Clemson Athletics Social Media Plan William Brantley Dalton Chester Tara Gasparovic Bruce Haase John Nix Maggie Perry Semmes Gilmore Kate Velten Tyler Gosselin Kate Williams English 304 Business Writing Professor Cowden, Fall 2011
Table of Contents Executive Summary... 3 Introduction... 6 Methodology... 6 Existing Social Media: Facebook Recommendations... 6 Twitter Recommendations... 9 YouTube Recommendations... 10 New Social Media: Google+ Recommendations... 13 FourSquare Recommendations... 16 Mobile App Recommendations... 19 Overall Social Media Promotion Recommendations... 20 Managing Social Media Recommendations... 21 Conclusion... 22 Appendix... 23 2
Executive Summary Our team has been presented with the objective of helping improve the social media presence for Clemson University Athletics. The Clemson University Athletics Department wanted to strengthen their current presence on three social media pages-- Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The department s goal to be on the cutting edge of social media also sparked an interest in exploring other social media opportunities, particularly Google+, FourSquare, and a mobile app. The following report details the extensive primary research that the social media team conducted on the ways other Atlantic Coast Conference athletic teams are utilizing social media, and on Clemson students opinions regarding athletics social media pages. The team s findings can be divided into four individualized sets of research and recommendations. Facebook Based on research from similar schools in the ACC, the team found that Facebook athletic team pages that allowed fans to post on their wall and offered promotions had more likes and better involvement from fans. Virginia Tech and Virginia were used as benchmarks for comparison, and they came in at 101,566 and 38,000 likes, in comparison to Clemson s 19,253. Based on responses from Clemson students and observational research of these other teams, the Facebook team recommends that the Athletic Department create promotions on the Facebook Athletics page, allow fans to post on the Facebook Athletics page wall, and set-up post approval to preserve appropriateness and integrity on the wall. Twitter The Twitter research team collected data containing the number of followers each Atlantic Coast Conference team had on Twitter at the start of the project s inception in August. Data was collected again in December, used to compare how the teams Twitter presence has grown over the last four months. It was found that Clemson s page grew by 117% to 15,457 followers. The numbers show incredible success, so now the CU_Athletics focus should be not only continual growth, but also keeping the current followers engaged and interested. Through observational research of other Atlantic Coast Conference schools successful and effective Twitter practices, the Twitter team recommends the following: The CU_Athletics Twitter uses call-to-action, response, and live tweets to make fans feel connected, utilizes connections with coaches and players to establish credibility and maintain readers interest, and to use sport acronyms to help followers filter through the tweets that they consider irrelevant and irrelevant to their interests. By implementing these three recommendations, the CU_Athletics Twitter account has high potential for both growth and increased fan loyalty. 3
YouTube The ClemsonAthletics YouTube channel has seen tremendous success, especially in comparison with its competing teams in the ACC. In fact, ClemsonAthletics YouTube is in the top three for most channel views and total upload views in comparison to each Atlantic Coast Conference School. The YouTube team recommends that the Clemson Athletics Department continue to upload the most desired types of videos, particularly highlight and team practice videos. These highlight videos are most demanded by the student body with 89.5% of our respondents agreeing that is what they would like to see on Clemson s YouTube page. Coming in second, 72.3% of respondents requested to see more funny videos. It is also recommended that interviews and student fan videos, up to the Athletic Department s discretion, be shared on the YouTube channel. Overall, the ClemsonAthletics YouTube channel has seen great success, and by catering to the demands of fans, will continue to do so. New Social Media With a desire to be on the cutting edge of the social media world, the team researched several new types of social media. The first, Google+ is a site that 17.1% of our respondents currently use, a number that is expected to grow rapidly as the social network becomes more mainstream. The team recommends that Clemson create a Google+ Athletics domain page, which then has separate pages for each individual sport, which fans can then choose to follow, based on their interests. It is important that Clemson Athletics takes advantage of Google+ soon, as they would become one of the only teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference to have a Google+ presence. FourSquare is another new type of media that the research team explored. FourSquare lets fans check-in at places like Death Valley and Littlejohn Coliseum. Death Valley already has had many check-ins, but Clemson Athletics does not manage the page. It still serves as great exposure, and the Clemson Athletics Department could certainly utilize it as a free marketing tool by using brand pages, where users can unlock Partner Badges by completing certain tasks, like entering the stadium before kickoff. Lastly, Clemson Athletics can develop a mobile app, separate from the already existent m.clemson app. Smartphone s are becoming more and more prevalent, and so it is an important presence to establish. The team recommends that the app contain player stats for every varsity sport, brief play by plays or overviews of games, articles written about Clemson sports teams, Clemson wallpapers for cell phones, and Clemson sports photos, both recent and vintage. Another feature this app should include is some alerts to athletics events around campus during the year. As the Clemson Athletic Department moves forward with this endeavor, it is crucial to put in place social media management practices to keep from becoming overwhelmed by the various outlets. The team recommends that the department sign up for 4
HootSuite, a service that let s social media managers update and monitor their accounts from one location. Clemson Athletics interns and specific sport managers should have access to the suite, where they can each manage certain aspects of the social media accounts. In conclusion, the social media team s research and recommendations all collaborate to build a detailed, comprehensive social media plan for Clemson Athletics. Social media is growing rapidly, and the strength and success of Clemson s athletics department should be reflected in their social media strategies. These new practices should never shy away from the tradition and foundations that the program stands for, but rather highlight them and help spread awareness of the pride and excellence behind every Clemson Athletics team. 5
Introduction Social media has proven to be an effective tool in marketing efforts and raising awareness in many college athletics programs throughout the country. Clemson University Athletics established its social media presence on outlets including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The department hopes to not only strengthen preexisting pages to use them more effectively, but also to be on the cutting edge of new social media outlets like Google+ and FourSquare. Through primary research methods, several alternatives and recommendations to improve the existing social media outlets are outlined in this report. We define social media success not only as a large quantifiable following, but also as an engaging, reliable resource that Clemson fans value and trust. Additionally, recommendations for new types of social media are discussed. All of these recommendations include methods to engage social media users, attract new followers, and promote Clemson University Athletics as a whole. Methodology In order to gather information for this report, we researched the athletic social media pages all 12 schools in the ACC including YouTube channels, Twitter pages, Facebook pages, Google+, Foursquare, and mobile phone applications. We recorded statistics on the number of followers they had, what content they uploaded, and how often they used their various social media accounts. We also surveyed 253 Clemson students about how they utilized Clemson Athletics social media accounts and what improvements they would like to see implemented. Existing Social Media: Facebook Recommendations Based on research from similar schools in the ACC, we found that Facebook athletic team pages that allowed fans to post on their wall and offered promotions had more likes and better involvement from fans. These pages have great interaction with their fans that post pictures, videos, and comments on the team s wall. Because of the similar size, geographic location, and academic prestige of Virginia Tech and Virginia we decided to use these schools as benchmarks in comparing their sites to Clemson s. While these schools are similar to Clemson, their Facebook Athletic pages have a greater number of followers than Clemson s. Virginia Tech has 101,566 likes and the University of Virginia has 38,000 likes, while Clemson only has 19,253 likes. While Clemson s Facebook presence is strong, there is still plenty of room for improvement. From the start of the semester Clemson's Facebook likes have increased from 15,795 to 19,253, nearly an 18% increase. Virginia Tech offers various types of interactive trivia questions and promotions on their page. In Figure 1: Virginia 6
Tech Facebook Promotion, Virginia Tech is offering a coupon to fans that print out the coupon and bring it to the game in exchange for a fan cup. Figure 1: Virginia Tech Facebook Promotion The University of Virginia allows fans to post videos, pictures, and comments on their page, making their fan page more interactive. This implication has multiple benefits, one example is from Figure 2: University of Virginia Facebook Post, where a fan lost her purse at the football game and was able to recover it by posting on the University of Virginia Athletics Facebook page. This application is also being used to post videos and pictures from tailgating and each fans personal experiences during game day. This involvement will help make the page different from the Clemson Athletics Website and other social media sites, encouraging fans to use it for its multiple applications. While Clemson has a strong video presence, it would be in the best interest of the Athletic Department to allow fans to post video to show a more personal side of their experience as a fan. 7
Figure 2: University of Virginia Facebook Post In order to discover fan preferences regarding involvement, we conducted a survey and sent it to current Clemson students asking for their input, current social media usage and habits. 253 current Clemson University students answered the survey, and over 94% of those respondents indicated that they use Facebook as a means for social media, more than any other social media platform (see Figure 3). This indicates the largest pool of people for Clemson Athletics to direct its information to at this time is through the use of Facebook, and should be utilized as much as possible. From the results of our survey, this method seems to be the most practical and efficient way to reach students at this time. Based upon additional survey questions which can be found in Appendix A, it can be seen that, when asked, Clemson students would like more live game updates, promotions, and current athletics news streaming to their social media outlets. If Clemson students fail to receive current updates, promotions and related information, they may be inclined to check the Clemson Athletics page less frequently and find its uses somewhat obsolete. 8
Figure 3: Students Social Media Usage Based on the survey results and other information, we believe that the following recommendations will help the Clemson Athletic Department increase their social media presence. Create promotions on the Facebook Athletics page. For example coupon printoffs on the Clemson Athletic page, for free or discounted merchandise. Allow fans to post on the Facebook Athletics page wall (i.e. videos, picture, comments) Set-up page to approve post before they can be seen on the Clemson Athletic Facebook wall. Existing Social Media: Twitter Research The following chart displays research collected regarding the number of Twitter followers for each ACC Athletic department, with the orange bars representing how many followers there were in August, and the purple bars representing how many followers there were in December. In August, Clemson was about average in comparison to all other ACC schools, with schools including Miami, Georgia Tech and Florida State far surpassing Clemson. Referring to the purple bars in Figure 4, Clemson 9
has since caught up with Georgia Tech and Miami, and far surpassed Florida State. Clemson and North Carolina have seen the greatest increases; with Clemson increasing it s following by 177%. As of December 8th, the Clemson University Athletics Twitter page has 15,457 followers. This has almost tripled since the beginning of our research on CU_Athletics Twitter. Now, especially as ACC Champions, the main goal of CU_Athletics should be to not only continue acquiring followers, but also to keep the current followers engaged and interested. Figure 4: ACC Athletics Twitter Followers Existing Social Media: Twitter Recommendations While having the third most followers of all the ACC schools is obviously helpful for reaching a large audience of fans, effective use of the social media needs to take the next step by engaging these followers. We recommend three approaches to further engaging followers and continuing to grow the Twitter account: Using call-to-action, response, and live tweets Engaging athletes and coaches Using sport acronyms to differentiate tweets 10
The Nature of the Tweets: Call to Action, Responses, and Live Tweeting The most successful tweeters obtain and keep their followers because they are engaging. While the sheer number of followers is important, it can be hard to keep those followers if you aren t engaging them. We recommend that the Clemson Athletic Department add three important types of tweets into their social media strategy: call-toaction tweets, response tweets, and live tweets. Call-to-action tweets ask your followers to take action in some way. Examples could be Tweet us your best game day pictures! or Tweet at us and be entered to win a free t-shirt at the Men s basketball game this weekend! This not only makes your Twitter account more engaging, but it spreads your Twitter handle s reach to all of your follower s followers. Next, it is important for the CU_Athletics account to respond to their followers who Tweet at them, as much as is reasonably possible. The University of Miami, as seen in Figure 5: University of Miami Tweets frequently Tweets at their followers answering questions and providing feedback. This makes users feel more connected to the athletics department and will also help retain followers. Figure 5: University of Miami Tweets Another great way to appeal to followers and retain their attention is to Live Tweet during major athletic events. This gives followers who may not be present at the game or able to watch the game on TV, the opportunity to keep up to date with live updates. These updates do not have to be extremely extensive play-by-plays, but rather updates on scoring plays or any other major plays. Auburn University Athletics serve as a great example of letting their fans in remote locations stay up to date on the events of the games. See the below screen shot of Auburn s Iron Bowl game against Alabama (Figure 6: Auburn University Athletics Live Tweets) We recommend that Clemson only live tweets for Football games throughout the game, and then Tweets final scores for all other sports. 11
Figure 6: Auburn University Athletics Live Tweets Athlete & Coach Engagement According to our survey, the majority of students wanted to see more engagement from coaches and players via the Clemson Athletics Twitter account. At the University of Virginia, they frequently retweet tweets from their coaches and players, as seen in Figure 7: University of Virginia Tweets. Encouraging both the athletes and the coaches to interact with the Clemson Athletics Twitter will make followers feel like they have an inside look at all things Clemson Athletics, which is the primary reason they follow the account in the first place. 12
Figure 7: University of Virginia Tweets Sport Acronyms Our primary research found that 56.1% of students wanted the Clemson Athletics page to stay as one all-inclusive page. However, 44.7% were only concerned about following certain sports. Many Clemson fans may find it overwhelming or irrelevant to their interests, to see tweets about every single sport in the Clemson athletics department. Our research has shown splitting up sports into separate accounts would not be beneficial, since it might make the voice of Clemson Athletics inconsistent, and because creating a brand new Twitter account and establishing its credibility and follower base can be a timely process. We have compiled research from Virginia Tech on Twitter practices that can reach a compromise to address this problem. The Virginia Tech Athletics Department uses acronyms at the beginning of each tweet representing the sport that the tweet relates to. For example, they tweeted FB: Two Hokies named firstteam All-ACC: Six players voted to second team http://tinyurl.com/cvva2ga and VB: Tech takes regular season finale, 3-2, at Virginia: Hokies extend winning streak to five matches http://tinyurl.com/7lvpm6w with FB signifying football, and VB signifying volleyball. This lets followers determine if the tweet is relevant to their interests from the get-go. This will enable them to skim over tweets that don t interest them quickly, and attract them to tweets that do. In turn, this will prevent loss of interest or un-following of the Clemson Athletic account. Figure 8 YouTube Recommendations The YouTube channel is one of Clemson s strongest forms of social media at this time, but still has room to improve. Currently, the ClemsonAthletics YouTube page is the 13
most popular based on both Channel views and Total Upload views among all schools in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). Being that Social Media has taken off over the last few years, Clemson s Athletic Department has done a great job with constantly updating their YouTube by posting videos almost daily. One of the most attractive aspects of Clemson s Channel are practice videos of the football team, which give the fans a deeper appreciation of the hard work put in everyday. With most of teams practices being closed to the public, the Practice Videos provide insight to the team that would otherwise not be available to the fan base. Clemson continues to expand the scope of the YouTube Channel, by providing videos that focus on other sports aside from football, basketball and baseball. Our group has a few recommendations that we believe will help with this idea. Figure 9: YouTube Channel Views of ACC Schools Figure 10: ACC Schools YouTube Profiles 14
Figure 11: Clemson Athletics YouTube Video 15
With accordance to our research, the students are looking to YouTube for highlights, interviews, promotional videos, and spirited team videos. That being said, Clemson needs to continually update their page with the most current versions of each of these types of videos. Highlights should be accurate emphasizing the major plays of each game, and utilize commentary or sounds as needed - also potentially using music that the University is licensed to use. These highlight videos are most demanded by the student body with 89.5% of our respondents agreeing that is what they would like to see on Clemson s YouTube page. Coming in second, 72.3% of respondents requested to see more funny videos. A great example of this type of video was taken at Tigerama this year, where Coach Swinney and the football team danced to the Wobble. This video is currently posted on YouTube, but not by the Clemson Athletics page. Adding videos like this will help increase the views of the Clemson Athletics page and draw in more attention from current students and fans. These types of videos could also include anything from locker room rituals and rivalry banter to personal stories or mantras of 16
each player. Also tying in with the more lighthearted videos, it would be beneficial to show the character of the players through promotional videos including ones involving: - Important games - Student events (ex. Blood bowl, First Friday, Homecoming, etc.) - Team Interactions - Pre-season/post-season Although some of these videos may be featured on Clemson s homepage or main site, it will still enable those users who do not frequent the clemson.edu site to gain access to such videos and thus create more views for the YouTube page. Within each promotional video, there should be a focus on the Clemson community as a whole with respect with each individual varsity team. Students and fans everywhere should feel exited and proud to be a part of such a strong University and should feel compelled to comment on and share these videos. Another highly requested category of video, with 68.9% of respondents agreeing, is interviews. These may include coaches and player interviews before and after games and also question and answer sessions. These sessions would allow students/fans to submit question videos to a specific player or coach and be able to have a chance to receive an answer. A student or fan video should be chosen at the Athletic Departments discretion, with at least a monthly response. These videos could be connected to Clemson Athletics Facebook account and could allow for those who have liked the page to vote on their favorite video - allowing the fans to pick the winner and be more involved. New Social Media: Google+ Recommendations Google+, being a relatively new social media outlet compared with Facebook and Twitter, has the potential to be very applicable and useful to the Clemson Athletics in the near future. By embracing this new social outlet Clemson would be on the cutting edge, being one of three schools in the ACC with a Google+ page. Our survey indicated that 17.1% of those who use social media accounts currently use Google+, a number that can be expected to gradually grow, as its applicable uses are better known. A main objective of our study was to discover if Clemson students preferred one central Athletics page or if they preferred multiple pages broken up by sport. The answer, as seen in Figure 12, surprisingly shows a fairly split decision between the two options. One key advantage to using Google+ is its ability to have one central domain page, and the option of having various other pages controlled by the same administrator. For example, Clemson could create a domain Athletics page while also creating related sports pages, all controlled by the same administrator. This would allow fans to receive information that they are more interested in and also allow for the easy use by one individual who would look over all pages. Figure 12: Student Opinions on Athletics Social Media 17
Based on marketing information we ve found, it appears that Google+ is more popular for people ages 25 to 35 than any other age demographic 1. Figure 13 shows the results of further research indicating that one of the main advantages of using Google+ is its ability to link various other social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter. This application would benefit the athletic department as an organizational method and facilitate better time management. Another enormous advantage of Google+ is its ability to have multiple accounts linked to one main Athletic Page. For example, the Athletic department could create one central Athletics Page with additional sports pages linked to that account. This will allow one moderator to control what is posted on each page. After a fan follows the main Clemson Athletics page, they will have the option of selecting pages that they want information from (i.e. Feed from the Football page but not the Basketball page). With the limited social media resources available to Clemson Athletics, this tool would be beneficial to the Athletic department in numerous ways. Figure 13: Google+ Audience 1 "Webbiquity; B2B Marketing Blog." Webbiquity. Webbiquity, 16 May 2011. Web. 2 Dec 2011. <http://webbiquity.com/tag/google-vs-facebook/>. 18
With the Athletics departments desire to be on the cutting edge of the new social media wave, we believe it s increasingly important to adopt Google+ as a means of gaining social media prominence. This technology is still in the elementary developmental stage amongst ACC School and Georgia Tech is the only University to adopt an official Google+ page at this time. Similar to their Facebook page, Georgia Tech uses their Google+ to post videos, pictures, and questions for their fans. Although the information between the two social media mediums is similar, Google+ allows for more efficient and specialized fan interaction. After researching the applicable uses of Google+, one thing that sets its apart from Facebook and Twitter is its ability to link many social media accounts together and allow them to work as one. With the quick download of an app from Google Chrome, Google+ will be able to deliver relevant Clemson Athletic information to all social media accounts at one time. From an organizational standpoint, and from an applicable standpoint, Google+ has a lot of options that would help with time management and the administrator who needs to be in charge of one domain rather than multiple. Google+ allows student users the ability to access their Google+ page from their Clemson Gmail account. In the future, once Google+ has gained in popularity, this will create easy interaction between their Gmail and Google+. The + option is accessible from the corner of all Clemson Gmail users, and can be seen in Figure 14. 19
Figure 14: Google Dashboard Link Google+ page with Facebook and Twitter accounts Create a Clemson Athletics Google+ account Create multiple pages for each sport Allow students the ability to access Google+ from Clemson University Gmail accounts New Social Media: FourSquare Recommendations FourSquare is a location-based mobile platform that enables users to discover information about various venues as they visit them, as seein in Figure 15. In order to enhance the experience of individual users, FourSquare offers established brands the opportunity to create their own homepage on the site. Similar to Facebook or Twitter, fans could follow the Clemson Athletics FourSquare page to get tips and other information. The page can be completely customized and is easy to maintain. Brands can also propose campaigns for Partner Badges, which fans can unlock by completing specific tasks. For example, Clemson fans could unlock a badge by entering the stadium before kickoff on game day. FourSquare brand pages offer the ability to embed tips into their other websites, so that Clemson Athletics could easily link their FourSquare page to other athletic websites. Many other sports teams have utilized the FourSquare Merchant Platform, which allows fans to become more engaged during sporting events and be rewarded for loyalty to the team. Clemson could utilize this platform, for example, by offering special rewards or prizes to followers who check in at different games. In addition, the page could include interesting history regarding various athletes or sports at Clemson that fans would find pertinent to their location. These platforms are both easy to create and maintain, and would further engage Clemson fans. FourSquare offers many features that Clemson Athletics could benefit from in addition to the more established forms of social media. 20
Figure 15: Memorial Stadium on FourSquare New Social Media: Mobile App Recommendations Mobile applications have already been developed for the general Clemson University. However, there is no specific app for Clemson Athletics. The app for Clemson University does include the athletics department within its capabilities. It allows users to view Clemson Tigers news, scores, and schedules for every varsity sport. The Clemson Athletics app must provide something new to the market in order to succeed. Some suggestions would be player stats for every varsity sport, brief play by plays or overviews of games, articles written about Clemson sports teams, Clemson wallpapers for cell phones, and Clemson sports photos, both recent and vintage. Another feature this app should include is some alerts to athletics events around campus during the year. Students should be able to specialize what sports they would like to receive these alerts for and the timeline to receive each alert. For example, a student that follows soccer would potentially want to set an alert for the week before the game, as well as the day before, in order to be reminded of the game time and the opponent. Figure 15: Clemson Mobile App 21
Overall / Promotion Recommendations In order to raise awareness of Clemson University Athletics social media, it is important to promote it on campus through several outlets that will attract fans and followers. We recommend that Clemson University Athletics do promotions on campus including painting the windows of the library, fliers, and an email sent out to the student body informing students of the several social media outlets that Clemson University Athletics is present on. This email should come from the most credible source possible, whether it is the athletic director, IPTAY, or a coach of a popular sport. We also propose that Clemson Athletics puts up sandwich boards throughout campus promoting certain events that are taking place that night. On each banner, sandwich board, or other promotional item, there should be a section directing students to like, follow, or watch Clemson Athletics on their various social media accounts. One of the most effective ways to drive traffic to the Clemson Athletics social media sites is to provide links to them on clemsontigers.com. We propose that icons that link to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube be in the top right corner of the website. Many fans go 22
to clemsontigers.com to stay up to date on sports news, and this will be a good way to convert them into social media followers. In the appendix a screenshot (Figure 1A: Clemson Athletics Website) of the proposed website layout, along with a close up of the social icons in the top corner (Figure 2A: Clemson Athletics Website Close Up) Management of Social Media Applications Managing all of these social media outlets can be a time consuming process for the Clemson Athletic department. We recommend that Clemson Athletics sign up for HootSuite, a free online service that lets social media managers manage all of their outlets from one dashboard. In HootSuite, Clemson Athletics can Tweet and send Facebook posts from one place, making it much more efficient and manageable. This will also ensure that information is consistently sent out to various outlets, but it will be written in the voice that is most appropriate to the specific type of social media. Also, we recommend that authorized students who work in the Clemson University Athletic Department manage these accounts. One manager from each athletic team could have access to the accounts, as well as the interns working in the athletics department. The Athletic Department should spend time setting social media goals, ensuring consistency of messaging across different sports when several different people are making the updates. A schedule should be put in place outline that posts to which outlets, on which days, about which type of news. This can be established based on the interns interest or expertise, as well as the managers specific sports. Conclusion Through our research, we have determined that the most important thing for the Clemson University Athletic Department at this time is how to effectively use the different forms of social media to interact with and market to the fans of Clemson Athletics. We feel that the social media accounts currently have a good number of followers, among the most of all ACC schools in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The primary area for improvement that we see with Clemson relative to other schools is in how the Athletic Department interacts with followers. We feel that with a more engaging model that uses posts, which call for action from the followers, the Athletic Department will be able to more effectively engage fans and have a more effective social media marketing campaign. With the growing use of social media among college students, it is the most effective way to get them involved and excited about athletic events surrounding Clemson. It is important for the Athletic Department to understand this ever-growing market, and specify their information to fit each form of social media. We believe that our recommendations will help Clemson Athletics to stay on top, while continuing to grow, 23
with their use of social media, and that they will create inspiration for students and fans everywhere to follow their favorite team. 24
Appendix Figure 1A: Clemson Athletics Website 25
Figure 2A: Clemson Athletics Website Close Up 26
Survey 1. Which of the following social media platforms do you use? Facebook Twitter YouTube Google+ LinkedIn MySpace Other (please specify) 2. Do you follow Clemson Athletics on social media accounts? If so, which ones? (choose all that apply) Facebook Twitter YouTube Google+ LinkedIn MySpace Other (please specify) 3. Would you rather have multiple Clemson Athletic media accounts or a single account based upon sports? (i.e. one for volleyball, soccer, football, etc. One Multiple 4. How do you typically access your social media accounts? Smartphone Computer ipad Other (please specify) 5. How do you believe Clemson could better utilize its Facebook page? Please explain 6. What type of content would you like Clemson Athletics to post on social media pages? Live game updates Promotions Records Athletic news Player interviews Academic awards Coach information 27
History 7. Are you that CU_Athletics has a Twitter account? Yes No 8. Do you follow CU_Athletics on Twitter? Yes No 9. Do you follow other athletic accounts on social media? (e. ACC, NFL, specific teams) Yes No 10. Have you ever retweeted or tweeted at CU_Athletics? Yes No 11. If CU_Athletics had a separate account for each sport, which ones would you follow? Football Basketball Baseball Volleyball Golf Soccer Tennis Other (please specify) 12. How often do you visit YouTube? More than once a day Once a day A few times a week Never 13. What sport(s) other than football, do you watch on the Clemson YouTube channel? Soccer Baseball Basketball Track Volleyball Crew Tennis Golf 28
14. Do you have a YouTube account? Yes No 15. Are you a subscriber to the Clemson YouTube page? Yes No 16. Do you enjoy watching Clemson videos uploaded by other users more than ClemsonAthletics channel videos? Yes No 17. What types of videos would you like to see posted by ClemsonAthletics? (check all that apply) Promotional Highlights Historic games Records Interviews Funny Informative Other (please specify) 18. What kinds of sports videos do you like to watch? Highlights Interviews Fan based Other (please specify) 19. Have you ever checked in at a Clemson Athletics event using g-location or FourSquare? Yes No If no, please comment why 20. If Clemson Athletics offered a Smartphone app, would you download it? Yes No 21. If Clemson Athletics offered a Smartphone app, would you be willing to pay? How much? Nothing $1 $2 $5 29
22. What types of features would you like a Clemson Athletics Smartphone app to have? Please explain 23. What is your academic class at Clemson University? Freshman Sophomore Junior Senior Grad Student 24. Gender Male Female 25. What is your academic major at Clemson University? Survey Results Q1. Which of the following social media platforms do you use? Facebook,"94.4%",237 Twitter,"66.5%",167 Youtube,"71.3%",179 Google+,"17.1%",43 Linkedin,"15.5%",39 Myspace,"0.4%",1 Q2. Do you follow Clemson Athletics on social media accounts? If so, which ones? (choose all that ap Facebook,"65.1%",123 Twitter,"73.5%",139 Youtube,"30.2%",57 Google+,"4.2%",8 Linkedin,"1.1%",2 Myspace,"0.0%",0 Q3. Would you rather have multiple Clemson Athletic media accounts or single accounts based upon One,"56.1%",142 30
Multiple,"44.7%",113 Q4. How do you typically access your Social Media accounts (smartphone, laptop, Clemson Compute Smartphone,"33.5%",84 Computer,"63.7%",160 ipad,"2.8%",7 Q6. What type of content would you like Clemson Athletics to post on social media pages? Live game updates,"81.2%",199 Promotions,"42.9%",105 Records,"49.0%",120 Athletic news,"82.4%",202 Player interviews,"66.9%",164 Academic awards,"20.4%",50 Coach information,"46.9%",115 History,"34.7%",85 Q7. Are you aware that CU_athletics has a Twitter account? Yes,"63.9%",159 No,"36.1%",90 Q8. Do you follow CU_athletics on Twitter? Yes,"47.6%",120 No,"52.4%",132 Q9. Do you follow other athletic accounts on Social Media? (ex. ACC, NFL, specific teams) Yes,"52.0%",130 No,"48.0%",120 Q10. Have you ever retweeted or tweeted at CU_athletics? 31
Yes,"23.5%",59 No,"76.5%",192 Q11. If CU_athletics had separate account for each sport, which ones would you follow? Football,"99.2%",237 Basketball,"70.7%",169 Baseball,"56.5%",135 Volleyball,"5.4%",13 Golf,"20.9%",50 Soccer,"18.8%",45 Tennis,"5.4%",13 Q12. How often do you visit Youtube? More than once a day,"14.1%",35 Once a day,"21.3%",53 A few times a week,"61.0%",152 Never,"3.6%",9 Q13. What sport(s) other than football, do you watch on the Clemson Youtube Channel Soccer,"19.5%",25 Baseball,"39.8%",51 Basketball,"74.2%",95 Track,"2.3%",3 Volleyball,"3.9%",5 Crew,"3.1%",4 Tennis,"3.1%",4 Golf,"8.6%",11 Q14. Do you have a YouTube Account Yes,"55.2%",138 No,"44.8%",112 Q15. Are you a subscriber to the Clemson Youtube Page? 32
Yes,"4.9%",12 No,"95.1%",235 Q16. Do you enjoy watching Clemson videos uploaded by other users more than ClemsonAthletics Video? Yes,"66.2%",155 No,"33.8%",79 Q17. What types of videos would you like to see posted by ClemsonAthletics? (Check all that apply) Promotional,"30.3%",72 Highlights,"89.5%",213 Historic games,"51.7%",123 Records,"29.8%",71 Interviews,"68.9%",164 Funny,"72.3%",172 Informative,"29.0%",69 Q18. What kinds of sports videos do you like to watch? Highlights,"95.9%",232 Interviews,"57.4%",139 Fan based,"33.5%",81 Comments,,2 Q19. Have you ever checked in at a Clemson Athletics event using g-location or FourSquare? Yes,"7.0%",17 No,"90.9%",221 Q20. If Clemson Athletics offered a smartphone app, would you download it? 33
Yes,"85.2%",208 No,"14.8%",36 Q21. If Clemson Athletics offered a smartphone app, would you be willing to pay? How much? Nothing,"68.3%",168 $1,"19.9%",49 $2,"8.5%",21 $5,"3.3%",8 Q23. What is your academic class at Clemson University? Freshman,"16.2%",37 Sophomore,"21.4%",49 Junior,"31.0%",71 Senior,"26.6%",61 Grad student,"5.2%",12 Q24. Gender Male,"58.7%",145 Female,"41.3%",102 34