AFL Best Practices: Richmond Tigers Allow for Live Chats with Membership Manager

Are you willing to make yourself available for fans? By that I mean, are you comfortable enough to announce you're available for questions and then back it up by responding to whatever's asked? Sometimes this is risky for many levels. What if they ask something you aren't comfy with? Worse yet, what if they don't care? (If no one asks anything)

The Richmond Tigers are willing to take this risk... and it paid off.

Clicking into the Richmond home page and hover over "NEWS" and you'll see "Live Chat" (highlighted below). Cool.




Clicking in takes us here, to the chat with Membership Manager Cain Liddle. Back on April 6th, Richmond elevated their Membership Manager to their fans for a chance to chat around the business side of the club.

As you'll see below, the post was active and personal. Questions dove into the strategy for dealing with and planning for members.



Suggestions on ways to improve came in, including this:



Finally, as you can see above, by hovering over any question or response, you are one click away from sharing it on Facebook. Simple and effective in spreading the message.

Really nice!

How could this be better? The idea is dead on. I'd love to see these framed a bit more. Rather than a blanket statement (chat with Cain Liddle), why not give more context... "Bring us your suggestions on improving our In-Game Promotions", for example. Develop topics that offer mutual value and bring an open mind. Love this concept.

Come back tomorrow for more AFL Best Practices! As always, you can follow me on Twitter (I'm @pawlow34) or on Facebook (Digital Hoops Blast).

Thanks!

Andy

Big East College Basketball Marketing: #1 Marquette

Today will conclude our journey through the Big East Conference, looking at how programs market themselves to young athletes (or fans) online.

Thus far our journey has shown us #16 DePaul, #15 Seton Hall, #14 U Conn, #13 Notre Dame, #12 Louisville, #11 Pitt, #10 Cincinnati, #9 Rutgers, #8 Georgetown, #7 St John's, #6 Syracuse, #5 West Virginia, #4 Villanova, #3 South Florida, and #2 Providence.

Which brings us to our winner...

#1 Marquette

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Superfans, Facebook, Active Blogs, and Twitter: Personality of the program and school is all over this site. And it brings things to life.

Weaknesses: I'd love to see the personality of the coaches come to life on the site as well.

Full Scouting Report:

Checking out the Marquette home page, here, and you don't get the most incredible visual impact. I think it is the placement and size of that Aurora Health Care banner, but it doesn't necessarily feel like the athletics spot off the bat. That changes though, trust me! (foreshadowing alert)

You see a prominent callout for the On the Record Blog (link here). How's this for an amazingly well written blog description? “The exclusive home for behind-the-scenes access to each of the University’s 14 NCAA Division I programs including daily updates, videos, photos, podcasts, and much more.”

Wow.

Count me in!

You'll also quickly noticed a nice consistent list of other ways to follow Marquette Athletics once you've clicked in. Let's check them out... First, Facebook. I love the Marquette Facebook page. They take a pretty active fan page, add a video page and a YouTube channel (not sure why they need both) and let them all work together. Pretty nice.

Here's the YouTube channel inside Marquette's Facebook page. I love it when teams take their digital plan and have it all work together like this!

The Marquette Athletics Twitter page is here. They've got around 1750 followers, and they cover all things athletics. I took one look and had to follow them. Why? Because they add interest, and personality in a big way. It's simple, but check this style of communication from their page:

Video: Coach Buzz previews tomorrow's game (man, it feels good to say "tomorrow's game")

Simple, but so personal feeling...


They did a separate Twitter page for the opening game, shown here. I'm not a fan of doing this --they created a Twitter page for one day. Why not drive everyone to your basketball Twitter page, one that is good forever? You can hype opening game (cool idea!) but I don't feel it has to be on a Twitter page of its own.



And here's the Athletics YouTube channel. Loads of video, and a lot of honest, fun descriptions. I would be much more likely to click into watch a "ridiculous block" clip than a "highlights of last night" clip. I did click in, and, yes, it was ridiculous (link to that here).

Moving back to the Athletics home page, the Multimedia menu gives you access to everything we've seen thus far in one place and more (Golden Eagle Podcasts & All-Access). We'll get to those in a second...

First, I want you to scroll with me to the bottom of the Marquette home page. As you can see in this image, they also have a cool Podcasts icon here (along with the All-Access callout). Another way to get into the content...

The Podcasts promo takes you here, to the ability to download individual podcasts or click on to iTunes. You can't subscribe by sport, so it is a little cumbersome, but the content is here and accessible.


All-Access takes us to a familiar area (shown below). Many teams offer this up - a CBS Sports window that plays a mix of free and premium video content across all sports. The more I see these, the more I wonder why more teams don't break apart from the pack in how these are delivered to fans or athletes.

OK, I loved seeing the For Recruits menu on the home page. And I was pleasantly surprised at the content beneath it. Let's click into Strength & Conditioning.

As you can see, there is a motherload of workouts here. Wow. A lot of stuff. So much that I can't believe it isn't hyped on the site anywhere. I mean, as a high school athlete I want to know what the college team does so I can get with it now. And I want to know the college I go to can help me maximize my potential. This content does wonders for this!

Clicking in and you actually see the videos with a description of how to do the exercise. This is crazy. Cool stuff Marquette!!!

All amped up, it's time to move to the Basketball home page. As you can see, they have a call out on the right for "Live In-Game Blog..."

I absolutely love this live blog idea, check it out for yourself here. Fans can get together and chat with the Athletics program live during the game here. This creates a destination on the Marquette site during gamedays (if you can't make it to the game, of course). Just another way to make players stars!

The Basketball section also delivers a super cool 360 degree tour of the gym. I love this -- move around on the court and check out the view in any direction. It is powerful, giving you that amazing feeling of an empty gym with just you, working on your game. Emotionally powerful.

Finally, they elevate stories on players to their bio pages. So if you are the feature of an article or interview, it will show up on your individual page. Cool.

So, how can you follow the Basketball team on Twitter? I did some digging around (as it isn't super clear on the basketball site). Coach Buzz Williams is up on Twitter, with a gorgeous looking page, he just hasn't started posting yet. I'm signed up, waiting!

Marquette has a Men's Basketball Twitter page, here. It's too early to tell, but this has the potential of being an impact Twitter page - lots of posts and sharing of all things Marquette Hoops.

And, last but not least, check the MU superfans Twitter page (here). With 120 followers and a super active site it is worth checking. These Superfans are the student section - and I love it that they have their own community to follow the program. This has monster potential. Monster.

And, showing signs of that potential, the Superfans create a preview of each game - scouting the enemy. It is distributed online (and probably in person) and lets you the fan study the opponent -- no doubt making it much easier to heckle accordingly. It elevates your team and just makes basketball even more fun!

All in all, an inspiring presence online for the Golden Eagles.

Come back tomorrow as we go through the best things about the Big East Conference online...

Andy

College Basketball: Digital Pac-10 Preview, #6 Washington State

Welcome back to our journey through the Pac-10, from a digital point of view.

The internet has leveled the playing field. All schools have an equal opportunity for their coaches and teams to share what it means to be a part of the program. To get you fired up. And to connect with other fans. There is no window of time that coaches can't connect to prospective players (or their families) online. And it's even better, since the control is fully in the hands of the prospective athlete. They reach out to connect whenever they want (or don't want).

So far our journey through the conference has shown us #10 USC , #9 Arizona State, and #8 Arizona, and #7 Oregon State. Let's keep moving...

#6 Washington State

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Good pieces in place - a recruits tab, basketball blog, and athletics department photo gallery and twitter feed.

Weaknesses: Limited depth and excitement once you hit the basketball page. (Which many people might do quickly!). Not much photography or video content.

Full Scouting Report:
Clicking into the WSU athletics site, here, and you'll see quite a jump in an overall level of communication. First, you'll notice the bold recruits tab in the middle of the top navigation. Let's dive in.



The content here seems ok, though nothing really tailored for a basketball player... and nothing that is an opportunity to follow the program when you leave this site (Facebook or Twitter anyone?)



Here's the welcome, from the AD. You'll see an image of a packed football stadium (wonder if that's recent?) Anyway I know this is a general message from the program as a whole... but something makes me wish this was hoops-specific.



I also clicked on notable alumni. This is another opportunity for a program to let you know what they stand for -- tell the stories of success. Help recruits envision who they could become... This is a random list of names, missing the story of each person. I don't mind the list. Just give me a story about who they are, and how they experienced WSU.



Here's the Multimedia tab. (Here's the Twitter and Facebook reference!) I'll dive into many of the connection points next.



Clicking on the Cougars on Twitter and Facebook callout gives you this directory -- which is pretty easy to then navigate as you want. Naturally I was hoping for a men's basketball Twitter callout but didn't see one here.



Diving into the Cougars Athletic DepartmentTwitter site here, with just over 1,100 followers. The site is pretty updated, but also pretty random in who they follow (just as we covered with Arizona State). I'd much prefer to see a list of other sites that reflect coverage of WSU athletics or key alumni.



Next, clicking into Cougars Blogs. As you can see the next page is pretty random -- there doesn't seem to be a hierarchy of communication. Which sport is the most important? Are soccer and golf more important than Hoops or Football here?



I'll skip over the other blogs and dive into the hoops blog myself. As you can see, it's fairly regularly updated by the Media Relations department. Cool. I just hope they bring in more of a connection to the staff and players during the season...



Finally, I'll dive into Cougar Chats.... and am not really sure what I see. Is this a WSU chat or a Dodge chat? (The Dodge logo is MUCH more prominent). The information seems good, just needs to be a little less (ok, a lot less) sponsorship feeling.



OK, it's time to leave the home page and dive into the Basketball page. I had big hopes. To me, WSU is a program that wants to be different. They have had a pretty good run the past few years and had a young coach (who's now at Virginia) and a new coach in Ken Bone who comes from a mid-major. I was ready for a powerful experience!

You'll notice a pretty prominent callout on the right for the basketball blog and then blogs again beneath the main picture window. Cool.

Looking around the site though there really aren't any other ways to follow the team. No Hoops Twitter and no Hoops Video/Audio content. I'm hoping this changes in a hurry.


In sum, WSU has a pretty solid experience. I'd love to see a bit more from the coaching staff, perhaps a bit more of a connection on the current squad. (and some energy - videos and photography could really help) But overall the experience is pretty good.

Check back tomorrow as we continue our roll through the Pac-10 with #5...

Andy