West Coast Conference Basketball Marketing: #1 Santa Clara

We'll keep moving through the West Coast Conference, 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. And I'd argue all of this is even more critical for the Mid Majors out there. Smart marketing can help build that connection that gets you the athlete you need.

Thus far our journey has shown us #8 St Mary's, #7 San Diego, #6 Gonzaga, #5 San Francisco, #4 Loyola Marymount, #3 Pepperdine, and #2 Portland.

Let's finish it.

#1 Santa Clara

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Basketball Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube make for an imposing combination and really connect you with the programs.

Weaknesses: That energy is not connected into the Santa Clara site, and they don't reference Steve Nash or Broncos Hoops history anywhere that I could find.

Full Scouting Report:
Hitting the Santa Clara home page, here, and we get a nice bold Follow the Broncos callout. Nothing blinking in and out, nothing buried at the bottom of the page.


(Here it is, zoomed in)



A clear signal to click in. So I did. And we get taken to the Bronco social media section, shown below. You've got a gateway into Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And you also have a request to email in photos of you to have added to their Facebook page. Smart.



The Santa Clara Facebook page has energy. They cover all sports, but they do it really well. There are interviews with players after games. They add photo albums of games. And there's inside access - I enjoyed watching the squad go bowling. Essentially they stay very connected to the 1800 Bronco Fans. Nice work.




The Broncos Athletics Twitter page is here, with 195 followers. They do a nice job of sharing updates on all teams - access to what posts online. It's kind of a one stop Broncos shop for online articles and videos. I also liked that they are following a small number of individuals, including Steve Nash, who I hope permeates this site. For a recruit, to follow in his footsteps is pretty powerful indeed.



I've been one of Head Coach Kerry Keating's now 797 followers on Twitter for awhile, as I've always felt he's one of the best in leveraging technology in the coaching world. Click in here to follow him -- don't worry, I'll wait. (it's worth it!)



As you'll see, he is active, honest, and personal. Very personal. On Christmas Eve he announced to the Twitter world that he'll be a dad in April of a baby boy (who he said is committing to Santa Clara!) And, here's how he hyped the success of a recruit for next season:

"Congrats to incoming Bronco class of '10/14 recruit John McArthur - 1000 pts and counting, top 5 all time at DeLaSalle HS!"

Finally, he shared a link to their 700 Fan strong basketball Facebook page (which wasn't listed earlier -- as you'll see below... or here... it is not quite as active as the athletics site.



Finally, both Santa Clara Athletics and Santa Clara Basketball have YouTube channels (here and here). The Athletics channel is good, covering multiple sports with 40 videos. It's been alive and active, and is worth a click.



But the basketball channel is outstanding. They are very active, and share inside videos - at shootarounds, at practices, and bonding as a team. You can't help but feel more connected to the program by clicking around here. Powerful stuff here.



Moving to the basketball page, here, and there isn't as much of this energy pumped into the Athletics site.


You'll see there is access to the Media Guide, available to download as a series of PDFs.


This is the start for me of feeling that they don't maximize their core Santa Clara site as well as they could. Note, there's no Santa Clara in the Pros (Steve Nash), nor any reference to their tourney history. Coach Keating's bio (shown below) doesn't hype his Twitter account or ways to connect with him. This is the easy part (they have the right pieces -- you just need to feel them as you drill around the site!)



You also won't see the Twitter page of Assistant Dustin Kerns, link here. With 212 followers, he does a really nice job of sharing updates on himself and the team. I really like it when he gets a little more free, like this observation:

"Here early for the game...really like to watch recruits in warm-ups. It can be very telling of who they are or may become."

Somehow hearing that from a coach tells me a lot about what he values. Cool.



Finally, Assistant Jesse Pruitt is also up on Twitter, though not very active yet.


That's it.

Come back here tomorrow as we unveil the 10 best things about WCC Marketing.