The following article appears in the August/September 2015 issue of Athletic Management.
Four current CoSIDA members - and a former SID - are quoted extensively in the piece:
Rob Carolla, Director of Communications at the Big 12 Conference and CoSIDA's second vice president;
Mark Cohen, TCU Assistant AD for Media Relations;
Kirk Sampson, Auburn University Assistant AD, Media Relations;
Andy Seeley, UCF Assistant Athletics Director for Communications and first vice-president of CoSIDA; and
Chris Yandle, Georgia Tech Assistant AD/Communications and Public Relations. Also quoted is former SID
Chris Freet, University of Arkansas Senior Associate AD for External Operations and Strategic Communications.
See article online: by Dennis Read
graphic via onlinelearningtips.com
Dennis Read is an Associate Editor at Athletic Management. He can be reached at dr@MomentumMedia.com.
As Director of Athletics at Texas Christian University, Chris Del Conte’s plate is piled high with strategizing and making far-reaching decisions. Like most NCAA Division I leaders, his days entail high-level meetings and charting the next, best path.
But Del Conte can also frequently be seen in the head-down, thumbs-moving position of someone half his age. In the midst of his overbooked schedule, he is on Twitter—a lot. And he’s not just typing platitudes. He’s directly answering fans’
questions, even about small things like parking at home events.
On the high school playing fields in Pittsford, N.Y., Scott Barker is doing the same. Director of Athletics for Pittsford Schools, he tweets game
updates, which parents have come to rely on, and he asks all his coaches to tweet postgame results. From his office during the day, Barker uses several forms of social media to inform the community about program happenings.
It’s no secret that what we call “the media” has gone through drastic changes over the past decade due to the proliferation of social media. The morning newspaper is no longer fans’ go-to source for sports news, and few people are willing to wait several hours for a game score. Social media posts have become as relevant as the nightly newscast.
Just as radical a change is that anyone can now be a media outlet. And, in some ways, everyone is—from the student-athlete placing photos on Ins
tagram to a coach developing a Facebook presence. In today’s athletic department, each individual is a part of the media relations team, whether they realize it or not.
“A generation ago, media relations and communications was solely the job of the sports information director’s office,” says Chris Yandle (@ChrisYandle), Assistant Athletic Director of Communications and Public Relations at Georgia Tech. “Now it’s everybody’s job. Everyone has ownership because it’s about branding and brand awareness and doing what’s right for your school and athletic department.”
Often, that can be a good thing, providing schools with new and exciting ways to connect with fans, parents, and donors. Other times it can be a crisis-in-waiting, when a coach or team member blasts a derogatory tweet or posts a questionable photo. Either way, the changing media world requires new strategies by athletic departments, both internally and externally.
NEW ROLES
If leadership starts at the top, then today’s athletic director cannot ignore their role as a media outlet. Del Conte (@_delconte) tweets about everything from athletic successes to campus news. But it’s his ability to connect with TCU fans that has been most effective.
During this past spring’s NCAA Division I baseball playoffs, he used Twitter to personally answer fans’ questions about tickets and parking. He also responded to numerous well wishes after the Horned Frogs advanced to the College World Series.
“How awesome is it that fans can now have that kind of connection to the Director of Athletics?” says Mark Cohen (@TCUSID), Director of Athletic Media Relations at Texas Christian. “It may seem like a lot of work on his part, but it’s important—it’s something that fans want.”
At the high school level, athletic directors are finding that parents of athletes expect direct communication from administrators. “We have to improve our skills with social media to get our information out effectively,” says Jeff Ramich (@Coach_Ram), Athletic Director at Brunswick (Maine) High School. “No matter how many websites we use for scheduling, people just don’t like to use them. They feel it’s a lot easier to go to Facebook or Twitter.”
Barker (@PittsfordAD) relies on social media for much of his communications with parents and athletes, and he tries to keep it simple. He operates a Twitter feed for the district athletic department and requires teams at each of its two high schools to also have their own. At a minimum, he expects coaches to tweet post-game results, but he encourages them to go further, relaying the story behind the final score or having a team manager post updates during contests. Some use social media for distributing team-specific practice and travel information for athletes and their parents.
On the district feed, Barker focuses on notifying parents, the press, and the community about schedule changes and upcoming events, as well as promoting his athletic teams. “In any way I can, I try to highlight the efforts of our coaches and athletes by retweeting posts from team accounts and trumpeting off-the-field successes,” he says. “In the past year or so, we’ve also started sharing the accomplishments of our alumni who are competing at the college level.”
Barker has thousands of followers on his feed, and he’ll provide live updates during games. “I’ve had people tell me I spend more time looking at my phone than I do the game, and they may be right,” he says. “Our followers have come to expect it, and if I go 15 or 20 minutes without an update, they’ll start asking about it.
“Of course, my first priorities are still the well-being of our athletes and the safety and security of the event,” Barker adds. “If there’s something I have to attend to, then updates don’t get posted, and most people understand that.”
STRATEGY NEEDED
Along with embracing social media, many athletic administrators are implementing a thorough strategy for its department-wide use. Yandle says the key to doing so effectively is assessing your content options and choosing what you want to focus on. It can be tempting to try to put everything out there for public consumption, but sometimes less is more.
“You’ll quickly be overwhelmed if you try to do it all,” Yandle says. “You have to make a list of the things you want to accomplish and then develop a strategy around those.”
At Georgia Tech, Yandle established a strategy by determining all the external messaging the department wanted to do, including social media, emails, website stories, press releases, feature stories, and so on. He held open-door brainstorming sessions for anyone to offer ideas and then laid out a schedule for when and how stories would be disseminated.
“We listed all the information we want to relay and the stories we want to tell,” he says. “Then we tried to figure out what would fit best on the website and what was better for social media.
“We also have a strategy for moving our content around so we’re not bombarding the same fans at the same time every day,” Yandle continues. “There are some stories that work better when posted on a Tuesday afternoon or a Wednesday morning, for example, than right after a game. Plus, a week or two later, we can make a few changes to that story, to give it a different feel, and repost it on another platform. That way, we reach a completely different audience that may have missed it the first time.”
At the University of Arkansas, Chris Freet (@ChrisFreet), Senior Associate Athletic Director for External Operations and Strategic Communications, has developed his plan around what areas are currently under exploited. “The philosophy I follow is to identify where we can be unique and where we can fill a void left by the traditional media,” he says. “In my last two stops, at Arkansas and [the University of] Miami, there have been fantastic columnists and beat writers at the local papers, so we have tried to develop other areas.
“For example, we can offer expert opinions and more behind-the-scenes access while providing a greater level of consistent engagement,” Freet continues. “Most coaches don’t want outside media covering their practices and potentially giving away game plans, but they don’t mind if we’re there. We can then post a photo gallery and recap of a practice that fans wouldn’t get otherwise. Another area we see some potential in is video coverage. We’ve recently hired a new staffer to do more in that area.”
CONTENT IS STILL KING
Another part of Arkansas’ blueprint is to engage with fans instead of talking at them. Those on social media want to feel a connection with other posters. Understanding this dynamic is critical.
“You need to have a passionate approach when using social media,” Freet says. “Our diehard fans get their greatest enjoyment from the success of our teams, and their frustration can be incredibly intense when we aren’t winning. They expect the same from the people they follow on social media.
“Obviously, a media relations professional can’t be celebrating a big win and pouting after a loss when they are in the press box or coordinating interviews,” he continues. “But the best social media people bring personality to their posts and celebrate with the fans because that creates bonds. Essentially you need to cheer with your fingers on the keyboard while quietly doing your job in the press box.”
Beyond game days, it can be effective for administrators to use a personal touch to engage with fans. “I occasionally share things about my family,” Cohen says. “My son just graduated from TCU, and I posted some pictures from the ceremony. I’ll sometimes tweet about what I do on a day off. Those following me see that I’m not just an administrator at TCU, I’m also a father and a husband. It creates a connection even though we don’t really know each other.”
Another way to engage fans is through interactive content. At the University of Central Florida, the athletic department’s twitter feed includes fun activities that draw fans in by asking for their input. They’ll often run contests seeking funny captions to a picture or seeing who can complete a puzzle the quickest. Sometimes, they will offer a prize, but they have found it’s not really necessary.
“The contests help build engagement whether you offer an incentive or not,” says Andy Seeley (@agseeley), Assistant Athletics Director for Communications at UCF. “If it’s fun and creative, you’re probably going to get people’s attention, and they’ll want to be involved.”
It’s also important to remember that many routine activities within the athletic department hold a great fascination for fans. “Some of the best engagement we get with video content is stuff from the weightroom,” Seeley says. “Fans absolutely love to see athletes pushing iron.”
Freet says coaches can be an invaluable source for developing ideas, especially if it benefits them. “Some of our coaches want to live-stream a few of their practices and other activities so they can show recruits the unique things they do for their athletes,” he says. “And that works great for us because a lot of what is appealing to recruits speaks to fans as well.
“We’ve also started mining our recruiting staff for feature ideas because they have pages and pages of information on student-athletes,” Freet continues. “It’s incredible the number of stories that are in these files and the amount of detail on each individual. It far exceeds anything that goes into a biography on the website and can lead to some fantastic stories.”
LESSON PLANS
Coaches and student-athletes tend to be ahead of administrators in terms of using social media. And while that’s great for engagement, it may mean you have to ask them to take a step back to see the bigger strategy and to assess for risks that social media poses.
Like many other large athletic departments, Arkansas provides media relations training for coaches and student-athletes. “We’ll sit down with the athletes and show examples of good and bad uses of social media,” Freet says. “And we’ll warn them that anything they do can be recorded and posted online without them knowing about it.”
Freet also asks that the topic be on every coach and administrator’s radar. “Social media is so omnipresent now that there are a million teachable moments for athletes to learn from,” he says. “Those lessons can come from the coaches, the life skills department, the academic advisors, administrators, and so on. It’s not reserved for media relations.”
At the high school level, Ramich is currently adding social media policies to his athletic conduct code. “We’re looking at what other schools are doing and adapting it to fit our mission here at Brunswick,” he says. “While we haven’t had a major problem yet, I want to make sure we have guidelines in place if we have to discipline anyone.”
At Pittsford, athletes receive training from a local consultant who emphasizes the hazards of social media usage. Barker also spends time talking to adults. “The first thing I tell our coaches is to stick to the facts,” he says. “Don’t add commentary, because people can take things out of context.
“The other point I emphasize is that we should always follow our district and league sportsmanship policies,” he continues. “Make sure that tweets can’t be seen as demeaning. If you lose a game, offer congratulations to the opponent and wish them well.”
Barker also stresses that speed isn’t the biggest priority. “If it’s an away game, I’ll suggest the coaches tweet about it when they get back to the school,” he says. “At home contests, I tell them to wait until the kids have packed up and left. That pause before they post is critical to making sure they think about what they say so they can portray themselves in the right light.”
In addition, Barker discusses social media with parents. “Regardless of their familiarity with social media, I encourage them to constantly be checking their kids’ pages,” he says. “Often when we deal with an athlete who posted something improper, the parents’ first response is, ‘I had no idea.’”
WHAT’S NEXT
The one thing that’s constant in the digital world is that change is around the corner. New technologies quickly rise up to replace the old. Therefore, the last part of any social media strategy is to be ready to adapt.
Rob Carolla (@RobCarolla), Director of Communications for the Big 12 Conference, does so by watching what platforms the student-athletes are using. “If they’re engaged in something new, then it may be something I want to look into.”
At Arkansas, once he’s identified an emerging trend, Freet has a staff member in his department examine it. “I ask them to use it for a while to see how it might fit our needs,” he says. “Then we closely monitor what our fans are doing and base our decision to move to a new platform on whether they have adopted a technology.
“It’s not about being the first to use a technology,” Freet continues. “It’s about using technology to connect with your fan base.”
Carolla suggests not putting the cart before the horse. “Before you add anything new, you have to decide what you’re going to use it for and how it will accomplish your goal,” he says. “Will it help sell tickets? Raise more money? Raise awareness of your programs? It’s easy to get caught in the trap of adding something simply because it’s new, but it’s more important to do fewer things well than to do everything just for the sake of it.”
Freet believes it should be treated like a zero-sum game—short of adding more manpower, for every new task you ask people to take on, you have to take one away. “You can kill your staff chasing all the new stuff out there,” he says. “When we’re looking to start something new, we decide what we no longer need to keep doing.”
At the same time, decisions in social media are sometimes a guessing game—and that’s okay. “Social media is too young for anyone to be an expert at it,” Yandle says. “There are no gurus to turn to—and if someone calls themselves that, you need to check their credentials, because we’re all still learning.”
FILMING NOW
One of the newest social media crazes is Periscope, an app that allows users to live stream video on Twitter. Released in March, it’s causing the sports world in particular to take notice because of its threat to media rights deals. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have already restricted its use by credentialed media, and colleges may well follow suit.
“I wouldn’t want to discourage the media from using it, because it offers some great coverage,” says Carolla. “But you also have to protect the media agreements that are already in place. I don’t really see how we can do much about fans using it, though.”
It also has implications away from courts and fields. Carolla discovered that this spring when a reporter was live streaming a press conference using Periscope unbeknownst to the coach or anyone else in attendance.
“Fortunately nothing inappropriate was said, but I told the reporter afterwards that I thought it was only fair to tell people he was using Periscope,” Carolla says. “I think it’s something that athletic directors might want to ask the media about beforehand.”
Arkansas' Freet sees plenty of potential for the app. “I’m sure our fan base would love to see a Periscope of a pre-game speech or the locker room celebration after a big win,” he says. “We’ve put video like that on our website in the past, but there’s demand to get information right away, and this can allow us to do that.”
OLD MEDIA STILL NEEDED?
While social media has allowed athletic departments to become media outlets of their own, this doesn’t mean they can go it alone. There’s still a lot of value in getting messages out through traditional channels.
“Our fans are so passionate that they’re looking to get information about our teams any way they can,” says Kirk Sampson (@AuburnSID), Associate Athletic Director of Communications at Auburn University. “They go to our own sites and platforms, but they also go to local television, network television, radio stations, newspapers, and outside websites. We still need to work with the traditional media to assist them in their coverage.”
“I don’t think traditional media is ever going to go away because it serves the important role of offering unbiased information,” says Yandle. “The schools and conferences have a bias in how they want to tell their stories, but the media is seen as a neutral source.
“In some ways we’re in competition, because we’re trying to provide some of the same content,” Yandle continues. “But if we tell a great story on our website, and the local television station tells that same story from a different angle, that’s a win for both of us.”