Interview with Dan Austin

Aw:How can university athletic departments leverage social media, and why should they?
DA:Aside from Division 1 men's football and basketball, attendance is paltry at many Division 2 and 3 programs and other sports. Even if ticket sales are not an issue or were free, higher attendance and following make for better school spirit and experience and potentially could raise advertising revenues and school and team awareness and consideration.

Case in point, my son attends Carleton outside of Minneapolis and plays on the varsity football team and runs track, even though he is there for the academics. The football team is actually fairly good and plays some decent schools with great rivalries. Yet, attendance is usually about 1,000--less than his high school and in a town where there isn't much competition on a Saturday afternoon.The drivers for low attendance undoubtedly include: it's a Division 3 school, smaller town and many will go to see the Minnesota Vikings or Gophers play. However, part is also due to minimal support received in the school website and paper. The football team passively leaves communication of the games to those that manage the site and paper.

AW: What form of social media is most important to university athletic departments?
DA: A more proactive approach would be to use social media on and off campus to drive attendance by driving first time fans to games from the school and local community, while also striving to build a loyal following among people that have gone via several outlets:
- LinkedIn and/or Facebook groups
- social media annoucements and blasts
- Twitter followings

All could draw people to the team's landing pages, groups, etc. and test incentives for coming to the first game or become loyal fans. Even ideas such as, we'll go to your event if you come to ours or member-get-member.

Dan Austin is Chief Comercial Officer at American Express.