Horizon League Best Practices: Butler Makes Sharing Bulldog Love on Facebook Easy

This blog is all about inspiration. We're going to spend 3 days elevating best practices from the squads that make up the Horizon League. You can tune in on this blog, or you can follow along on Facebook (linked here) or on Twitter -- I'm @pawlow34.

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.

Click into the Butler University Facebook page, here, and you'll find the home of Hink the Butler Bulldog and his 2,800+ fans.

Scroll down the wall (shown below). and you'll see how Butler makes showing your Bulldog love cool and easy. The image at the bottom of the shot below, with the header "Add some Butler to your Facebook page" is where we'll turn our attention.

Let's click forward (scroll down or click here). You'll see a gallery of images. But, unlike the vast majority of images, Butler strategically wanted to use their Facebook photos for good. The mission: Get fans to tie Butler to their identity. As you can see below, Butler has taken shots of the program, campus, the mascot, and your home state and turned it into a collection of images for you to take with you.

Click in on one of the images (I chose Missouri, since that's my home state), and you'll see that you have a quick and easy way to show that there are two big parts of your identity: your home, and your love for the Butler Bulldogs. It's very much like a personalized license plate or bumper sticker strategy, and I mean that in a good way. You can have something that is both true to your home and true to your school. Love it! And for the rest of us, why not steal this best practice?

How could this be better? This is an amazing first step. Now let's build on it. Much like the

contests to submit a photo wearing your school tee in far reaching places, I'd love to see rewards given (via contests) for fans who have adopted Butler for their profile picture. The idea is in place. Fans are willing to apply Butler to their identity... now use this for good!

Solid, huh?

Tune in tomorrow as we share more inspiration from the Horizon League! And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.