Northeast Conference Funnels in News Coverage

There's conversation about the blurring of lines in media. What was once the turf of the newspaper industry is now the turf of the internet. And the beauty of this is that now, if you're a school or league that maybe didn't get the newspaper coverage you want (or deserve), you have the ability to deliver this to your fans in the same way newspapers can today... with real time websites.

Northeast Conference Week Starts Now.

Hit the NEC home page and you'll see it everywhere... News. The right-hand side of the page is peppered with the latest headlines on the league -- it's essentially an online newsletter of the latest and greatest home office updates. It's great to see, because you simply aren't going to find access to that info elsewhere!

Scroll down the home page and you'll find the latest updates from the 12 member institutions of the NEC. Same style, easy to browse, easy to get here....

Then, click on any of the team logos on the top of the page (like I'll do here for Mt St Mary's) and you'll get examples like the below... Of all the latest news on the athletics front for that school (across all programs)

What we have is access to info you simply won't find elsewhere, and it's architected in a way that is really easy to get your fix.

But, how could we get better? I see two things here that could take the NEC's footprint to a much more connected place. First, allow fans to sign up for updates. Let those updates come to them -- whether it's a newsletter or a customized NEC page. If they could see more of the school(s) and sport(s) they care about, it'll get even better for them.

Next I'd love to see the NEC's point of view. Rather than surfacing the news by itself, I'd love to see the editorial side of things. What makes you emotional? What are you most proud of right now? Hit us with that energy and passion and we'll come back early and often!

That's it for today...

Come back tomorrow as we continue rolling through a week of best practices in the NEC.

Don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm @pawlow34.

Andy

Conference USA Pumps In (and Up) the Campus Energy

Conference USA Week Starts Now.

One way I view conferences is that they are the happy parents with their numerous children (up to 16 in some cases) to celebrate. But many conferences don't take the time to really pump their teams up.

Hit the Conference USA Home Page and look towards the bottom left-hand side of the page for the peak into school logos...

I'll zoom in here, because I really want to dial into this.

"On Campus"

I love seeing the logos paired with stories. In a single glance, we get everything - what the hottest read is in each school. And, from here, you can click in to go deep on that school. As an added bonus, the site becomes alive and the conference shows love to their schools.

Sweet.

How can this be better? What if this wasn't simply a list of 12 articles but rather a pull of 12 Twitter feeds? Those feeds could either be the school's athletics feed OR it could be a separate account, set up by the conference to pull in the right updates. (All they have to do is set up an account, lets say "@SMUCUSA and then set this site to pull in everything that account Re-Tweets. Then they go out to all SMU accounts (Or relevant bloggers) and find those posts that give you the feel of each campus!

Tune in tomorrow as we take another peak into the best practices of Conference USA.

And, don't forget, you can follow along on Facebook (here) or on Twitter: I'm@pawlow34.

Andy