What do you want fans to do when they hit your program's site? This is up for debate and interpretation but I would argue that one of the most critical pieces is for fans to literally connect with you - to engage with your team(s) socially so that you can connect together in the future. If we can establish this level of connection, we begin to build a relationship -- not a transaction. In today's world, it means I opt in to follow you on Facebook or Twitter.
Let me ask this question... If you hit Apple's site (shown below) what do you think they want you to engage with?
As you (hopefully) know, I check out a LOT of school Facebook and Twitter pages. If you don't know this, please, stick around - we'll have a fun ride together!
Oddly enough, one thing I feel like I'm always having troubles with is literally finding the school's social media pages. I'm including a few examples below but I could have chosen ten or twenty more. You might find Facebook or Twitter hidden underneath a menu of "Social Media", "Marketing", "Fan Zone", "Fan Central", "Multimedia", "Interactive Zone", "Insider", or I'm sure many other places. Check a few of them below...
"Fan Zone"
"Multimedia"
"Fan Central"
The point here isn't that these are wrong. The point here is that there are a lot of ways this is being approached, yet none of them enable people to easily follow (and feel compelled to follow) the program and that shouldn't be the case. What if we could distill it down the way Apple does? What if we had one lead program and we made it super easy to sign up or raise your social hand to follow that program? Yes, it would mean prioritizing messages... but on the plus side, yes it would mean prioritizing messages. We all have limited time, we are all busy (if you know me, you know I refuse to use that word for that very reason!). So it is on us to prioritize our message for others. Help them know what's the most important. And then make it easy to do what you want them to do!
As we focus our efforts on this Facebook and Twitter connection with our programs it becomes very important that we elevate this work and don't keep Social Media on an equal playing field to everything else we talk about.
With that, I hope you all have a great Holiday break!
I'll be taking some time off from the blog, but will be back at you on Monday, January 9 with more NCAA digital best practices. Until then, follow me here, or on Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @andypawlowski)
As always, thanks for reading!
Andy
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