The Gameday Central Matchup guide is pretty cool. Also loved the view into their new gym.

Weaknesses: Limited ways to follow the program, or athletics in general. Someone get Auburn a Twitter presence, stat.

Full Scouting Report:

The Auburn home page feels very active.




I pause a minute to figure out the best path around, deciding to start with the menus at the top. These menus themselves are a little surprising. Of the 8 areas that are elevated, half are related to money (Travel, Tickets, Shop, and Tigers Unlimited). It felt a bit much to me, but let's move on. Multimedia gives you access to Podcasts. As you can see here, you have to subscribe to the entire universe of podcasts, across Volleyball, Gymnastics, and Soccer along with your hoops fix. You can get these individually on iTunes, it just isn't an automatic subscription for you.

Moving down the home page, you'll see a Basketball Gameday button. Clicking in shows you this - for $5.95/month you can get live audio and video, along with Coach Lebo's show. This isn't bad, but I think Auburn has a chance to make this more of a community on Gameday and thus should also consider how to get fans here without a subscription.

Scrolling down the page, you'll see this collection of connection points.



First, they provide access to become a fan on Facebook. As you can see on this link, they have 3400 fans and cover all sports -- albeit not an incredibly active community. I found the branding a little strange too. Let me join the Auburn Tigers... not the Auburn ISP Sports Network. (Nothing against the network, I just feel the emotion is a little lacking here)

Also in this area are a collection of athletics journals or blogs. They are interesting. The Auburn Broadcast booth gives a nice take on traveling with the team. The AD gives updates on athletics. It's great stuff, but needs to be updated a little more predictably and consistently. (Twitter?)

OK, moving to the basketball section, here, which got my attention by how they balance this season against the past and the future...

First, the current team. When you click on a player, you get this - a nice guide to each player, from their shoe size to their self descriptions to what they love or hate to eat. It's personal and it's easy and it's exactly what connects.

You can check out the media guide, which is available in a whole load of PDFs. I'm not sure about you, but I think most kids wouldn't dig downloading all of these. If you are going to break this apart into a collection of files, I'd love to see a little more about each file. Give it some space, some love, tell us why we have to download it...

Now, at the bottom of the basketball section is this, my favorite part of the Auburn experience... Gameday. As you can see here, they bring in not just a collection of information about Auburn heading into the game but also a collection of links and info on the opposition (in this case Virginia). Nice! It creates a simple path for fans to get ready for the game - whether it is to analyze matchups or to plan trash talk. In any case it's cool.


This is also connected to Lebo's Lunatics, the Auburn Student Section. I think this is screaming for a student driven Twitter and Scouting Report attack, like we reviewed on Marquette and their Superfans previously (here).

OK, Auburn celebrates the past as what built this place. In pictures, stats, and text, they chronicle the 104 year history of the program. Inside the basketball section. It's very informative, but could use a little more human touch here. A fans perspective on what made each player or team special.

And, lastly, the future. Where is this going? Prospective student athletes want to be a part of a program that is on the rise, that is building for the future. Auburn does a nice job of (literally) showing how they are building for the future with this tour of their arena (under construction).

There's a photo gallery that goes month by month through progress. And there's a web cam of the project. As a recruit, you can get a feel for the environment you'd be entering. Nice.

That's it. There are some nice touches, but as you can tell there's a need for ways to connect with the team through the season. To share updates on game matchups or construction. If Auburn can nail that, they'll be set to rise quickly.

Come back tomorrow as we keep this moving.

Andy