social media in college athletics
DESCRIPTION
Billy McDonald has spent the past two years of his college career monitoring Web traffic. He has worked diligently to discover the most efficient method for integrating social media into everyday marketing strategies. McDonald will graduate with a double major from MSUM in May. He will receive a degree in mass communications with an emphasis in public relations, as well as a degree in business administration with an emphasis in marketing. In January 2011, McDonald accepted the position of social media ambassador for Dragon Athletics. During his time with Dragon Athletics, he has discovered that social media is responsible for 25 percent of the Web traffic for the Dragon Athletics website. In order to conduct his research, McDonald worked on multiple dashboards, which allowed him to manage multiple accounts, browse the Web for valuable information and monitor keywords posted on Facebook, Twitter and Google. With the use of “Google Analytics,” traffic created from a special formatted click-through on a social media site is easily measured and studied. McDonald has always taken an interest in social media. “I used to joke that Facebook was my major during my freshman year,” says McDonald. After taking a year off from school, he came back and added mass communications with an emphasis in public relations as his second major in addition to his degree in business administration. During his time away from school, McDonald spent much of his free time researching media and learning Internet codes. It was then that he discovered a social media-driven career was what he wanted to pursue. Before finding success with Dragon Athletics, McDonald paved the way for himself at Absolute Marketing Group, a full-service communications firm dedicated to creating effective marketing campaigns for Fargo area businesses. While working for the company, McDonald promoted Twitter and Facebook pages along with a text club for the local Pancheros restaurant. McDonald was responsible for the text club’s growth from 50 members to 800 members. It was after this experience that he bought his first book about social media. Recently, the mass communications department at MSUM has added a class about social media, which McDonald applauds. However, he wishes the class had been available previously so he could have enrolled in it. “Social media is an integral part of mass communications,” says McDonald. All of McDonald’s progress is just a small-scale trial of the type of social media marketing he hopes will become large scale for the entire university. “The larger implications of my findings is that social media is always evolving, so there is no way to forecast its growth in our culture perfectly, but surely it’s not going away.”TRANSCRIPT
The World of New Media Communications via
Dragon Athletics Department
Presenter: Billy J. McDonald@BillyJMcDonald
Social Media & Communications Coordinator of Dragon Athletics
Who am I?
Senior in Business Administration emphasis in Marketing, and Mass Communications emphasis Public Relations.
Social Media Analyst for MSU-Moorhead for 16 months
Work under Jon Wepking, Interim Athletics Marketing Director
Marketing Coordinator of the Dragon Entertainment Group (2years)
Looking for a job in social media marketing
What it is about…RelationshipCommunitiesCustomer ServiceMedia RelationsInternal CommunicationsCommunity SupportTHE STUDENTS
Athletes
What it is not about…
The ToolsSizeNumbersMoney
Intangible gains far exceed the bottom line
Pride
Goals of Social MediaBusiness PartnershipsIncrease Traffic to MSUMDragons.comGenerate LeadsIncrease RevenueBuild Brand Value and AwarenessImprove Dragon Athletics SEOBrand AdvocacyReduce CRM Cost
Dragon Athletics Rules of Social Engagement
The tone of all messaging is to be positive, transparent and Authentic.
Playful banter is okay, as long as it’s engaging. There is no point in just amusing yourself and present the university as arrogant.
All content must be relevant. Otherwise we are just spamming our audience.
Timing is everything. We want our influencers to tell our story, but we need to be the provided them leads.
Admit mistakes
What channels are Dragon Athletics currently using outside of social media?
Email Dragon Weekly Dragon Fire Newsletter Scores and New UpdatesDirect-mail Sent when deemed appropriate in such
events such as (Holiday cards, Homecoming, Dragon Fire events)
On and Off Campus Print Publications Alumnews The Fargo-Moorhead Forum The MSUM Advocate Pioneer Press Etc.
Websites the frequently generate content about Dragon Athletics http://www.inforum.com/ http://msumadvocate.com/ http://news.mnstate.edu/category/drago
ndigest/
http://www.wday.com/ http://kfgo.com/ http://www.theguillotine.com/ http://www.northernsun.org/ http://www.kvrr.com/ http://www.valleynewslive.com/ http://www.740thefan.com/
Social Tools that should be used and the potential/purpose:
Google AlertsGoogle Analytics SocialMention.comHootsuite Social Platform Meltwater Press
Twitter Key Influencers External Twitter Influencers for @DragonAthletics
@DomizzoWDAY @KVRRTV @KunkelW @JimNelsonFox @FargoBigE WDayNews @WDayAM970 @MidcoSportsNet @SidearmSports @ElsenMidcoSN @FargoMoorhead @fmwfchamber
Internal Twitter Influencers for @DragonAthletics
@ADDougPeters @JonWebbie @BillyJMcDonald @MSUMoohead
@Nemzek Noize
Competitor Twitter Accounts @NDSUAthletics @CobberSID
NSIC Twitter Handles @GoAugie @MSUMavericks @WolvesAthletics @SCSUHuskies @CUGoldenBears @WSCWildcats @WSUWarriors @UMDBulldogs @BSUBeavers @UMarySports @MSUBeavers
@SMSUMustangs @UIUPeacocks @USF_Cougars
Shifting Personalities of the Internet
How to deal with negative comments
1. Identify the Issue2. Humanize Your Responses3. Be Prompt4. Get Your Customers Involved5. Think Twice Before You
Delete6. Go to the Big Dog
Social Networks Short term objectives:
Facebook fan page(s) Post positive media mentions Encourage interaction on pages,
events and groups Content should be timely,
relevant, authentic and not repeated
Interaction between the pages and events will encourage growth across all pages
Create unique posting schedule the alternates message delivery across fan pages
Google+ Develop new social network Items like create circles,
encourage interaction, create content
Also, participate in Q&A, other groups, etc.
Micro-Blogging Short Term Objectives (Twitter)
Short term objectives: Use Twitter list Promote dept. post through
other Dragon Athletics accounts
Communicate to users about support issues such as broken links and event times/details
follow‐up Build reputation Promote other social
networking activities/sites
through Twitter
Key Metrics: 850 Friends/Followers 1260 2nd‐order followers
(follower’s follower count) 2 Velocity‐ avg. of first‐ and
second‐order followers attracted per day since the account was established
Blogging Short Term Objectives
Short term objectives:Increase engagement
Create sharable content that is relevant Encourage comments; submit RSS feed to
sports forums and local publications. Write more opinionated to drive a
conversation Increase Subscribers through campaigning
Video-Sharing Short Term Objectives
Short term objectives: Update videos on social video sites and link to core site Create video series for YouTube Include full bio and caption story with every video posted Produce only quality video for channel Review and critique each video as if you were the viewer Increase subscribers (71) Use keywords with videos to improve SEO Include videos in playlist Keep records of Social clicks
Google Analytics
Now its about the numbers. Well, sorta…
What is Google Analytics? Website Traffic Measurement Tool Onsite Metrics Collection Page Tags Cookies Think of it more like a thermometer for you website.
Overview of Impact of Social Media Usage to Web Traffic
Overview Referral Traffic by Month
09-10 vs.10-11
08-09 vs. 09-10
Where is this increase in Web Traffic Coming From? This years traffic has increase 29 percent 14 percent can be contributed to the Universities
new landing page The other 15 percent is from Social Media.
- Facebook 9 percent- Twitter 5 percent - YouTube/Etc. <1 percent
Offsite Metric Click Measurement
Additional Social Marketing Benefits Branding YouTube views <51,000 Blog views < 21,000 Twitter @DragonAthletics 850+ follows Facebook <3650 ‘Likes’ on 13 pages ALL in 16 months…Other Social Networks on the move:- Google+, Pinterest,
Problems in Google Analytics and Offsite Data Collection Hootsuite Account Collection Error API Server Failure Tracking bit.ly (and other short URLs) in Google
Analytics Bounce Percentages (Pages/Visits, or New Visits
Miscalculations) Cookie Transmissions, IP Addresses <10.5 avg. Search Engine Spiders (???) Missing Page Tags
How to deal with Accuracy Issues Supply each intern with necessary tools Page tags Follow bounce rate trends in 2012-2013
Any Questions?PLEASE stop me later if you would like to talk to me more about the more technical side of web analytics, or social media strategy.
