Social Media Monday: Breaking Down the Sacramento State Victory Over Oregon State

Moments.

As in seizing them.

That's what Social Media is all about -- to thrive in the moment. Why? I think it has a lot to do with context. Don't ever forget that most people aren't just following your team. They are seeing your updates within context of their own feed. (So they see it alongside those of their friends, their family, and their co-workers). That means the more you show up in the moment, the more human your team will appear!

It's a great measure of success, because it's a great measure of connection. And that's why I'm going to start this style. Monday mornings during Football season, I'll take a look at a squad with a big win and break down how they connected along the way. Hope you can learn from this! (and that I can too)

This weekend, a monster win from Sacramento State - going on the road to win at Pac-12 Oregon State, in Overtime. I'm guessing traffic to the Hornets site would be spiking, and I was just one of many visitors. I hit up the Sacramento State Athletics page, here.

As you'll note below, the score was updated to the home page. But that's about it -- the background still features a baseball player and. There's opportunity to put imagery up that reinforces the emotion in the moment. And most importantly, we don't have this moment working for us as it could -- to drive the Hornets Social Media presence...

By clicking on "The Green Army", we get access to Facebook. (Click here to hit the Green Army student fan club)

Then you can get into Facebook, here. It's here, in the Green Army Facebook News Feed that you can see how it all went down inside Social Media. There is a posting of highlights (nicely embedded from YouTube), and there's a posting from immediately after the game. Finally, there's a post up in the first quarter.

The posts below are fine -- they were timely. But there's definitely more opportunity to connect with Fans in during the game. Perhaps it's a post each quarter that sums up the quarter, with some emotion fused in. Or maybe it's more ambitious -- like a sideline interview pre-game, half-time, and post game? The key is to be connected to the emotions in the moment. And be ready for the success that may (or did) happen!

For contrast, I want you to see the home page VCU published after the Kansas-VCU matchup in last year's NCAA Basketball tourney. Emotional. And I'd guess they were ready for this before the game even started -- meaning everyone, from the players to the marketing staff -- were ready for the win.

So today, I'll leave you with this question: What's your team doing to be prepared when something amazing happens?

I'll be back Wednesday with more best practices. Feel free to follow along via Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski, here)

Thanks.

Andy