College Sports Information Directors of America

I was honored to be a part of the #WeOwnSocial webinar sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America, the National Association of College Marketing Administrators and Paciolan with Mark Hodgkin (Big East Conference) and Andy McNamara (University of Oregon). We talked about how to facilitate collaboration in college athletic departments when it comes to social media, and shared some best practices to date. (Editor's note: See link to webinar playback/on-demand and the ASAP Sports FastScript from the session.)

Towards the end of the webinar a question was asked about resources for learning more about social media tactics, and we didn’t really have time to answer the question thoroughly. I decided to put together a list of blogs, books, and Twitter follows you can tap to learn more about how to use social media effectively. This list is short and sweet, but please add your favorites in the comments. First, a couple tips.

Use Internet Search: If you need to know how to do something specific, such as how to set up a Pinterest account, both Google Search and YouTube are great resources. Just try searching, “how to ________”. Another tip, don’t reinvent the wheel. Take a look at what other schools are doing on social media and make it work for you. Search a topic such as “college athletics YouTube channels” and follow the links to see examples. Be sure the entries are current–at least from 2012 or newer.

Higher Learning: If you have professional development funds as a social media manager, I recommend attending the annual online Social Media Examiner’s Success Summit. It’s great because you don’t have to travel and the sessions are archived so you can listen anytime. The internet is full of free webinars, white papers, and e-books on current best social media practices. HubSpot and Exact Target are good sources. You’ll just have to give up your email address to gain access.

Blogs to Follow: Following are a list of how-to blogs on social media tactics. There are many more. Add your favorites in the comments. I tried to keep the list short for starters.

• All Twitter – go-to source on Twitter
• Content Marketing Institute – tips on content strategies
• Convince and Convert–social media general – good stuff
• Heidi Cohen – trends and how-to’s in social media – loads of data
• Mari Smith (Facebook) – go-to resource on Facebook
• Marketing Profs – social media general, emphasis on marketing
• Mashable– current news in tech and trends in social media published several times a day
• Social Media Examiner – best social media “how-to” blog out there
• Sprout Insights (Sprout Social) – good source on latest social media news

College Athletics Social Media Blogs:

• Chris Yandle on Tumblr
• CKSyme.org (my blog)
• Digital Hoops Blast- good college athletics case studies
• Fieldhouse Media - social media education

Helpful Books to Read: Since social media information is always changing, I’m recommending only books on strategy. You’ll get more updated tactical information from blogs.

• Brand Advocates by Rob Fugetta – building brand ambassadors through social media strategy
• No Bullshit Social Media by Jason Falls – no nonsense formula for success in social media across all operations
• #SocialWorks by Michael Stoner – higher ed case studies you can copy (lots of them) – NEW
• The Now Revolution by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund
• Real-Time Marketing by David Meerman Scott – how to use social media to take advantage of real-time opportunities
• The Complete Social Media Manager’s Guide by Weintraub and Litwinka – good if this is your job description
• Listen, Engage, Respond by Chris Syme (e-book on Amazon only) using social media to protect reputation, build brand ambassadors, and managing crisis

Recommended Twitter Follows:

A special thanks to people you should follow – Dr. Bill Smith (@Doctor_BS), Chris Yandle (@ChrisYandle), and Matt Brady (@brades93) – for help with this section. All the bloggers listed above have good Twitter feeds. The recommended protocol: set up topical lists as “streams” in Hootsuite or TweetDeck to follow. It makes all the information easier to scan.

#weownsocial – keep the hashtag going by tagging your school’s examples of social media use

Twitter Feeds for Trends and Research in Social Media (from @Doctor_BS):

• @Poynter
• @Journalistics
• @PewResearch
• @Niemann
• @PeterShankman

I’ve listed more resources here.

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