West Coast Conference Basketball Marketing: #5 San Francisco

We'll keep moving through the West Coast Conference, looking at how programs are communicating to young athletes (or fans) from a digital point of view. Websites and digital marketing are the great equalizer -- a place where every program can share what they stand for. And I'd argue all of this is even more critical for the Mid Majors out there. Smart marketing can help build that connection that gets you the athlete you need.

Thus far our journey has shown us #8 St Mary's, #7 San Diego, and #6 Gonzaga.

Let's go.

#5 San Francisco

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Great job of focusing Recruits via Recruiting Nav and Recruiting Guide.

Weaknesses: The ways of really connecting with this year's team are all hidden from the public view.

Full Scouting Report:
Hitting the Dons Athletics site, here, I pondered the mascot and smiled. Then I began to scan around the page.


This is one of those moments that layout is super critical. As you'll notice above, there is a callout for fan zone in the bottom of that image. What you don't see (image below) is that they actually want you to follow the Dons on Twitter and YouTube. Cool stuff, but you can't see it due to the layout of that button. I'd also call out that this is one of those cases where leveraging the power of those two iconic logos (iconic with kids anyway!) can make it even more of a draw.



Let's click in.

The Dons on Twitter link takes you here, to their athletics home of 141 followers.



They do a solid job, updating you on all things Dons Athletics - which includes in-game updates across multiple programs. It's a little more than just the facts (shown below) but it still needs a little more swagger and (ideally) the ability to narrow down to your team of choice.

"MBB: It was a fight to the final seconds but Dons fall 66-65 to Broncos. Kwame Vaughn led USF with 16 points, Dior Lowhorn led with 9 boards"

Next, the Dons on YouTube takes you here, to the Athletics Channel of 43 videos. The videos are solid, covering all sports. Again, it's a great first step but I'd love to see these done in a way that was a little more predictable and subscribable. (Is that a word?) In short, tell me about the programs that are coming out and when they will be there... then let me (the recruit) decide what I want to sign up to receive.





Next, I was drawn into the Recruits menu item (side note: nice!).


In this section, they pull in the NCAA information but also a virtual tour of campus (shown below). This is great stuff but they are missing that personal welcome to USF. Imagine, you're a coach from USF and get a chance to meet a top recruit. Do you just go straight into compliance info? Probably not. You get to know him. You share a joke or some character. And then you start to bring him into what makes you and your program special. That's the X-Factor and it's not here... yet. (I do love the virtual tour though!)







Moving to the bottom of the page, you'll notice that the Media Guides are elevated to the home page (albeit at the bottom). From here, you can click in to thumb through this on your laptop. Side note, can't wait to see how changes in technology will impact that behavior! Solid placement.





It's time to head to the basketball home page.


My eyes are quickly drawn into the lower right hand part of the site where we see both Coach Walters on Twitter and the Recruiting Guide!




Clicking into Coach Walters on Twitter first took me to Coach Walters' blog (shown below). Cool, except he hasn't updated that since August. I like the balance of updating both a blog and a Twitter feed, but think USF would be better off keeping him just on Twitter and then pumping his updates into the site as a live stream.




Then I looked through the article and realized it wasn't actually the Coach's blog but rather a blog by players, the latest by Senior Dior Lowhorn. Now that's cool! (But I'd like to see it branded better -- see the example below from Texas A&M (linked here).


Coach Walters on Twitter takes us here, though he protects his updates from the public. He has 630 followers.



The USF recruiting guide takes you to an online version of their magazine for recruits. It's a good guide, giving info on the area, the college, and the team. But for now anyway, it is just an online version of the same guide. I see a big opportunity to evolve this to take advantage of realtime updates in season! But, that said, this really needs to be found under the site's "Recruits Navigation!"



Next, turn your attention to the right hand part of the site, where we get access to Twitter and their Media Guide again.



We also get access to the USF Hoops Facebook page (linked here). They've got 1200 fans, but this is also kept private. (Ugh).


Finally, I loved seeing this. It's super simple, but how much more personal does "Meet the Team" feel versus "Roster". Details can be powerful!




That's pretty much it. There's a great foundation in the works at USF. What I wish is that they would open this up, allow us to see and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. And connect us to the team in the process.