SEC College Basketball Marketing: #6 South Carolina

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, and #7 Ole Miss.

#6 South Carolina

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: A nice insider blog and inside access (from a coach) to the locker room!

Weaknesses: Delta Dental branding inside Twitter and Blog just feels off.

Full Scouting Report:

The South Carolina home page is managed by their CSTV partnership, links from here.

You'll notice the Stay Connected to the Gamecocks options available in the upper right hand corner of the site. I'll zoom in here.

The South Carolina Facebook Experience, has around 26,000 fans. They do a nice job of porting in news features from many sources, inside the Gamecocks world and from the sports world in general. They cover all sports.

The SC Twitter page is here, which to be honest starts a little weird. (It might be the first time I've seen advertising plopped in like this, for Delta Dental...) Once you dive in, you can see they do a good job of providing updates on each squad.

As you can see here, SC also provides you access to their Facebook and Twitter pages through the Fan Zone menu.

Now, at the very top of the page you likely noticed the "Spurs Up" Blog, which you can also click in. The blog covers all sports and shares stories and insight into Gamecocks Athletics. (Delta Dental gets more love here too.)



There's some heavy frequency of posting here, and a good amount of it is Hoops-related. I like how they describe themselves. Simple, and personal:

"Want a glimpse behind the scenes? Want videos and photos that you won’t find on the evening news? Interested to read about what our student-athletes do besides pulling on the garnet and black uniform? You’ll find it here."

Nice!

You'll also see here that they offer access to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.



Don't worry, I didn't forget. Here's their YouTube channel. There was some really solid hoops stuff last season, as they introduced fans to each of the players; I'm hopeful it returns.

So I bounced on to the Men's Basketball home page, here. You'll see the video player pumped right into the main window -- and SC seems to update this fairly often. It's a really nice look and adds a lot of energy.

As I looked around, the first thing I noticed was the ability to click in and experience a tour of the all-new locker room. I heard "tour" and "all-new." So the program is investing in itself. Nice.

I clicked in. And learned it isn't just a tour but a tour given by Assistant Coach Mike Boynton Jr. Wow.

Clicking on the Videos button takes us to a pretty robust videos directory, pre-sorted for basketball. Solid. Clicking on a video launches the All-Access player. It's good content, and I liked seeing get extra use out of game highlights, press conferences, and team events. It is a mix of pay and free audio and video though -- as I've said, I'd like to see all of this content free, both on the SC site and on YouTube. Let people connect with the program.

Finally, I scrolled to the bottom of the page.



There they had this, a Multimedia Guide.


Hmmm. Very curiously, I clicked in. It took me here, to a handy guide to ways to connect with the program. I'm not sure why it was buried so far down the page; seems like something SC would want to make really evident and easy to find!

That's it. Come back tomorrow as we keep rolling through the SEC.