At College AD, we take seriously our mission of keeping college athletic department personnel informed about what’s going on in their industry. Usually this comes in the form of news, job openings, and events. But every now and then a company or product comes along that we feel can be a game changer for departments across the country.
Stacked Sports is that kind of company.
In this day and age, we all have to deal with social media. It’s relatively new, fast moving, and vast compared to traditional media and communication. While those attributes can be enormously beneficial to departments trying to get a message out, they can also be harmful if that message isn’t managed properly. With each NCAA institution averaging about 350 athletes, there’s plenty of room for issues to crop up.
This is where Stacked Sports shines, and why we like them so much. They don’t believe in simply monitoring, instead they provide tools that empower athletes and combine that with what makes college athletics possible in the first place; education.
And it really is a simple process.
1) Stacked works with coaches and/or administrators to establish social media policies (or in some cases, social media best practices) that best fit your department’s needs. These can be department wide, or different for different teams and groups of athletes. It’s entirely up to you.
2) Next, and this is where Stacked really shines, they offer education to both students and staff to help them get the most out of their social media properties. But, unlike most, instead of annual seminars that can last hours, training is delivered year round in the form of videos lasting no longer than three minutes each. They are engaging, interesting, and cover topics ranging from brand building to fan engagement and how to avoid costly mistakes. Best of all, Stacked is constantly updating their library to make sure that the topics and content remain fresh and relevant, because there is nothing worse than a dated message in a digital world.
3) Lastly, Stacked Sports, through its algorithms is able to see a user’s entire social media history and then report any flags back to the user, not the administrator. This alerts the user to any possible actions that they may want to take in order to boost their own social media health, or what they call their Stacked Score. By alerting the user, Stacked Sports allows the user to see any flagged posts, take a second look and decide if they really want that post. Empowering the user to see which post may cause harm to their online reputation and the education to avoid such posts are what separates Stacked Sports from traditional monitoring platforms.
Educating and empowering coaches, administrators, and even student-athletes is what makes Stacked Sports unique. It’s a proactive approach to a problem that previously only saw reactionary and temporary solutions.
But you don’t have to just take our word for it. The testimonials they’ve received are downright glowing.
“As we all know, there are a lot of common mistakes made by student-athletes that can negatively impact their brand, institution’s brand and professional opportunities. Stacked Sports will educate our student-athletes and assist with formulating best practices….This management program is not just to help identify negative activity but to also highlight positive messages being sent by our student-athletes.” -Jennifer Condaras, Big East Associate Commissioner for Compliance and Governance
“Stacked Sports is a great tool that I wish I had access to when I was a student-athlete. It definitely assists with understanding how to build an online brand that is a positive representation of oneself and one’s institution.” -Kelly O’Neil, Big East Assistant Commissioner for Community and Academic Initiatives
It’s a proven program based in education. That’s what has lead to their success, and to some of the best minds in our industry, like former UConn and Florida State athletics employee Bill Shults, to join their team.
“I felt like joining Stacked Sports was an opportunity to provide an educational format to student-athletes to help them with social media and to be proactive and positive and not be a monitoring or punitive program,” says Shults. “The educational component is what really intrigued me about Stacked Sports and sold me on getting involved with the company, Stacked is doing something to help student-athletes, plus it’s a really cool idea.”
If you’re interested in learning more and working with Stacked Sports you can schedule a quick 20 minute webinar by visiting them at their website, StackedSports.com, or emailing info@stackedsports.com. It will be well worth your time.
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