“Vanity: excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance or achievements.” – The Dictionary
During a recent discussion with a group of athletic directors, I was asked my opinion on the growing social media debate pitting the vaunted (all-encompassing) department handle against the up-start sport specific handle. Basically, the question was which do I prefer and why.
Before I tell you, I’ll start with a couple of questions of my own, for the audience. Ask yourself these questions. One, does it make sense to serve your followers content they are not interested in? Second, in your estimation, what percentage of your fans truly care about every athletic program in your department?
1) I would hope you answered ‘no’ to the first question. No, it does not make sense to deliver content that your audience is not interested in. Ever. Why do you think the Bleacher Report ‘Team Stream’ app is so successful? Because it allows subscribers to pick and choose the sports and teams from which news is served. Give me what I want, when I want it and how I want it. No more, no less.
2) The truth of the matter is that the largest contingent of your fans is likely most passionate about the big three (Football, Basketball and Baseball). And in many cases, that number reduces to one or two of those programs. If you answered honestly, you know that only a small portion of your audience truly cares about every program.
Over my career, I’ve led brand strategy across multiple industries, including craft beer, video games and the sporting goods industry. And in each and every one of those instances, it has always made more sense to cater content to the specific audience we were speaking to. Beer geeks tend to not care about the more mass products; in fact those products often turn them off on the brand. Similarly, every video game community is passionate about specific genres of game and within that passion, you’ll find love for very specific games. Serving a 45-year-old man who loves role-playing military games, content from our newest pre-teen product would make no sense and turn him off immediately. We would certainly lose his “follow” and perhaps his patronage.
Just because someone loves beer, doesn’t mean they love all beer. Just because someone loves video games, doesn’t mean they want know about every video game in the market. And just because someone went to your school doesn’t mean they care about every corner of the campus or every sport you serve.
Long story short, here’s my answer to the question we started with: social media isn’t about you. It’s about your audience. And because of that, I’ll take the up-start, sport specific handle over the all-encompassing handle every time.
“I Have An Idea…” is a series written for College AD by the author of Brands Win Championships, Jeremy Darlow.
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