SOCIAL MEDIA: Strategies and Best Practices

Session Goals

• Discuss Social Media Strategies and Best Practices.

• Exchange ideas to help position your institution to take advantage of the increased visibility inherent in today’s social media culture.

• Discuss challenges that Division III institutions face related to the ever-changing social media landscape and brainstorm ideas to overcome those challenges.

• Share resources for educating institutions, coaches and student-athletes on relevant social media issues.

Panelists

• Nafeesa Connolly - Simmons College Student-Athlete

• Kelly Anderson Diercks - Augsburg College Associate Athletic Director/SWA

• David Kemmy - Roger Williams University Director of Athletics

• Blake Timm - Pacific University Sports Information Director

Does Your Athletics Department Have a Social Media Policy?

Social Media Policies

Creating a Social Media Policy

Stay on brand Stick to basic standards

Target audience

Numerousplatforms

What is the purpose?

Social Media Strategy Simmons College

College-wide: Broaden the reach of college’s messaging, reinforce the

brand.

Women’s leadership and success Value of a women’s education Gender issues

Social Media: Simmons College

Simmons Athletics: No social media strategy.

Created 3+ years ago.Updated twice a week, depending on season.Promote large events (e.g., rival games,

community service, “Blue Outs,” awards).

Created 2.5 years ago.Updated every day if necessary.Instant updates (e.g., game-day scores, wrap ups,

links to website, academic/athletics accomplishments).

Spring 2014.

Within or Independent of a Specific Policy,

Does Your Institution Monitor Social Media

Use?

MonitoringRoger Williams

University• No specific monitoring system in place.

• Communications and compliance staff intermittently check team Facebook sites.

• Regular discussions with coaching staff on exercising caution and discretion.

• We are reactive instead of proactive at this point, from a university and department standpoint .

• 189 million Facebook users are “mobile only” making monitoring more difficult.

Augsburg CollegeSocial Media Central

Social Media: Simmons College

MonitoringCollege-wide: No

Simmons Athletics:No Coaches discretion. May or may not check-in on

players’ pages.

Social Media Monitoring

Pacific University

Social Media MonitoringPacific University

How Does Your Institution Educate Student-Athletes on Social Media Use?

Educating Our Student-AthletesRoger Williams University

• Hawk Leadership Academy. – Half-day workshop on social media.

• FROSH Orientation program for all new student-athletes.– Presented by upper classmen.

Informing Student-Athletes

“A little bit goes a long way”Beneficial

Social media is “here to stay.”Applicable in every day life.

Protection vs. PreventionCan’t hold our hands but can inform us to prevent

situations.

Unlimited ResourcesADAssistant ADFAR

PeersSAAC

Athletics DepartmentInstitutionProfessors

Best Practices

Ask Yourself

• Is it something I would want on the cover of a magazine?

• Is it something I would want my mom to see?

• If it was in a commercial aired across the U.S., would I be proud?

• Does this go against my values or morals?

What to Cover

• Pros/Cons.

• Branding and values.

• Real-world cases.

• As a team/department/SAAC, what rules should we implement.

• How to be yourself.

• Privacy settings.

• How to use social media to your advantage.

How Does Your Institution Use Social

Media as a News Source or Promotional

Strategy?

Social Media to PromotePacific University

• FACEBOOK• News Stories and

Announcements• Features • Photos• Game Promotions

• TWITTER• News Stories and

Announcements• In-Game Scoring Updates• Fan Interaction• Links to News Stories

• YOUTUBE• Highlight Videos• Interviews• Videos of Special Events

• INSTAGRAM• Photo Collages• Instant Video Highlights

Social Media to PromotePacific University

• DO NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL.

• Use web platforms to populate social media.

• SIDEARM – Can post stories to Facebook and Twitter at

the same time stories are posted.

• PRESTO SPORTS/D3SCOREBOARD.COM– Can post to Twitter as you post score updates

out of the “GameDay” screen.

Communicating News/Events

• Burden on communications/sports information staff.

• Still ask them to put out there as much as we can especially on Facebook pages.

• Value of team pages for targeted audiences.

• Awareness of what student workers should/should not be posting.

• 93% of marketers are using social media for business use.

Social Media: Simmons College

Sending and Receiving Information.

Website. Facebook. Twitter. Blogs. Collaboration between athletics and campus

communication departments.

Interaction with Coaches

Personal accounts. No interaction (friends, following, tagging,

posting) until at least final season is over. Professionalism. No conflicts of interest.

Team-related accounts. Anytime. Important information communicated via

telephone (call/text) and email.

Social Media with the Team

Official Facebook page Parents Alumnae Students CampusFacebook group

(private) Team

Facebook group (secondary)

Team, coaches, recruits Updates Game day Memorable moments

What Social Media-Related Challenges Exist Under the

Current Recruiting Legislation?

Recruiting Challenges

• Difficulty in keeping track of things from a compliance perspective.

• PSAs communicate freely this way.– Our coaches should be on board with them.– A lot of confusion on part of Division III PSAs.

National SAAC Position on Legislative Changes

2012: Text messagingSupport

2013: Social mediaOpposed

What Resources are Available to Institutions Seeking to Provide

Education Related to Social Media?

Resources• People

– Janet Judge– Chris Syme - CKSyme Media Group (former SID, sports

specialist)

• Other– FieldHouse Media - Fieldhousemedia.net– CoSIDA - cosida.com– Mashable - Mashable.com– The Complete Final Social Media Sizing Cheat Sheet

• http://bit.ly/1bKlLv– NCAA programming

bit.ly/NCAAprogramming2014

Questions?