Illinois Football Gives You Post Practice Video Content

If you're a recruit considering your college decision, there's no doubt that the coaching staff will make a big impact on your decision. No doubt. Their style, their passion, their openness (or lack thereof) will be big in the next four years of your life.

So how can a school, with limited resources to tell this story, accomplish this while also keeping the fan base up to date on the latest with the program?

The University of Illinois gives us quite a starting point.

Let's start on the Illinois Football home, Coach Ron Zook.com (here). You'll notice in the image below a headline of "8.6 Practice Report" (yes, I screen grabbed this a week or so ago)

I'm going to embed this video here. Take 1:16 and watch it -- I'll hang with you below it.

What I love about this is 3-fold.

1. It builds on immediate access - we see this interview immediately after practice, while people are still on the field. No one else has this access, and the Illini leverage it well.
2. It's personal -- we hear candid take on practice and philosophy in the moment. It feels unedited, and I mean that in a good way.
3. It is from leadership -- the time is given from the top to share the philosophy of the program. As a potential recruit, you feel like you're getting a peak under the tent.

But, like anything, this can get better.

How? I'd love to see the Illini post these videos even more in realtime. Perhaps during practices even! Imagine the impact if you hear from a coach before and after every practice -- just like the players no doubt receive pre and post-practice updates.

Then, we could create a great distribution plan. Consumers may visit the Illini site a few times/week... but they'll visit their own Facebook or Twitter feed a few times/day. Thus, I would make the primary area to distribute these videos Social Media. Then, the team site could become the destination for a summary video while the social media sites become in the moment energy!

I hope you're digging this. I'll be back with more coming later in the week. Feel free to follow along via Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski, here)

Thanks.

Andy