Alabama Basketball Delivers a Powerful Twitter Voice

Alabama Basketball has been one of the pleasant surprises of this year's season -- cracking the top 25 and delivering fresh energy into a program that is more known for their football success. It was that situation that had me intrigued to check out their basketball social media -- could the basketball team develop their own voice, rather than simply be a football voice on the basketball court?

As you'll see today, they not only define their own voice, but they do it in a way that we can all learn from: they get personal.

The journey begins on the Bama Hoops Twitter page, here.

I'm going to call out a few pieces of their energy that will do a great job of illustrating their approach. First, I was drawn to the simplicity and emotion in which they let their fan base wake up to a big matchup (vs Georgetown)... Oddly enough, this is one of those times where all caps and lots of exclamation points make communication better!

So, as the fan base began to respond, posting about the game, Alabama Hoops retweeted their messages. As you'll see in the image below, the cumulative effect of lots of elevated fan voices makes the Alabama page feel very much connected to the pulse of their fans. It works. And, of course, the fans will feel more connected to the program because they were elevated through the retweet.

Finally, as you'll see in the image below, though the Tide lost the game, they engaged with their fan base in a way that was in the moment but yet raw. Pre-game, they posted on the energy. Post game, they were gracious but not vanilla. And the next morning, they were grateful to their fan base. I'll let you read the style, and I think you'll understand how personal this approach is... and you'll start to feel the program.



Which, really, is the goal of social media. Let people feel you. Not feel for you, but feel you. Great model for us all to learn from!

Thanks for reading. You can tune back in Wednesday for more digital best practices. Until then, follow me here, or on Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski)

Andy