What makes something a best practice? This isn't about the most intricate experience. It's about looking at the world from your consumer's point of view and delivering something that hits it right smack on the head. In the case of colleges, I'm treating the primary consumer as that prospective student athlete.
Cool?
Let's move.
Cool?
Let's move.
It seems fitting that today is here. Yesterday, we covered the details at the bottom of a website (check what Duke does, here)... And today we will flip that around with the top navigation. Let's move to the Maryland Athletics website, here. As you can see in the image below, they hit us front and center with a For Recruits header.
That's where the magic happens.
First of all, let's zoom into that menu, below:
Maryland Positions Twitter as a Recruiting Tool. We have long identified that Twitter offers the potential for prospective student athletes to stay in contact with coaches. But if you look at the majority of sites, they instead offer Twitter under "Fan Zone" or "Multimedia" or, maybe, "Social Media". And I'm a believer that you identify your audience and speak to them. Maryland makes this very clear.
Maryland Positions Twitter as a Recruiting Tool. We have long identified that Twitter offers the potential for prospective student athletes to stay in contact with coaches. But if you look at the majority of sites, they instead offer Twitter under "Fan Zone" or "Multimedia" or, maybe, "Social Media". And I'm a believer that you identify your audience and speak to them. Maryland makes this very clear.
I clicked into Twitter, and come to Coach Gary Williams' page, here. Coach Williams does a great job here - he's up fairly often, and is conversational and relevant. Scroll through it and you'll see he gives props to former players (Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, and Landon Milbourne recently) -- signaling that he doesn't forget you once you leave Maryland. Just solid all around.
How could this be better? Make this the first thing on the menu. Twitter crashed the recruits menu, the mission now is to move it to the first thing we see.
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3 comments:
Great Recruiting tool... take a look at how NC State has integrated Twitter with www.GoPack.com.
Front and center... scrolling all our feeds on the main page for all user to see and making it easy for fans and recuits to find and follow.
Eric-
You are correct. I love what the Pack are doing. Makes it super easy to see, regardless of whether you have a Twitter account. The big thing I'd love to see is that Twitter feed customized for your sport. (So the hoops section has only hoops Tweets, for example). The structure is there (so the hard part's done)! Fantastic call out.
Maryland's best Twitter coach, by far, is Brenda Frese, the women's basketball coach at twitter.com/umdwbb
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