NACDA is always a fun time for those in the college sports world. It’s a time to hear great speakers, to learn best practices, to sharpen your skills, to network and to relax. We’re excited to be a part of it again this year as we head to Dallas in June to discuss social media and leadership with the industry’s best and brightest. Take a look at our schedule below, put the times in your calendar, and let us know if you’ll be there! (and if you want to schedule individual meetings, shoot an email here)

NAAC
5 Gears of Connectivity: How to be Present and Productive When There’s Never Enough Time
Saturday, June 11 from 3:40-4:30p in Governors Lecture Hall
Sunday, June 12 from 10:00-10:50a in Senators Lecture Hall

NACMA/CoSIDA Joint Panel
Social Media Best Practices
Other panelists: Nick Marquez from Facebook and Taylor Stern from the Dallas Cowbows
Tuesday, June 14 from 9:10-10:00a in the Trinity Ballroom

D2 ADA (open to all NACDA registrants)
5 Gears of Connectivity: How to be Present and Productive When There’s Never Enough Time
Wednesday, June 15 from 2:30-3:30p

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Dallas!

Fieldhouse Media is an award-winning firm dedicated to helping athletics departments get the most out of their social media efforts, from educating student-athletes and staff to providing an overall strategy. To find out more about us or to join the more than 95 schools utilizing our services for their athletics department, contact us today.

As we head full speed into a new year, it’s always good to step back and reflect on the previous year. To understand where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we’re going. And, hopefully, to celebrate. Thanks to you, 2015 brought us many reasons to celebrate.

Social Media Education/Training

876,000. Do a Google search for “How to reach Millennials” and that’s the amount of results you get. Spend any time on social media, at conferences (sports and otherwise) or in marketing meetings and that topic is guaranteed to come up. I’ve been lucky enough to address this topic on panels at a few conferences. It is the question of the year right now and everybody is searching for answers.

The  problem is that asking how we “reach” Millennials is the wrong question. To reach an audience isn’t difficult. You’ve chased Millennials from Facebook to YouTube to Twitter to Instagram to Vine to Snapchat to _______. You are reaching them but you aren’t engaging with them (as a result, they aren’t engaging with you). We put so much effort on this idea of “reach” that we miss out on the fact that Millennials, like any other generation, are people. People who want to be heard, to be interacted with, to be cared about, to belong. They don’t want to be sold to (who does?), they want to be a part of what’s happening.

Thanks to you, 2014 was our best year yet. From January to December, you’ve kept us busy and we’ve loved every minute. How busy? Let’s look:

• We traveled more than 45,000 miles
• Visited over 40 campuses and conferences in 15 states (many thanks to Southwest and Delta for getting us to and fro safely)
• Educated more than 25,000 student-athletes, coaches and administrators about how to use social media well
• Helped programs from every level – NAIA up to the Power 5 conferences – see direct, measurable results from developing and executing effective social media strategies across a variety of platforms
• Launched Fieldhouse Leadership to help develop leaders worth following in collegiate athletics

Audience:

A group you give information to.
A group you talk at, not with.

100,500.

Too often we jump into social media, whether in our overall strategy or as we move into a new season, without stopping to think about who we are and where we are going. This may be due to a perceived lack of time, resources, information or all of the above. We know we are going to tweet out scores, post some pictures on Facebook and Instagram, maybe throw in a few YouTube videos where we chat with players. We head out hoping to get retweets, replies, likes, shares, comments and clicks. That’s the goal, right?

The reality is that – and this isn’t breaking news to anybody – every message that comes out from your department should have a purpose. Social Media strategies are an obvious necessity, but how do we actually get there? For any athletic department or team, it starts with answering three questions.