National Sports Journalism Center

Working in social media at the NCAA is a new and, shall we say, interesting venture. It has been a tough year for the NCAA:  several major infractions cases were in the news, prominent coaches resigned and critics quickly pounced, including those not from the sports world.

It was a challenge for the NCAA, where I work, our social media team, which is less than 18 months old. During the next week, I will be speaking at two social media conferences about the NCAA’s social media strategy and the unique challenges we have faced.

Here’s an inside look at the NCAA’s social media strategy.

A little background: when I started at the NCAA 2½ years ago, I began the digital communications team with two employees. There were a handful of NCAA Facebook and Twitter accounts run by either media relations or marketing staff members amid their other duties.  We had about 75,000 fans that either followed us on Twitter or liked us on Facebook.

Today, the digital communications team has 18 people, including three interns. We have three people focused exclusively on social media. They manage 13 Facebook pages, 15 Twitter accounts and four YouTube channels.  We have more than 1.3 million fans.

We still have a long way to go, but in social media years (which are much shorter than dog years), we have progressed a lifetime.

“Doing social media” at the NCAA is unique challenge. Executing the rules and bylaws of an 1,100-member organization can be daunting. It seems like there is always a fan base, or media member, who is not happy with a rule interpretation, enforcement matter or the general state of intercollegiate athletics.

Internally, social media – which demands immediacy, engagement and candor – was a new phenomenon not quickly embraced.

To complicate matters, our social media efforts needed to accomplish two major objectives: tell the NCAA story (and correct inaccuracies and errors in the media) and help grow our championships.

The past year, frankly, has at times been difficult. Everyone, it seemed, had an opinion about the NCAA and oftentimes it was not nice: “The shame of college athletics” declared the Atlantic magazine; “What the hell has happened to college sports?” asked the Chronicle of Higher Education. Sports Illustrated weighed in with a primer that instructed coaches and college administrators how to break the rules entitled “Cheating for Dummies.”

To wade into these waters, we knew we had to develop a strategy and find a way to communicate with our audience directly.  We prioritized what we could tackle. We focused on engaging fans who were enthusiastic of specific sports and championships: men’s basketball, wrestling, baseball, women’s basketball, volleyball, etc.

We then developed four priorities:

• Use Facebook to engage, Twitter to inform.
• Focus on content you can’t get anywhere else.
• Tell the student-athlete story.
• Grow our audience.

Use Facebook to engage, Twitter to inform. Facebook and Twitter are inherently different. On Facebook, fans want to participate. They want to answer polls, tell us what kind of content they want (such as instructional tips on the volleyball page), and behind-the-scenes videos. On Twitter, they expect to get news as it happens and exclusive real-time content.

As our audience grew, Twitter also became the place for us to correct inaccuracies and false statements made by the media. And as the media itself become more prevalent on Twitter, it became the place to engage with them directly.

Has it been perfect? No. We have tried to humanize the NCAA national office, be proactive and candid. Some in the media, even those who do not agree with our position, have understood what we have tried to accomplish:

@Rand_Getlin: Respect @NCAABob, @NCAADana, @RonnieRamos and others from the association for being willing to engage in discourse re the NCAA. No easy job.

@kyleveazey: @bradlocke I agree. It’s good to see folks like @RonnieRamos on the record. Nothing wrong with both sides of the story, after all.

Some in the media do not like our candor and, at times, our style.  To be sure, we still have room to improve.  But we have not labeled the entire media corps as morally bankrupt, like the Gestapo and a home-grown cartel.  We do not label people who agree with us on an issue as a lapdog.  But all that is what just one columnist has done. In just over a month.

We owe it to the literally hundreds of thousands of student-athletes who are both real students and real athletes to set the record straight. And Twitter has been an excellent way to reach fans directly.

Focus on content you can’t get anywhere else. Fans want unique content. It is part of the reason why our wrestling Facebook page is the second most popular, behind the men’s basketball page. There are not many places where college wrestling fans can get news about their sport.  The wrestling Facebook page has become not only news site for these fans, but a place where they can talk about wrestling.

Last year, we had one of our social media staff members in the room with the selection committee, posting live updates to the Facebook page as the committee worked on the championship field. We were backstage as the wrestlers came off the mats, providing a unique perspective on the competition. We are planning to do more of the same this year from the national championship in St. Louis.

Tell the student-athlete story.  More than just say media members are wrong when they claim student-athletes do not have money for clothes or a trip home, we want to show them they are wrong. When they claim student-athletes can’t do more than play their sport, we want to tell them about the baseball player from Minnesota who is also the mayor of his hometown (a story so good, the New York Times also did the story).

Grow our audience. Social media, at its core, is about direct communication with your audience (fans and followers). At the NCAA, we want to reach as many people as possible. We have two websites: NCAA.com, for championships and on-the-field coverage, and NCAA.org, for NCAA off-the-field news and the student-athlete story. Social media is another audience.

Sure, we can use social media to drive people to NCAA.com and NCAA.org. But more importantly, we can engage them and communicate with them directly. And just as important, we can listen to what they have to say.

Because of social media, we have reached out to some of those who have been our critics and learned more about how they saw things differently and listened to their ideas of how to make improvements. We’ve had dinner and played golf.

We may not change every critic, but they now know we are listening and trying to improve.

@Rand_Getlin: @dennisdoddcbs Agreed. And regardless of our ideological differences, I can’t do anything but tip my hat to them for sharing their views.

@dennisdoddcbs: @Rand_Getlin Yup. Really a new age with those guys. Think it comes from Emmert. Kudos guys and gals.

And while our president Mark Emmert is a strong supporter of social media as a communication tool, our approach doesn’t come from him.

But, if your boss gets the positive credit for our social media strategy, it’s one nice result of our social media initiatives.