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
Numerous
platforms
Target audience
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?
Monitoring
Roger 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 College
Social Media Central
Pacific University
Social Media Landing Page
Social Media: Simmons College
Monitoring
College-wide:
No
Simmons Athletics: No
 Coaches discretion.
 May or may not check-in on
players’ pages.
Social Media Monitoring
Pacific University
Social Media Monitoring
Pacific University
How Does Your Institution
Educate Student-Athletes
on Social Media Use?
Educating Our Student-Athletes
Roger Williams University
• Hawk Leadership Academy.
– Half-day workshop on social media.
• FROSH Orientation program for all new studentathletes.
– 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. Prevention
Can’t hold our hands but can inform us to prevent
situations.
Unlimited Resources
Athletics Department
Institution
Professors
AD
Assistant AD
FAR
Peers
SAAC
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 Promote
Pacific 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 Promote
Pacific 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
 Campus
Facebook 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 messaging
Support
2013: Social media
Opposed
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?