David Petroff is the Director of Athletic Communications at NCAA Division I
II Edgewood College in Madison, Wis. and is authoring a new blog entitled "Small School Social", with ideas, advice and tips geared toward athletic communications professionals at small schools and/or those with limited staffs. Petroff is a member of CoSIDA's New Media/Technology Committee and he started this blog for small school sports communications professionals to help them produce a strong social media presence - despite not having the resources of the big schools.
Below, he offers ideas for these non-Division I sports communications pros who worry that their time is limited and that they don't know what to tweet.
Petroff can be reached on Twitter at @DavidPetroff or via email at davidpetroff@hotmail.com.
See online blog post
As with most things, the way the Big School SIDs do Twitter is very different than the way the Small School SID does. The biggest difference is the personnel. The Big Schools have multiple SIDs and assistants to tweet on a variety of different Twitter accounts and they have video production and graphic design capabilities to tap into for content. I don’t think that revelation will surprise anyone.
For the Small School Army of One, one of the biggest struggles I hear is, “I don’t know what to tweet”. Usually this problem falls into one of two categories.
- SIDs worried about tweeting things that are uninteresting or stupid - Have you seen the internet lately?It’s a world-wide depository of stupid. You will be surprised at what others find interesting (as well as what they don’t find interesting). Don’t sweat it if something doesn’t get the reaction you hoped for. Tweet it and see what happens. That’s the way you’ll get a feel for what moves the needle and what doesn’t
- SIDs thinking too narrowly about what can be tweeted - The most basic tweeting plan is to retweet headlines and links for website stories. Nothing wrong with doing that, but if that’s all you come up with you won’t see a lot of reaction from your followers. Social media has the ability to be casual, a little irreverent and fun. Take advantage of that to wander out of your lane a little bit.
What follows are a few ideas that I try to execute daily at Edgewood College. We have 16 sports and I have the advantage of a graduate assistant. We’ve managed to build ourselves a small, but healthy social media following by executing these ideas as often as possible.
Idea: Use your content management tools or social media aggregators (TweetDeck, HootSuite) to send information out along multiple platforms at once.
Execution: In a one-person SID office, time is your most valuable commodity. Take advantage of the technology you have or can acquire to reach multiple platforms at once. We use our content management system, SIDEARM, to simultaneously distribute game stories to Twitter, Facebook and (eventually) Pinterest. Remember though, that there is fine line to be walked on using automated systems to distribute to multiple platforms. Too much and your social media becomes stale and a re-hash of your website.
Idea: Use your Twitter feed as a running diary of what’s going on in the SID office and the athletic department
Execution: This is an especially good technique on days when there might not be a lot going on. Every time I complete a task in the office, I try to tweet about it. Update the women’s soccer record book on the website? Tweet it with a link. Load up some new photos to a gallery? Tweet that with your best picture. Finished off the game program for Saturday? Tweet a picture of the cover. Tennis coach sends an addition to the schedule next month? Tweet it with a link to the schedule. Here’s the one we did today (click to enlarge). 
It works really well with sports that are out of season. When I tweet an update of the baseball schedule in December, our baseball fans are so happy to see any news about the team, that they jump on the chance to spread the word.
Idea: Retweet items that are of interest to your student-athletes and fan bases
Execution: No one said you had to create all the content. I keep an eye out for specific articles that will be either informational to our student-athletes or make Edgewood College look good by association. Good sources are social media education tweets from Fieldhouse Media, student-athlete success stories from the NCAA Division III account, and mentions of Edgewood College in our local media outlets.
Idea: Every tweet and Facebook post must include a link, a hashtag, a mention or a photo/video.
Execution: It’s hard to be perfect with this rule, but I’m confident we hit better than 95 percent. Social media is intended to be a two-way street. In my view, tweeting without anything to click on is equivalent to standing on a street corner with a megaphone. Sure you’ll get your message out, but don’t expect anyone else to respond and don’t expect them to listen to you for very long. It’s no secret that nothing gets better Twitter interaction than a photo. Don’t fall into the trap that every picture or tweet needs to be profound or supremely inspirational. Usually, the favorite tweets show a “slice of life” that may be ordinary to you, but not to the parents and fans who don’t live in your collegiate athletics world.
Idea: Always reply and retweet
Execution: Set up columns on HootSuite and notifications on your mobile device to catch people talking about you. After all, that’s what we’re after. Retweet or reply as appropriate, even if it’s not an entirely positive comment. It’s the interaction with people that makes them feel special and important. That doesn’t mean get into arguments with unreasonably negative people. Those people are better ignored. But, a friendly apology or explanation to a complaint, or a thank you for something encouraging is worth its weight in internet gold. Those people become engaged followers and fans.
Don’t get hung up if things you post don’t work. I know the frustration of putting up what you think is a brilliant idea only to have no one participate. Interaction (and Likes and Follows) will come organically as you provide fun, interesting content of value.