SEC College Basketball Marketing: #11 Mississippi State

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 we've taken a look at #12 Alabama...

#11 Mississippi State

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: A very accessible administration that may be starting to move to hoops.

Weaknesses: A big hurdle to even get into the website... and once you get there, it is pretty tough to follow the basketball program.

Full Scouting Report:

Hitting the Mississippi State home page, they hit you with a splash page offering the chance to buy football tickets for next season...


I couldn't actually navigate to skip this ad and go on to the M State home page, finally relenting in and clicking into the ad. (Ugh!) This will now give me access to the site navigation and will be my base for the site tour.




OK, from the home page, there are two ways to navigate into Facebook and Twitter. First, there are icons up in the upper left of the site and second via their Multimedia menu (I'll zoom in for you).

Top of the site:



And, the Multimedia Menu (even zoomed in, this may be a bit small... trust me, it's here though!)


The Mississippi State Facebook page is home to a little over 12,000 fans. It's a solid site, posting game updates and reminders while also sharing new posts that hit the M State website.



Clicking on Twitter takes you to this directory.



As you can see there are two athletics Twitter sites plus a Men's Basketball site. Let's dive in...The M State Athletics Twitter site is here, with just shy of 2400 followers. They cover lots of sports, live posting during football games and sharing articles that hit the M State site.



Meanwhile the Bulldogs News feed is here, with 555 followers. This site shares all articles (any team) that hit the MS Athletics site.



Both of these are fine, but both lack the insights I'd hope to see along with the updates...

Now, on the other hand, the men's basketball Twitter site is here, with just under 400 followers and the insight/personality that was not as present in the other MS Twitter sites. They hit you with updates during games, on trips with the team, and at practices. A really nice site. Oh and they occasionally share pictures. Solid.


Of note, you can also follow State AD Greg Byrne, Senior Associate AD Scott Stricklin, Associate AD Mike Richey, and Associate AD Bart Gregory on Twitter... which is great as you the fan (or prospective student athlete) have a lot of ways to follow the Bulldogs.

Moving onward to the Men's Basketball section, you see they pump in the latest video highlights right into the main window. Let's keep moving around...



Clicking on the 09 Highlight Video takes you to "Maroon to the Max", the All-Access video player that is a mix of pay and free stuff. (The 09 Highlights are free). I like the branding and the player, I just wish there wasn't the hurdle of mixing free and pay stuff here. Let everyone get excited about M State hoops, irregardless of whether they want to buy the video goodness.



The Media Guide is available on the basketball site, shown here. You have to download these as individual PDFs (9 of them in total if you want to check out the whole thing). I really think this is a miss... If you can't make the guide browsable online, at least allow me to download the whole guide at once.



Scrolling down the site, you'll see this tout, with a couple of interesting ways to check out the Bulldogs.



First, there is the weekly post from AD Greg Byrne, Thursdays with Byrne. When you combine this with Twitter, you quickly get a feel that Byrne is one of the more accessible Athletic Directors we've come across yet -- giving you a sense that, as a player, he would also be pretty accessible. Nice.



And, I liked seeing this: The 5 principles that Define MSU athletics. There isn't anything surprising here really - education and do things the right way - but I liked seeing them place this in the site. And it's nice to see Graduate Student Athletes is number one, Compete for championships is number 5.

And, finally, while it isn't up on the site yet, it looks like Coach Stansbury is just starting to get on Twitter, link here. (He just had his first post)...


A little more ways to follow the Bulldogs is just what's needed, so hopefully this is a nice start!

Come back tomorrow as we keep moving through the SEC!

Andy