Social Media and College Athletics: The Protector, the Entertainer, and the Interactor

I imagine many athletic departments are discussing the very important question of “Should social media be under the direction of marketing or sports information?” I’m not taking sides on the debate but in most companies the public relations department has become the popular landing destination. Every school needs to decide who is leading the internal discussion and direction of an athletic department’s social media strategy but I would encourage each school to spend as much time thinking about who they are involving in its ongoing social media strategy and execution.

I wonder how many ticket offices are part of the social media planning and decision making process within an athletic department? If your ticketing operation focuses on having conversations with your customers, building relationships and expanding your customer base, I would strongly encourage you to include them in the discussion. Ticketing professionals interact with customers everyday. With their expertise in customer service, ticket managers can play an important role in the department social media strategy sessions.

It’s one of the most important ventures I’ve engaged in during the last twelve months. Our ticket operation jumps at any chance to interact with our customers and develop better relationships. The interaction opportunities that exist in social media are a blessing to better serve our customer needs and have given us an opportunity to expand our customer base. We’ve utilized facebook and twitter for ticket sales, promotions, customer service, and to have an ongoing dialogue with our season ticket holders. We didn’t need to reinvent our operation because our social media presence and philosophy is just an extension of what we are doing when customers come to the box office, call us on the phone or email us.

What does a ticket office involvement in social media look like? At Utah, we have a standing weekly meeting for all the members of our new media committee. In my role as Director of Ticket Operations, I attend these meetings along with our Sports Information Director, Director of Marketing, Director of Compliance, Director of Video Operations along with our new media staff. We talk social media for an hour- anything from content priorities, distribution, brand management, emerging trends, customer engagement, etc.

We’ve been meeting weekly for almost six months now and I’ve observed that the three primary participants gravitate toward natural roles.

Sports Information as “The Protector”

Expertise: Policing content, policy creation and enforcement, reputation management, crisis management, media communication

Marketing as “The Entertainer”

Expertise: Creative content creation, growing distribution

Ticketing as “The Interactor”

Expertise: Customer relationships and interaction, distribution of content


I value the collaborative nature of our approach. Each of us are cognizant of the importance of protecting, entertaining, and interacting in social media but we have a particular expertise in one area. Our sports information staff is charged with the reputation management of our department and getting our message out to the media. There is no better group at emphasizing the importance of the protector role in social media. Our marketing department houses our creative geniuses who are constantly creating content to drive excitement for Utah Athletics. They naturally gravitate toward the entertainer point of view during our discussions. Our ticket department builds relationships and serves our customer’s needs everyday. It’s no surprise that we emphasize the importance of interaction and dialogue with our fans during our meetings.

We recognize the strengths and weaknesses that we bring to the meetings but within that group we have our best Protector, Entertainer and Interactor in the department. We don’t have everything figured out (Who does?) but I think we have the right people at the table.

I’d love to hear how other athletic departments are tackling this issue. In the rare instance that you work in college athletics and you read to the end of this post, please share what your department is doing!