UW Athletics uses social media to communicate with fans
May 21, 2009 | General News
Following the trend of celebrities and many news outlets. the UW Athletic program has created an active presence on several social media pages including Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Mixx.
Since starting on Twitter in time for football signing day on Feb. 4, the site has grown to nearly 1,000 followers (people who sign on to follow our tweets). Many of them ask to have the tweets appear as text messages on their phones.
We are interested in reaching all of our fans in whatever media they choose to follow the Badgers. Our Twitter site grows about 20 followers per day now. The audience demographic is said to be 18-34 in age, and it's the fastest growing social web site.
The athletic program also has a Facebook account that grows about 150 fans per day (over 31,000 now) and we have connected with many fans who may not have visited our main Web site, UWBadgers.com. According to a 2008 Pew Internet survey, the percentage of adults internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled since 2005, from 8 percent to 35 percent. We use these social media sites to send short notes that highlight items found on our Web site, or remind people of events happening same day.
We are relative newcomers to Mixx.com and Digg.com . Digg has been around for several years and is a great place to share our Web content and videos. According to its description, it is a place for people to discover and share content across the web, from the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog. Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by its users. Mixx is another news aggregate that allows users to tailor their interests with Web postings by others.
We truly appreciate our fans and will continue to build our relationships with them by using the latest technology available.
