Friday, August 7, 2020

Social media competencies


I love teaching Sport Comm and Sport Marketing, and I get to do it again in person and online. What a treat. In my quest for new information to spruce up course content, I found a very interesting article.  The topic was sport management graduates' social media competencies. 

I have had tweeter assignments on my courses for years.  It seems that to best serve the industry professionals and to better position A-State sport management graduates in the dynamic job market, I need to add Instagram assignments.  This will give students a more holistic social media experience while in the sports comm class. 

The takeaways from the article were that intercollegiate athletics social media professionals 1) use Twitter for live updates, Instagram for visual impact, and Facebook is falling out of favor.  2) They value hands-on experience managing brand social media, and personal social media is not a proper substitute for this.  3) Their recommendations for preparing students include creating a strategic social media plan where they create informative and entertaining content, or putting the students in situations where social media goals are revenue related. 

This was a wonderful article that inspired new assignments for my sports comm course.  I look forward to implementing my newly designed assignments into the course this fall.  What's your favorite sport organization to follow on social media and why? Let me know in the comments. <><

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Pate, J. R., & Bosley, A. T. (2020). Understanding the skills and competencies athletic department social media staff seek in sport management graduates. Sport Management Education Journal, 14(1), 48-51. doi:10.1123/smej.2019-0032

9 comments:

  1. My favorite sports page to follow will have to be LSU's Football twitter profile. They have by far one of the best media teams around the country. As a former football player I feel like guys that didn't even play for LSU would watch their pre-game highlight trailer every friday night before a game and get chills and we aren't even playing for LSU! HA! Their highlight videos were almost like movie trailers and it was something new every week. I feel like to be able to get recruits and build your fan base using your media team can be a huge advantage and even to turn heads of other college football players is pretty remarkable.

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    1. It is so invigorating to see how much you like them. And, again, that is the point of each one of those videos, isn't it? To gain recruits, fans, and get people to be excited for them and about them. What a wonderful shout out to their hard work.

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  2. I think social media is a blessing and a curse in our society. It is a great way to share connections with the outside world but it also creates a trap of time wasting and often negative vibes.

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  3. I really enjoy house of highlights on Instagram. It shows all types of different sports as well as interesting facts that I sometimes would not hear while watching the game.
    I also push for athletic trainers to have a social media page so they can network themselves but to also be able to send helpful exercises to their students. I myself as a baseball trainer follow two guys that teach professional and college athletes and show neat training tips on how to get an outcome you want.

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  4. While it is not an intercollegiate page, I have to say that the Dallas Stars do a fantastic job with their social media. They post highlight reels for fans who might have missed the game. They also post goals scored by the players very quickly after the goal is scored. It is almost a live feed without it being a live feed. The Stars are also very good about posting volunteer opportunities through their philanthropy and congratulating feats made by other teams outside of hockey. Just Monday they posted about the TCU game against Georgia. They do an excellent job of staying relevant and included.

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  5. Although it it is not an organization, my favorite social media page is @undertheradar on Instagram. I like this page because it shows the top high school football players in the country. Some of the players are athletes that are known but a lot of them are unknown until their talents are reveled on the page. When an athlete gets the opportunity to be on this page, college coaches will see and it will be a higher chance of getting recruited.

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  6. What's your favorite sport organization to follow on social media and why?

    I follow the Boston Bruins hockey team on instagram. They have the best graphics of any of the teams I have seen and their posts about games and the players in general are well put together. It is their centennial year of being the Boston Bruins and the way they have highlighted the new gear, and the promos for games makes me want to purchase everything Bruins. They are represented differently on instagram than the other teams in the NHL due to their legacy of award winning players. Impressed to say the least.

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  7. What's your favorite sport organization to follow on social media and why?
    I used to work for the team when I went to school there so not only is it the familiarity with the players but also just seeing how much the social media creativity has grown over the last couple of years.

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    1. I didn't mean to post it anonymously.

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