#UWGameday Campaign Analysis
Doug Johnson, Joe McNamara, Tia Nickels, Joy Pehler, Jordan Simonson Life Sciences Communication 432 University of Wisconsin-Madison May 7, 2013
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Situational Analysis In October of 2012, USA Today named Madison as “America’s Best College Football Town.” The online survey received over 50,000 votes and declared Madison the winner. This honor ultimately ignited the creation of the #UWGameday campaign. This campaign allowed Badger fans to have a common website to read about and share their UW game day experiences and stories through Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, the Wisconsin Football Facebook page, as well as email. The #UWGameday campaign was for one game on October 27, 2012 and was conducted by the UW-Athletic Department. The best of the game day submissions from the various Internet sources were selected to be featured on the website http://collegefootballtownusa.athletics.wisc.edu/uwgameday.aspx throughout the day. It featured a mixture of the different social media submissions so that viewers following the site could see pictures, videos or just text stories. Posts were published during the day to give viewers the entire game day experience. The #UWGameday campaign was the first time the Athletic Department posted many different statuses and stories from the general public and well-known people as they were happening over a one-day time frame. It was a very successful event as many people submitted stories and content through social media and emails. However, the number of participants in the October 27th event were extremely small in comparison to the total number of Badger Football Twitter followers, Facebook followers, people who use #Badgers or a similar hashtag on Twitter. The UW-Athletic Department has asked the following questions in order to make the #UWGameday campaign stronger for 2013: 1. How can the UW-Athletic Department attract more fans to get involved with the #UWGameday campaign? 2. In what ways can the #UWGameday Campaign be improved? As social media advisors for the UW-Athletic Department, our efforts to help the #UWGameday campaign will answer these questions thoroughly and provide step-by-step suggestions on ways to advance the campaign.
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What the UW-Athletic Department is currently doing The Athletic Department is currently on the right track, but could be doing more to be as efficient as possible with the #UWGameday campaign. An analysis was done on both the strong and weak aspects of the campaign. Positives Aspects The responsive #UWGameday website has streaming content that allows for limited interaction between the Department and the student body, alumni and fan base. The website effectively shows stories and photographs of people’s game day experience throughout the entire day. For people who tweeted their stories, it was also a nice and professional gesture for the Athletic Department to tweet them back to thank them and let them know their story was featured on the #UWGameday website. This gesture helps to build the #UWGameday brand and will likely cause people to submit more stories if they know their initial stories were chosen.
Image found using a Twitter search of #UWGameday
The UW-Athletic Department did an effective job of promoting the #UWGameday campaign in the small amount of time before and during the game upon finding out about the USA Today honor. The Wisconsin Football Facebook page, Twitter and Youtube were used to promote the #UWGameday campaign. The #UWGameday campaign was also promoted on the big screen during the game. This encouraged Badger fans at the game to engage in the campaign by sharing their #UWGameday experiences.
4 Negative Aspects While the #UWGameday website was a great accomplishment in the time given before the game, there are some definite changes we feel need to be made before a similar campaign occurs. The URL (http://collegefootballtownusa.athletics.wisc.edu/uwgameday.aspx) for the #UWGameday website is too long to be memorized. This 63 character URL makes it challenging for fans and viewers to navigate to the #UWGameday webpage. A second troubling aspect of the website is that it is designed in a very generic layout. The current layout mirrors that of “#UWRightNow” (http://uwrightnow.wisc.edu/). And while we want #UWGameday to be associated with the university, we feel that the Athletic Department’s site could be more unique, and in turn, could set itself apart from other university associated sites. The department could greatly benefit from building its own #UWGameday website to further develop its brand and distinguish itself. Searching for the #UWGameday website on major search engines is a serious concern. Unless typed precisely, the majority of searches do not bring you to the #UWGameday website. This is one of the more serious issues, because if you cannot get your viewers to the actual site, the site’s existence is more or less irrelevant.
Google Search example with key words, “UW Game Day”
5 Another negative aspect of the campaign is that very few people saw the promotions for the #UWGameday event, mostly due to the short amount of time between the USA Today honor and the actual #UWGameday event. For example, the promotional YouTube video featuring Badger football players Chris Borland and Beau Allen only has around 1,400 views today in comparison to several thousand views for other Athletic Department YouTube videos. These positives and negatives allowed us to focus our research to determine the best recommendations for future #UWGameday campaigns.
Research An important aspect behind the process of improving the #UWGameday campaign – primarily by increasing fan participation – revolves around researching other success stories. The following case studies provide useful examples and suggestions from three universities that have developed social media campaigns similar in nature to the #UWGameday campaign. Case Study 1 University of Iowa - #PreparingToBeTheBest #PreparingToBeTheBest is a twitter campaign that promotes the hard-working, improvementdriven persona of (primarily) the University’s football team. The kind of content found in tweets using the campaign’s hashtag are characteristically defined by positive, motivating, words of encouragement. Some examples of this include, but are not limited to: progress updates on stadium and/or athletic facility construction, shout-outs welcoming new team members and their families and reminders promoting upcoming athletic events such as game days. Participants that contribute to the campaign include: athletes, fans, students, and other members of the University such as the athletic department. The biggest contributor, and perhaps most consistent has primarily been Coach Brian Ferentz. Types of media included in the content of specific tweets include links to videos detailing various athletic performances, links to registration pages for various athletic clinics and pictures. Case Study 2 Duke University - Blue Devil Network Blue Devil Network is a social media campaign that utilizes YouTube in order to provide exclusive content to fans, showcasing the Duke athletic experience. According an article explaining the launch on GoDuke.com, “The Duke Department of Athletics will launch the Blue Devil Network featuring live and on demand video and audio content from its 26 varsity sports. Utilizing the school’s official athletic website, GoDuke.com, to power the digital network, Blue Devil fans will be able to access content from a variety of connected devices, including desktop and laptop
6 computers, mobile phones (iPhone and Droid apps are available) and the newly created iPad app.” Additionally, “GoDuke.com “Inside Access” subscribers ($9.95 monthly / $29.95 for four months or an audio only yearly subscription / $79.95 annually) will have access to premium content, including exclusive condensed basketball and football games, live streaming of nontelevised Duke sporting events (some in high definition), live radio calls of Duke Basketball and Football from the Blue Devil IMG Sports Network and live postgame press conferences from basketball and football,” according to the same article. Types of content posted in videos on BDN include: player spotlights, for example: “Inside Look at Casey Carroll’s Story” (actual video on YouTube channel), athletic team events and contributions to the community such as an annual Christmas dinner, visit to children’s hospital, first practice highlights, etc., thank you videos and game highlights and best plays. Case Study 3 University of Louisville - Collect The Cards Collect the Cards was an innovative social media campaign strategy that was launched at the start of the 2012 sports season. According to an article on GoCards.com, “During the previous Summer Social online media campaign, fans were asked to view five different social media platforms throughout the week (Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). Building off the success of that plan, Collect The Cards intends to educate fans about different aspects of the Cardinals' sports program and drive online traffic to each team's social media pages on Facebook and Twitter.” Collect The Cards was focused around the primary U of L Sports Facebook account, and featured all athletic teams rather than just the football team, for example. The following is the official schedule for the Collect The Cards campaign (found on GoCards.com): Monday - This Week in The Ville Each week will kickoff with a brand new cover photo on the official Louisville Cardinals Facebook page (facebook.com/UofLSports) and Twitter account (@UofLSports). The photo will feature a schedule listing the sports events coming up for the next seven days and the Twitter handles for each Louisville team. Fans are encouraged to follow each team for more details. Tuesday - The Tuesday Timeout On Tuesdays, student athletes across the Cardinal sport programs will take a timeout from their sport schedules to share a photo or video with fans from a recent event. Fans are invited to peruse the different Louisville team pages to learn more about each sport every week. Wednesday - Wordy Wednesday Back by popular demand, the Wordy Wednesday theme continues from the summer. Join over 133,000 fans on Facebook and Twitter in posting captions for the photo of the day. Great prizes, laughs, and good times are available online throughout the sports season!
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Thursday - Louisville Cares Thursday Cardinal student-athletes are some of the most dedicated and supportive members of the Louisville community! Each Thursday, the different sport teams will highlight something important to their programs such as a coach, a facility, or a piece of equipment that helps them make a difference on or off the playing field. Photos and videos will also be posted on the official Louisville Cardinals Facebook page and Twitter account to showcase some of the community service Cardinal student athletes perform through the CardsCare Program. Friday - Flying Cardinal Friday Celebrate Friday with the Flying Cardinal each week, as he takes you behind the scenes of UofL Sports. Videos links will be posted to the main Louisville athletics Facebook page and on Twitter @ULFlyingCard. Make sure to check them out for insider information and contests to win tickets, merchandise, and other great prizes from the Louisville Cardinals! These case studies helped us to come up with the best recommendations for the #UWGameday campaign.
Recommendations While there are recommended steps associated with this campaign, we feel the #UWGameday campaign should be a season-long campaign. This would be the first of its kind to extend the entire season and we feel there would be enough content generated to make it great every week of the season. Step 1: Make website easier to find and make necessary updates When marketing a website to a target audience, there are two general, but difficult goals: getting audiences to a specific website and increasing the average length of time spent on the website. For #UWGameday to be as successful as it potentially could be, we think the website is lacking in discoverability. Furthermore there are several suggestions we recommend to increase the length of stay. To make your website more discoverable we have 3 recommendations: 1. Changing the domain name either to www.uwbadgersgameday.com or www.uwbadgers.com/uwgameday 2. Create a Facebook application that operates alongside the website. 3. Put a link/menu item on the Wisconsin Football Gameday App leading people to the #UWGameday page. 1. Changing the domain name Changing the domain name for #UWGameDay is the most important way to make the #UWGameday campaign more successful. Ultimately, we think the best idea is running the “UWGameday” server through “www.uwbadgers.com”. Badger fans are extremely familiar with the UW Badger’s website and use it often.
8 This will promote brand consistency and will utilize the loyal users you already have. If it is not possible to use the UWBadgers.com as a home base for #UWGameday, the next best possible option is www.uwbadgersgameday.com. This domain along with www.uwbadgergameday.com are currently not owned. The domain name change will make it much easier for users to find. Furthermore, the shorter suggested domain names are much easier to remember and use. It will also allow the websites to be easily searchable on search engines. 2. Create a Facebook Application Another way to encourage users to interact with the #UWGameday campaign is through Facebook. The Wisconsin Football Facebook page has incredible Facebook statistics. This past year, the Facebook page received 33.5 million hits. Over that year, the Facebook page received 52% more hits on Saturdays. We believe this number does not represent the number of hits the page receives on game day. We think the Saturday numbers are deflated by the remaining nongame day Saturdays that the data represents. We estimate based off the other graphs that number of hits to the Football Facebook page could be near 400,000 hits on a given game day rather than 165,000.
(Image Source- Football Facebook and Twitter Statistics)
Last season, there were seven Saturday games and this was enough to increase the Facebook usage by 52% on Saturdays throughout the entire year. Not only are fans at home using Facebook as they watch the game, but also fans at the game are using Facebook on their mobile devices to interact and tell their game day story. We recommend running a Facebook application that directly interacts with the #UWGameday website. This will have positive externalities for both the Facebook page and the #UWGameday page. 3. Put a link/menu item on the Wisconsin Football Game Day App To truly make your brand consistent, we think it is important to add a link on the Wisconsin Game Day Application that leads to the #UWGameday website. Currently, these are not correlated or connected. Despite serving different purposes, it is important to remain consistent
9 and allow users to navigate to the website as easily as possible. When you Google “Wisconsin Game Day�, the application is one of the top hits. Although you want users to download the app, this could actually deter users from looking for the #UWGameday page. Much like the Facebook application, we think the Game Day App and the #UWGameday page should interact with each other and positively impact the other. Lastly, to increase the average time spent on the website itself we have a few suggestions. The best part of the #UWGameday page is that it is responsive. This means as you change the window size of your browser, the page content will flow to the new browser size. This is important for all the mobile users so the page will encourage mobile use. However the page does have issues. When a user scrolls down the page the content duplicates. Although this does not seem like a large issue, users are not likely to remain on the site or add additional content if they are seeing the same content multiple times.
Found at http://collegefootballtownusa.athletics.wisc.edu/uwgameday.aspx
To summarize, we think that the website is the most important part of this campaign. The basic idea of the website is excellent and you have the framework to make it extremely successful. However, before you address other social media concerns and move onto the other steps, the website domain name and design should be fixed. Step 2: Promotion In order for #UWGameday to be successful it needs to be promoted more effectively. There are various ways to go about doing this, and over the years the strategy might change due to trends, financial options, and other circumstances. Here are some recommendations: 1.) Put the hashtag #UWGameday on the tickets. By doing this you give a physical copy of a
10 promotion to 80,321 people. People might not get to look at it right away but most will put it in their pocket and possibly check it out later. Super easy and will make a huge impact. 2.) Put a promotion with the hashtag in the game day program. People that buy programs most likely want information like this. 3.) Free giveaways, such as fridge magnets to students with “#UWGameday” written on it. Students love FREE things. Most of the magnets will stick around on fridges and thus expose students and people that never went to the game. 4.) Announcement in each quarter of the game with voice and placed on big screen: “Fans don’t forget to tweet your experience, tradition, etc. using #UWGameday.” 5.) Whenever a Badgers football advertisement is placed, the #UWGameday hashtag should be included. 6.) Have the #UWGameday website present in the stadium so fans can get updates. Best scenario would include having the website visible on the big screen. 7.) Use other UW-Athletic Department social media channels to engage and update • Retweet unique tweets from #UWGameday submitters • Continue thanking and letting people know when their post/story is published on the site • Weekly / monthly themes • Promote #UWGameday through the Badger Football Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other social sites 8.) Put the #UWGameday hashtag on the T-Shirts that are given to students who bought season tickets. Note: The hashtag #Badgers was featured on the T-Shirts given out in 2012. While this is a great way to promote using Twitter to tweet about the Badgers, we feel #Badgers is too broad. With #Badgers people will be tweeting about all the sports and potentially about real badgers. A hashtag like #UWGameday will allow you to narrow down the audience and focus just on the football game day experience. 9.) Towels with #UWGameday written on it. These will be great because students can wave them in the stands during the game and then take them home and allow people not at the game to see the #UWGameday. Step 3: Content creation Once you are done with steps one and two, you need to gauge whether you are getting enough quality content to use on the #UWGameday website. If there is a need to improve the content or you feel you would like to improve the #UWGameday experience, you can begin creating your own content and driving the kind of content you would like to receive. To instill a change in content, we suggest creating weekly themes. These themes could highlight
11 different campus restaurants, favorite game day recipes, game day superstitions, tailgating secrets, generational badger stories and people celebrating the game from around the world (#jumparoundtheworld). This is an effort to get personal stories surrounding game day traditions that Badger fans hold dear to their heart. To further step up the content creation, you could also create content surrounding certain figureheads of the #UWGameday experience by following them for an entire week. A UWMadison student and Badger fanatic, Michael Leckrone, the football coach, a long-time fan of the team and an important campus restaurant are all great examples that could be followed. During away games, you could focus on a Badger fan that currently lives in the away city and get their take on where are the best places to go for that specific away game. The week following a theme, top ten lists could be featured promoting the content that was shared. While following these figureheads, several social media platforms should be used. Blog posts, video and pictures can all be shared surrounding the specific figureheads week leading up to game day. Telling people what someone does to prepare for the game during the entire week before the game will help keep hype up throughout the week. To gauge #UWGameday engagement, purchasing hashtracking software, such as Hashtracking.com, is a great way to measure the reach and scope of the campaign. By gauging the content being shared, this will help determine if step three is needed. It can also help you gauge the success of the campaign from week to week and year to year.
Conclusion We feel that more people will share their #UWGameday experiences once the website is fixed, the campaign is promoted more, and the content people share is more targeted each week. Implementing steps 1, 2, and 3 will allow the #UWGameday campaign to be successful for the 2013 season and for many seasons in the future.