SEC College Basketball Marketing: #5 Arkansas

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 seen #12 Alabama, #11 Mississippi State, #10 Auburn, #9 LSU, #8 Vanderbilt, #7 Ole Miss, and #6 South Carolina.

#5 Arkansas

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: A recruiting area that leads off with Twitter... 360 degree tours of the training facility and weight room are amazing!

Weaknesses: Good strengths of Facebook community, Twitter, and Game Blogs need to play better together.

Full Scouting Report:

The Razorbacks home page is a simple page, without a lot of energy to it. But a quick glance across the page gives you the hope of what may lie beneath.



First, I noticed the Recruits menu. Then (see below) I moused over it and saw.... Twitter. Smart. Yet very few (or really anyone) programs I've seen take this step. It's simple, but why not drive prospective student athletes into a place to connect with you? Cool.



The Razorbacks Athletics Twitter page is here. They've got 4600 followers, and do a solid job of two things: covering all key sports as games unfold (basically a Twitter game update) and sharing links for new stories on the program. I like it, just wish it was a little more personal feeling.



And, speaking of smart, they offered these cool 360 degree tours of their training facilities and weight room. You can interact and zoom around. It's powerful stuff.





Deeper down the page, you'll see the Razorbacks tout ways to follow the program via Facebook and Twitter. The branding is solid, I just wish these didn't rotate -- they are both cool, let's give them both some love!



Clicking on this Twitter page takes you here, to a pretty good description of what the Razorbacks Twitter is all about. They allude to more ways following the program soon.




On to Facebook, clicking on this tout takes you here. The Razorbacks Facebook presence feels much more like a schedule reminder than a fan community. They share upcoming events across all sports to a nation of 28000 or so fans. All that said, I like how fans use these posts as rallying cries for each upcoming game.




Moving on to the Basketball home page, you'll see a prominent window for their Live Blog. Pretty cool. I'll click in.



As you can see, the Razorbacks New Media Team blogs during games, which is pretty solid. I'd love to see them connect this experience with their Facebook community!


As you'll see here, the Razorbacks also post Q&A sessions with players and coaches. Cool. And another opportunity to engage their Facebook community. I'd love to see questions come in from here!



What's not posted on the site (but should be) is the rest of the Twitter story. Coach Pelphrey is on Twitter, here, with around 1500 followers. He's not been very active in-season, which may be why it isn't hyped on the site.



I hope you've enjoyed this. We are going to pause for Christmas, but we'll keep moving through the Final 4 of the SEC next Monday, December 28.

We've got Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee left. Who's it going to be?

Andy