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- [00:02]
A
Dive into the dynamic world of high school sports. Whether you're a seasoned athletic director, a newcomer to the field, or simply curious to learn more about this exciting profession, this podcast is your go to resource for inspiration, education and a deeper understanding of the game changing decisions that shape the world of high school athletics. Welcome back to AD360. I'm Greg Vandermeen. As always, I'm joined by my co host, Scott Rosenberg. Scott, how are things treating you over there on the east coast in New Jersey right now?
- [00:32]
B
Hey man, it feels like playoff time a little bit right now. It's like cold in the mornings and at night, beautiful during the day. We still got a little bit of time before the playoffs start here. I know other parts of the country starting up probably now or already did, but it's solid, man. All is well.
- [00:48]
A
You, you know, similar, you know, starting to get that, that fall postseason vibe where you wake up in the morning, it's brisk, you can kind of smell it in the air. And you know, the afternoons are, they're a little more forgiving, but you know that the colder, cooler weather's around the corner and you know, postseason is really literally right upon us, so. Well, awesome. Before we get started and jump into our topic today, definitely want to give a big shout out to those of you that keep tuning in and supporting the podcast. Scott and I have really enjoyed doing this. The more support we get, more likely it is we can continue to do it. So like subscribe, comment rate, review, whatever platform you're on. That really helps us out. Well, without any more delay, let's talk about our topic today, Scott and I think it's one that both you and I have spoken a little bit on before, but I think it's one for us to really do a good deep dive on. And that's going to be social media for ads. I mean, literally, in this day and age, social media is everywhere. It's become for some folks, it's their main source of information, communication, entertainment, news, etc, you know, so it's utilized a lot. And I think that it's important for us to kind of do a little bit deeper of a dive on this and talk about it from an athletic director perspective and see how you can utilize it and leverage it as a tool.
- [02:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, and we've touched on it, right, on other episodes, no doubt in my mind. Full transparency. Greg, calling you out right now. What was your first reaction to hey, we're going to do an episode on social media. Tell, tell everybody now the younger people won't even know what you're talking about.
- [02:18]
A
I. I know. So I'm going to date myself a little bit here. But if we don't talk and give and pay a little homage to MySpace, Scott, I think that at this point in the game, I better be in your top eight or I'm going to be extremely offended.
- [02:31]
B
That's the OG platform. Let's say that I don't think any athletic directors were using MySpace back in the day. If they were, I want to talk to somebody. So anybody listening that knows an ad who is using MySpace for communicating high school athletic kind of stuff and information like that person needs to be on this episode 100.
- [02:50]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. We want them on there. We want to be able to take a look at maybe how they coded their page to make it just individualized the song they had in the background. We could do a whole episode on that alone. Scott.
- [03:02]
B
I mean, we. Probably not on this podcast, but for somebody else.
- [03:06]
A
All right, well, let's go ahead and kick things off. You know, Scott, wanted to get your thoughts. How can ads utilize social media to strengthen their connection within their communities?
- [03:17]
B
Listen, I think we've talked about. Ads have to find where people live in terms of, like, what medium are they using. And we talked even about, hey, listen, for some of the population, you may still have to mail some, like, newsletters out at times. But in from my perspective, the easiest way and where the most people live is social media. Now, that can be across a bunch of different mediums in terms of what social media platform you're going to post. But it seems to me, as a result, you kind of have to use multiple platforms if you want to get to everybody. And like that term school community, it's an interesting one, isn't it? It's not just the kids in the school, it's not just the staff, it's not just the parents of the kids in the school. It goes out to everybody who maybe lives in that town, alumni that live, you know, went to school, but live in other towns now, extended family in other places. So, like, it seems to me that using social media to strengthen the entire community is an important thing. And there's just so many ways to do it. But in the end, it's just promoting the good stuff. It's finding ways to promote all the good things going on we talk about all the time. There's mostly bad news out there. At least that's what most people see. And so I think celebrating all the good stuff that goes on and using social media to do So I can't think of a better for at this point.
- [04:52]
A
I completely agree with you. You know, I mean, I really like the, the phrase that you use, like meet people where they are. Right. You know, so you're going to have the folks like myself that will be going navigating back to MySpace, trying to find out what's going on in the local community. But all jokes aside, I mean, couple takeaways from what you just mentioned is you can really celebrate what your programs are doing. You can get that information out to the masses of your campus community. And I think a big takeaway is the multiple platform approach. I'm sure we'll talk on that quite a bit as we go through this because again, meeting people where they are, different generations are going to utilize different social media platforms. You know, there's going to be some folks that are all in with X or they're using threads or, you know, they're just Instagram only. Others they may be, hey, I'm specifically on Facebook. That's it. So to be able to post to the various forms, you have a broader net that you can cast, to be able to get that information out to your, to your constituents, if you will. But I do think that it is a great tool because one, to your point, you can celebrate what has taken place. Two, you can inform what is going on. You know, and as we mentioned in the beginning, like this has become a way in which people are consuming information. You know, it used to be we're of the age group where we were old enough to remember, hey, you went home and you turned on the news or you got a newspaper. Wasn't always just everything digitally and online. But in this day and age, people are consuming it through these social media platforms. So it's one of those where, again to your point, meet people where they are, understand how information is getting brought in by your, by your campus community and really dive in and engage with it. So I think those are some great points.
- [06:35]
B
Agreed. So why don't we just discuss the different platforms in general? Right. I've been out three years from my athletic director job. At the point that I left, most of my social media communication was through Twitter or X. I still feel like more ads than not are on that platform. But what I started to see at that time, and I'm sure it's changed what, you know, headed in the direction already, changed where I thought it would go, which is like the parents were still on X. When I was looking at new followers, I still had like people didn't Leave following the school. But when I was looking at the new followers of my platform, it tended to be parents. It wasn't the kids, the student athletes at that point. So I knew I was going to need to make some changes and figure out some other stuff. But you agree, like, do you think most ads are still on Twitter or X at this point, or do you see a big shift?
- [07:37]
A
You know, I think that a majority of them still really are utilizing Twitter and X. And I think to your point, it's because parents are going to those platforms. Right. I have seen a little bit of a shift, you know, where maybe they're. They're still posting to Axe and Twitter, but really engaging a little bit more on Instagram. You know, I mean, I'm similar to you. I've been out for a handful of years now, and I remember at the point in time where we're looking at it, it was like Snapchat was a thing that you were having to figure out, like, how are we going to engage with the kids on this? Because we know the parents aren't going to be on there, but we want to be able to engage with the students of the campus community. So I think you have to really be comfortable to always be evolving because there's going to be different platforms that they're engaging in. But I really do think that that's kind of like the. The tried and true one is going to be Twitter, because so many people have gone to that over the years. They're just accustomed to it. But I do see other schools, you know, when I just peruse different websites, and they'll be like, hey, follow us on X. Follow us on Instagram, Follow us. And they have the various platforms out there. But I think that you're probably pretty much spot on where I think a majority, majority of them are still kind of relying on that Twitter functionality, if you will.
- [08:50]
B
Yeah, I think Twitter, just by like, hey, the limited characters, but enough characters that you can get that information out there just works pretty well in that sense. Instagram, right? Just like a different approach. But you're almost having to create those graphics which we'll talk about in a little bit, or photos or that kind of content and placing that information on the content as opposed to, like, here is the specific information, nice and easy, and let it flow out.
- [09:19]
A
All right, I think that's a good point too. Like, when you're talking about, like, Twitter, right? That's. That's simple. I would have. I navigated towards that or I gravitated towards that. I should say because it was a message. You know, I'm not the creative type when it comes to graphics and art and all of that. Like, that's just not my personality. So I felt the most comfortable with that platform. And I'm sure that there's a lot of ads that feel that way as well. And then there's going to be others where it's like, hey, we want to dive in and use some tools, maybe develop some graphics, bring it up a notch if you will. So certainly some good thoughts on that.
- [09:55]
B
Yeah, agreed. We touched on this a little bit. But like, strategies to keep people engaged and informed through social media. Like, is there anything specific that. Is it a number of communications that they can count on? Like, what makes people stay there and continue to follow you and even look for you on social media?
- [10:18]
A
I think one of the biggest things is going to be consistency. Right? When I say consistency, you need to be updating it on a consistent basis. That doesn't mean that you have to release a 9am post daily, weekly, whatever, but you need to be active on there. They, they shouldn't be going to your social media and seeing that you had a post back in May of 2022 and then the next one was, you know, January of 23. Like, and there's just these gaps. They're not going to go there because they're like, this isn't consistent updates. I know you and I have talked on this quite a bit, but I think also just being able to provide like live updates when you have contests going on, you, you don't necessarily have to do that yourself. You can assign somebody within the program to assist you and be like, hey, you know, either feed me information or if you're comfortable providing access to a select group of people to that platform and allowing them to post, you know, putting those live game updates on there is big because then people will go to your social media pages for that information. Couple other things that I think are going to be important to just really keep people engaged. You've, as we mentioned, you know, the multiple platform piece is definitely going to be important, but using what you feel is the most popular amongst your campus community because each one's going to vary a little bit. So be sure to engage on that and then always have some time set aside where you're posting either player or team or you know, even fan spotlights. So it's keeping your content, you know, a little bit diverse. And it's not just, you know, hey, we're playing this Friday at 7:00pm, you know, you have some more flavor to it, but those are just some things that come up to top of mind for me. How about you, Scott?
- [12:03]
B
What stuck out and I was thinking about bringing it up, was the in game updates. I found that like people were looking for that information. And even maybe more interestingly, I had media outlets following, let's say my Twitter, my X account and I, they would repost a lot of stuff. So what was kind of cool about that? You think about it, like, hey, I had 3,000 people following my account, probably at its height. But I'd post scores, updates, information, especially the scores during the game. Those would get reposted by like the state news outlet, sports news outlet, and all of a sudden they've got 80,000 people following them. So I just like expanded my user base, you know, my, the people who are watching my account, 80,000 people up to 80,000 people, right. May have seen that because they would repost that information. And I think that was even more prevalent during game time than most of the other things that were going on.
- [13:11]
A
Totally agree with you. I mean, like even now I still get on, on like Friday nights and there's various schools that I'm still connected with, whether it's friends of mine that are coaching or their ads there. So I'm following, you know, and I'm the old guy and I'm following via, via Twitter and seeing that and so many times it's, I'm not catching their original post. I'm seeing the repost, whether it's by, you know, a sports writer, another site, whatever. But like, that's a good point because then you have the ability to kind of broaden your viewership, if you will, and get that message out to the masses because you're being consistent and those people that have larger audiences are entrusting your information and they're just simply reposting. I think that's a great takeaway.
- [13:55]
B
Agreed.
- [13:56]
A
Well, let's, let's talk a little bit on something that's not necessarily the fun part of social media, but it's one that we all have to be very much cognizant of. And that's the negative elements, the dangers that are related, related to social media. How can you help navigate, how can you help your student athletes navigate those dangers? Well, at the same time encouraging them to engage and have fun on the platforms. What are your thoughts on that?
- [14:25]
B
Listen, you like, we have all the way up to the presidents of the United States putting things on there that they probably regret at some point through their social media. So turnkey in that same like thought process and educating kids. It's all about education. That's why we're doing what we do. I mean like, what can I say? One, do not provide locker room material for your opponent. Like every coach would tell you the same thing. Like, don't do it, don't antagonize, don't post things up that are going to get another team fired up who you're about to play. That silliness, it's a digital fingerprint for the rest of your life. Like that's a hard concept to drill into 16 year olds. I get it, right? Like they're not thinking that way. But the fact of the matter is, is like you've got to educate them. There will be colleges looking at social media, there will be college athletic programs if they aspire to be a collegiate athlete looking at social media posts, there will be companies later in life who are looking to hire somebody that will go back and look at social media posts. And so like that full picture is one that I think is really important to make sure you get out to your student athletes. But on the same token, like use it for good, use it to promote. Just like ads are all the good stuff, the fun stuff, NIL is out there, right at the high school level, at the collegiate level. And most of the people making any money at all in the NIL space have a huge social media presence and following and they're leveraging that social media presence. And so there can be a lot of positives that come from it. It's just as adults continuing to pass along those warning signs. And I guess the other thing I would say is just making sure that your policies are strong and in place for if somebody messes up. So like you never want it to be. I gotcha. So most importantly from an administrator point of view, like educate, make sure things are clear. Make sure policies, if there's punishments, whatever that might be, like consequences, it's all clear so that nobody's surprised later on. But let them have fun too tough help.
- [16:52]
A
I think it's, I think it's really important what you just brought up. One, still encourage them to have fun with it, right? You want them to not have a fear of it because it's part of society and they, they're going to have to learn how to navigate that, right? Just like when you're a little kid and you learn how to cross the street, you have to learn the dangers of crossing the street. But eventually at some point in your life, you're going to have to cross the street in this day and age, you're probably going to have to engage in social media in one way or another, whether it's from a professional standpoint, you know, just social standpoint, all those things. So I think that the education piece of it is extremely important, but at the same time not scaring them off from engaging in it. Right. Kind of helping guide them along, being like, hey, this is a tool that you can really use, but it could also harm you down the road if you don't utilize it properly. Right. You know, it's like going back when we were in shop class as a kid, like, hey, here's a saw. You can do a lot of cool things with this, but you could also, you could also have some bad things happen too. Right. And I think it's, it's the, the combination of the education on that. Right. And then additionally too, like, as they're, they're going about this and learning about it, I like the, the digital fingerprint element that you bring up because there is a little bit of totality involved there where you've got to understand the stuff that you're putting out there is going to be out there. You know, you can try and scrub it as much as you want, but at some point or another, if it's something that's not really gonna portray you in the best light, don't put it out there because you don't know if you're ever going to be able to reel that back in. And I, I like the, the fact that you not only mentioned it could impact your, your, your college experience, it could impact your collegiate recruiting, it could impact your future employment. And that's really tough to understand when you're a young person because there's adults that still don't understand that and are putting things out there. And then they're surprised, like, oh, I got in trouble at work because I posted this. It's like, are you surprised you got in trouble for that? You know, like, so I think the education piece of it is really important, but the upside of it, when you're talking about, you know, name, image, likeness, utilize it, leverage it, build a brand for yourself. You can build a brand not only athletically. You see so many people are building their own professional brands utilizing it. So I think there's a lot of good that can be done with it. But there's also the dangers that you have to make sure that you're educating the young people about as they're going through, and hopefully they listen to us. You Know, ultimately all we can do is try and guide them. We can't necessarily force them to understand it, but definitely. Great point, Scott.
- [19:26]
B
So while we're talking, I just said, let me just type in a chat GPT create a how to use social media course for high school athletes. And literally it just pumped out like six different modules with 14 different lessons built into what it pumped out to me. So again, going back to like AI and things like that, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There's plenty of good information. There's already Tutorials, there's already YouTube videos out there. It's just like you figuring out which is the best tool to help you guys make sure you get that information out there and help teach. Because that's again, one of our main jobs, for sure.
- [20:07]
A
Absolutely. Absolutely. Automate when you can, right?
- [20:10]
B
Yeah, man, you said it before. So I'm asking you the question because I'm trying to like get you stuck or something here on this one. Social media graphics, how what do people do? How. What are the best programs that you've seen? Not specifically a program, but like, what are you seeing with graphics and how can that enhance the social media elements?
- [20:32]
A
You know, I really like now I feel like it's. I don't know if it was one that I was just ignorant to it before, but I do feel like there are companies out there now that are assisting you in being able to develop the social media graphics. And you can have templates where you're just kind of plug and play. That's something that I personally did not really engage in. And looking back on it probably should have, probably should have become more savvy at it because something as simple as having the graphic that's showing, you know, just anonymous player, if you will, you know, where it's a volleyball image and you're putting the information out of like, hey, when's the match? Here's when it is. It entices viewers, right? Because it's a quick hitter. It's an infographic. You look at it and you go, oh, wow, you know, there's a girl's volleyball game two nights from now and they're playing such and such, you know, like it, it. We're such a visual society that that quick hitter is really helpful. I think that there's definitely a couple different ways in which athletic directors can engage in that because there's a handful of companies now that do it. I think maybe again you could go to Chat GTP and figure out some good, good practices there. But what I really like about it from the graphic standpoint is you can really, you can make a uniform branding for your school. You can have consistency in the branding not only of the sports. You know, fan engagement is probably going to increase a little bit on your platforms because they're not having to read through everything. It's just a quick hitter. Oh, this is when it is from an event promotion standpoint, you can really do it. And I think lastly it gives it a professional look, you know, because for what we've seen, the evolution of sports is college tries to mirror what professional level does. High school tries to mirror what the collegiate level does. If you want to have that professional look, you're going to have to start getting comfortable with some professional level looking graphics as well. So what about you, Scott, what are your thoughts there?
- [22:34]
B
Yeah, I mean I was on top of this one before I left for a while, to be honest with you. And they made all the difference in the world for like people following and consistently looking at the things you did. I love what you said about consistent branding. I think that's critically important, right? Like, I mean if it was me and we'll probably do an episode on branding everything. You got to make sure the same logo, right? It should be everywhere in a school. Like I like when the darn garbage cans have the school logo on them. I like when the scoreboard has the same logo as it's on that garbage can. I like the banners as you're driving into the school. Well, your social media graphics should reflect that same branding and it should be consistent. But man, like, yeah, there's great companies out there, not just good ones. I think there's great companies out there. A box out, a gipper. They're really strong, man. They put out so many cool graphics. There's free ones like canva, I think that can be used as well. And they make it easy for people to post cool graphics. And like, I mean I always would see, hey, compare this. I'm gonna, at the end of a game, I can take a picture of the scoreboard and post a picture of the scoreboard or I can have this really cool looking school branded graphic, even a video graphic that shows that score at the end of the game that maybe even shows, hey, who scored the goals or what time something, you know, happened in that game or statistics. Like how cool is that? How cool is if on the sideline you're filming like, hey, it's first and goal from the one and you take your camera out and you're filming it and you can plug that right into graphic as their score in that touchdown. That's professional. I like what you said too. Like you don't always have to do this yourself. We've talked a little bit about a student SID program. Get yourself a few kids, student information directors, sports information directors that can do this stuff for you. And I mean these graphics can be used on posters for senior days. More and more schools are getting video scoreboards. Graphics can be posted on video scoreboards or those monitors around the building. So like I, I think it's a really good investment to get yourself educated on graphics. And again it could be one of those really great companies. It could be so like a canva that I think is free, that's not really built for sports but you make it work.
- [25:06]
A
I really like the, the multi use for it. Right. I mean I just as you're saying that in like senior days and stuff like that. Just right now when I. There's two high schools that are very short drives from where, where we live. And both of them, when you're driving by their fields, what do they have up there? They have all of their seniors on, you know, basically banners that are on their, on their fencing and everything like that. And it's all consistent branding. You know it and it just makes it look really sharp. And I think that that's something that it's. You make the investment in it, you put the time into it. It really pays dividends for you too.
- [25:44]
B
It does, it does. I was just thinking too should have said it. One of those companies that I mentioned, maybe they built you at this point, but they can, they produce graphics for the different social media platforms. Not only do they go directly to them but like you can create one graphic and it gives it in like three different formats. So like, you know, size wise it's going to fit on Twitter differently than one that's going to fit on an Instagram post. So like they do it once and then it adjusts what you're doing for the different social media platforms out there. That's pretty cool.
- [26:18]
A
That's really cool because then again it's automate what you can make your life easier, you know. Well, keeping with that thought process in terms of like how you can set yourself apart if you will, you know, from, from other, other athletic directors, schools, et cetera. You know, what do you think of behind the scenes style of content? Do you think that resonates really well with the fans? Is that, is that content that you feel is something you should be leveraging and that the campus Community would enjoy.
- [26:49]
B
I do, I 100% do. I think about things like takeovers, right? You get a few trusted kids that Thursday takeover, they take over your account for the day. They post throughout the school day, they post from practice, they post pre game kind of stuff right onto your account. Yeah, it's a leap of faith. But I feel like if you pick the right student athletes, you're okay. Tour your facilities. Why not like show off? If you've got great facilities, do that kind of stuff. Do a live broadcast with social media and show off some of your facilities. Run contests. What about, you know, contests via social media that people can participate in? Whether it's trivia or things like that, you can run contests from there. Again, all the behind the scenes stuff and practice stuff is just something that nobody ever sees. Yeah, people go and they see the game. Most people, gosh, at this point they want people as far away from campus for safety reasons like during a practice and things like that, so they don't get to see that side of things. I think it's pretty cool if you can give people like that, that view and let them, you know, be a part of that.
- [28:07]
A
I agree with you. You know, because like you, you see it, you know, again, we're trying to mirror the collegiate, we're trying to mirror the professional levels. I mean like you look at the professional level. What's more like, I mean, I'm a, I'm a football nut. So like Hard Knocks is a great show. I love being able to see that because you see the behind the scenes content. Obviously you're not going to be able to do that at a high school level, but you can provide snippets of that. You can put that to your social media and see, you know, this is what they were doing in practice today or this was what was celebrated. Here's some key takeaways as we're leading into the big contest. I think there's ways in which you can do it. Like we had a, we, we had a company that we used to for produce some of this content for us where we would do like Camp Chronicles, like as you're building up to the season and you had some video content there. I like your idea of getting some trusted students though, because one, you're getting them engaged into your various platforms that you're utilizing. Probably going to get some more followers on there because they want to be able to see what gets posted by their friends. Right. And then two, it becomes a little bit of an education content piece for them as well. Because you're teaching them like, hey, we want you to go out and figure out how to develop content. How are you going to be able to edit this? What, what's your script looking like? What are you trying to accomplish with this? And it gives them a little bit of ownership to these various social media pages. So all around, I think the behind the scenes content piece is something that can help drive engagement and also drive interest from your students, which I think is probably going to be the most difficult audience to kind of capture. Right.
- [29:35]
B
That's why I like the idea of contests. Right. Think about, hey, if you follow this account, I mean, there's lots of strategies out there for getting followers. We do it in the business world certain ways. Right. We provide valuable content that makes people want to follow. But like, why not run a contest with student athletes? Like once they're on there, if they hit the bell on like X and they're going to get alerted every time you post something. You know what, anybody who is following us, you're in line for a free T shirt, a sweatshirt, some gear. Because the key is like, get them on there and hopefully they'll stay engaged and that's going to help you get out all the information you want. So there's lots of good strategies out there for having people follow. And we just talked about a few.
- [30:20]
A
Love it.
- [30:23]
B
How Canadians use this like to prepare for any maybe crisis that happens on social media or just in general. Like, what about crisis in general? But what about issues that arise on social media? Like we talked about before with, hey, the bad stuff.
- [30:42]
A
Yeah. So I think, I think there's a couple different things that you really have to do. And it's a lot of it goes back to some of the stuff that we've talked about on other episodes where you're establishing expectations, establishing guidelines, making sure that, that everyone knows what is to be expected from social media utilization, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable. So really, I mean, developing a department guideline for social media, I think that that's going to be of paramount importance, that not only your student athletes understand this, but your coaches certainly understand it. You could go as far as making sure that your parents understand it too, because they may be some of the, the worst offenders at times of what gets out there on the social media. I think when we're looking at it just through the lens of like a social media crisis, like something gets out there. Right. Or you know, God forbid somebody went rogue on one of your accounts and information gets out there, you've got to make sure. That you have the ability to control those accounts. You know, I would never just turn it over to a coach and be like, hey, create one and go with it. Like, you wanted to make sure that you were the gatekeeper of the access to that account and maybe you were just sharing that information with people, you know, so you want it to be linked to one of your emails, not to a parent or a student athlete, just. Just some preventative things in case you need to be able to access or gain control. And then I also think too, a big piece of all of this is the communication that you're having with your administration. Where do I go if this go sideways on me? Who do I need to alert? Who's going to get involved? How can we try and contain this? Who's my fire department when this fire pops up? Because I'm not going to be able to control everything. And you know, at times, depending upon how big of a crisis this is, this may not just be, hey, I got to go and bring it to my principal. This may be, we've got to bring it to a superintendent, or do we need to bring this to legal or however it is, but at least make sure on your end you've kind of identified those place layers and knowing when you need to go and get that help. I think the second part that you talked about, like, when there is a crisis, social media can be a great way to be able to help get that information out there. But you've also got to make sure that you are 100% accurate in doing so, you know, because people are already in a panic mode, if you will, from a, from a, from the crisis itself. You don't want to necessarily add fuel to that fire. And again, that would be going back to what are your administrative guidelines from that, you know, what is your emergency action plan as a school in terms of how we handle these things. So just some thoughts that, you know, come to mind as we talk about that. How about yourself, Scott?
- [33:29]
B
First of all, you're such a pro, man, because I created this question, asked it, it could have gone in two completely different directions. And you covered them both. You hit them both, man. That's solid because I don't even know what the heck I was asking, but you, you, you made it clear for me by your answers. So thanks on that. I mean, listen, you. If there's a true emergency crisis, getting it out on social media is going to be the quickest, fastest way. Hopefully, if you've got those people following you to communicate the information you said it right though, like, you better be damn clear. You better be darn 100% clear on what you're putting out there if it's an emergency situation. And make sure that people want that information to be communicated.
- [34:11]
A
Yeah.
- [34:12]
B
So like critically important. And then the other side is just, I mean, we've said like having a clear policy, making sure it's vetted, making sure it's approved, making sure it's communicated. Like, you've got to make sure that no matter what use of social media, whether it's your own department, your coaches, your student athletes, like, oh, that's just like set in stone and people know about it and getting your administration involved, there's people that are more responsible for this as a district than you are. It all comes back to them as well. So making sure you have the blessing of those who are affected above you to do what you're doing is important as well.
- [34:53]
A
Absolutely. Well, as we kind of come near the end, last couple questions we have, Scott. I'm going to kind of combine these last two into one, because I think they, they kind of flow together. You know, like, first part of the question is going to be, what advice do you kind of have for an ad that's maybe newer to the social media waters? You know, like, they want to get more active. They don't know really know where to start. So, like, first part is going to be like, what advice do you have? The ads that are just getting started with this. And then second part of it's going to be, how can you measure your social media platform success?
- [35:31]
B
I mean, I don't, I gotta believe that almost everybody is utilizing some sort of social media at this point. Maybe I'm wrong. Do it. That'd be my first thing. Like, you gotta, you gotta be on social media if you're an athletic director. Like, take the time, make the time. It doesn't take a lot of time to get yourself on there. I mean, carve out 10 minutes a day to communicate schedules at the very least. Right. To communicate schedules and maybe results kind of thing, you can get it out there pretty quickly. You don't need to have those graphics. You don't need to have in game stuff. Just start building a presence. Don't do it all yourself. We talk about the student athletes all the time. We talk about the students in the school who would probably love to help you in some way. There's classes on media in the school that you could probably get teacher involved to help you get some social media presence out there for your athletic department. So, like, utilize the resources that you have. It doesn't take a long time. And I think once you see the benefits, then you'll probably do more and more. And how do you measure it? Right. Everything, like what gets measured gets done. One of my favorite administrators used to say to me, I mean, you've got likes, feedback, followers, reposting of things. That seems to me is, I don't know if it's, if it's a sign that, like, they agree with you on things, but you can usually get some pretty solid analytics on how many people have eyes on what you're posting. And I mean, if you're growing over time, I gotta think that there's some sign of success there. What about you?
- [37:21]
A
Yeah, no, I think that you're spot on. Especially like from the metric standpoint, you know, it's a little vague, you know, because you're not going to be able to know exactly, like, hey, I've been posting stuff to social media and look at what our gate was for football. You know, was it because you were putting those great graphics out or was it because you're playing a crosstown rival? You know, I mean, like this, there's, there's a little bit of give and take there, but you certainly can have those measurables. Like, is your follower count growing? Are you seeing those reposts? Are you getting more engagement, you know, and better eyes on that? I honestly think one of them too. Like this is going to sound very anecdotal, but I kind of felt this way. Your office phone rang a little bit less because you got the information out there, you know, I mean, that's one way in which you can kind of make your life a little bit easier. And I think I'm going to echo exactly what you said when it comes to advice. One, do it. You know, this is the way of the world right now. You're, you're just basically, you're making it more difficult on yourself by not doing it, in all honesty. And then two, if you're not savvy in that world, find people that are, you know, reach out. We always talk about, you've got a campus community, you got people that are eager to engage and help out. I guarantee there's some parents or teachers on campus or students that you can be entrusted with to help you understand how to do these things. So definitely, definitely agree with you on that front. Get involved with it and be able to really promote your programs via the social media aspect as well.
- [38:56]
B
Agreed. And I'll follow up, like one more time and just say, I think as the world changes, making sure you educate your students, your student athletes, even on like the nil stuff and how to brand themselves via social media, it's just becoming more and more apparent that you have to do that. And it's more and more important all the time. There's also lots of great people out there who teach courses and provide classes and courses that can be downloaded pretty cheap and in an elegant way that you can get that information out to your student athletes.
- [39:33]
A
Absolutely. Well, Scott, I think this is going to do it for this edition of AD360. You know, social media, as we just talked about quickly becoming a necessity for athletic directors. So hopefully those that have tuned in our listeners, you got some good information out of us. Scott is more of the social media guru than myself. I mean, I'll see if I can maybe get Tom from MySpace lined up as one of our guests in the future for us. But any closing thoughts before we sign off?
- [40:04]
B
Tell Tom from MySpace we we need our own social media like medium for high school athletics where we can get everybody on there and control it a little bit more.
- [40:16]
A
That's love it. Absolutely love it.
- [40:19]
B
Tiny, tiny little ask.
- [40:20]
A
Well, appreciate the time today, Scott. Great conversation as always. Those of you that tuned in, we appreciate you tuning in as well. And if you liked what you heard today, please stay tuned for future episodes. Be sure to that you follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast from so you don't miss any new episodes. But with that said from A.D. 360, I'm Greg Vandermade.
- [40:41]
B
Scott Rosenberg.
- [40:43]
A
Take care everyone.
- [40:44]
B
Thanks.