Southeastern Conference Best Practices: Kentucky's Facebook Video Series

This blog is all about inspiration. We're spending 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the SEC. You can tune in on this blog, or you can follow along on Facebook (linked here) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

What makes something a best practice? This isn't about the most intricate experience. It's about looking at the world from your consumer's point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I'm treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.

Thus far we have discussed how Tennessee gives us a 360 degree view of Coach Pearl, here.

Let's roll...

The Coach Cal website, here, is always good for inspiration. Coach Calipari is known for his domination of social media (1.1 Million followers on Twitter, just under 200,000 fans on Facebook). But it wasn't the presence in social media that stood out to me as a best practice. It was what they did with this knowledge base.

Through Coach Cal.com, Kentucky brings fans and former players together through videos. Here's how. Click into Coach Cal.com and you'll see the image front and center -- former player Patrick Patterson and the handy Facebook icon.

Each video then plays a Q & A with the player, conducted through Facebook. As you can see below, they simply elevate the question with the person who asked it's name and Facebook profile picture. The video then shifts to the student athlete to answer...

This concept was extended to Eric Bledsoe and John Wall. Solid stuff. I love it because it reminds prospective recruits that they are on a big stage, but it does it in a forum (Facebook) that they are no doubt familiar with. It takes something you already know and makes you a star. Love it.

How could this be better? This may be in the works, but I'd love to see this extended to current players and the coaching staff during the season. It could be a regular feature after every game -- kind of a new way of doing postgame press conferences. Open the Q & A up to fans, rather than the media. Cool concept!

That's it.

Tune in tomorrow as we share more inspiration from the SEC! And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.

Andy