The 10 Best Digital Marketing Features in MVC Basketball

Today's going to be fun.

It's the chance to recap what we've seen in the Missouri Valley Conference. I'll start with a summary of the order of finish and then I'll conclude with the most inspiring pieces, regardless of team. And you'll want to come back tomorrow, when I'll hit you with the MVC All-Twitter Team.

First, let's recap how the MVC squads finished.

1. Wichita State - Best Basketball strategy across Facebook and Twitter
   
2. Illinois State - Good video strategy and great Facebook strategy
   
3. Bradley - Nice Recruiting Guide Content needs to pump into the site
   
4. Southern Illinois - Be a Saluki is the heart of this site
   
5. Missouri State - Well architected site needs basketball depth
   
6. Northern Iowa - Deep presence on Twitter
   
7. Drake - Twitter and Blog powers the Bulldogs
   
8. Indiana State - Nice photo tours of their new weight room
   
9. Evansville - BIG YouTube depth
   
10. Creighton - Does good photography sound like I'm reaching at all?
    

Now, as promised, here are my 10 favorite things about the conference. If you've just stumbled upon this blog, this is where it gets extra fun. This is the collection of most inspiring things across the 10-team MVC basketball marketing landscape. Let's go!

10. Wichita State's Basketball Facebook Page. I'm a fan of doing this in general. Why not provide us with a way to have a fan network of your team? This is an active site - pumping in video to a rowdy group of roughly 1300 fans. Click in here.


9. Become A Saluki and See How. I have to say combining the idea of Becoming a Saluki and Strength & Conditioning together inside a Recruits world is brilliant stuff. Southern Illinois both plants the idea of becoming a Saluki and they show you how they are going to help you reach your athletic potential.





8. Check out the Wichita State Program in 360 degrees. The Shockers give you interactive virtual tours just like you might get when you check out a new house online. You can check out the Koch Arena plus their Weight Room, Training Room, and Practice Facility in depth. Nice.






7. Illinois State's Former Player Blogs. This is just smart. Former Redbirds Emmanuel Holloway and Champ Oguchi are blogging on the ISU hoops site (link here and here). Not only do you, the fan, get to follow along with success of grads but you, the recruit, get a chance to connect with former stars. Love this - it proves you can leverage your former players even when they aren't in the NBA.




6. Drake's National Exposure. This is a nice touch. Drake made monster news in 2008 with their run to a 28-5 record and the NCAA tourney. They take this exposure and pump it into the basketball site, proving you can still get legs out of big time press even if it was a couple of years ago. (Here's to hoping they can add to this list!)



5. The Bradley Recruiting Guide. I'm not a fan of Media Guides. But I love the idea of a Recruiting Guide. This one has great branding throughout, including looks at their facilities, national exposure, and how they develop players. It's a really nice message and putting it here adds big time to the reach.







4. Follow the MSU Bears or the WSU Shockers Boxes. Missouri State and Wichita State take all the ways to follow their program and put it into a simple to follow box. MSU puts theirs at the top of the site, Wichita puts theirs further down on their home page. Love the simplicity and the power of having it all together.




3. Illinois State Brings Twitter & Music to Facebook. This is one of those "Why didn't other schools think of it?" things. Twitter is pumped into the Facebook site, allowing those who don't have Twitter accounts the ability to see their updates, right here. So powerful.
And, this image is powerful. Why not create a music player of the best radio highlights of your program and pump it into the Facebook page? Amazing concept!


2. Wichita State Takes a YouTube spin on the News. In the spirit of maximizing what you have, Wichita takes their news stories and posts them onto YouTube. Then they embed those videos into their athletics site. So everything is easy to share, favorite, and subscribe to. Maximize it all. And there's something youthful about news as YouTube.



1. Illinois State Full Games on Vimeo. Imagine pumping all of your games into the site. So all your highlights are now fully visible to family and friends everywhere. For Free. In the era of $9.99/month subscription services, this is refreshing. It makes players stars, which is what they want... and this makes ISU a role model for other programs.


That's it.

Come back tomorrow and we'll unveil the MVC All-Twitter Team. Oh, and (shameless plug) you can follow all of these updates on Twitter, here.

Andy