For colleges and universities with accredited athletics programs and championships at stake, do you think their main goal is scouting the .1% of the 1% of star high school athletes that might make it to the big leagues? No. Consistently building student athletes’ personal brands while simultaneously growing support for the institution’s team is the priority.
So, how do small universities with even smaller audiences compete on social media? Tactfully rolling out innovative marketing tactics during the off-season and seeing how many media mentions they can tally up—that’s how.
The University of Central Florida’s athletics content marketing team went viral in April of 2021 when they debuted experimental jersey designs, replacing players’ numbers with Twitter handles during the first spring game.
They tweeted a photo of their starting lineup, the news media covered the experimental design debut, and the organic attention ultimately drove over 6 million impressions to the original tweet.
This year they swapped out the traditional jersey numbers for QR codes, and their engagement numbers don’t lie—the experiment is working!
Now, each spring fans and spectators expect to see the UCF Knights setting records during the season’s peak and setting trends in the off-season.
Inside the UCF Athletic Department’s Trendsetting Content Strategy
Want to learn how this fresh creative marketing strategy was conceptualized and produced?
Read the highlights below from our Inside Look webinar featuring Eric DeSalvo, Associate Director of Content for University of Central Florida Athletics to learn how his team develops trendsetting marketing campaigns that fans, student-athletes, and the media love.
Why College Football Fans Love UCF’s Viral Content Marketing Strategy
It’s not every day that you get a peer inside the mind of a creative strategist, but that’s what’s ahead in the clip below. Below, Eric describes the content team’s strategic approach and goal, the play-by-play from ideation to production to distribution of multiple creative campaigns that went viral, and how his team innovates and iterates on proven concepts. Grab a pen and press play!
UCF Football’s Game Day Content Production and Marketing Workflow
Visualizing your individual or team workflow to understand how messages get created and distributed is key to operational excellence. For creatives, and marketing and communications teams, visualizing workflows and the tools that power them helps show where efficiency is needed or where collaboration happens.
If you don’t already have your workflow visualized, try The Ultimate Workflow Generator for Creative Teams.
Curious how UCF’s content team manages moving assets from their cameras to your social feed, or to their media partners, in a literal flash?
Hear Eric explain UCF’s content marketing workflow in three minutes:
Meet the Speaker
Eric DeSalvo is a UCF ‘09 graduate who has served as the Associate Athletics Director of Content at UCF Athletics for the past 10 years. He also leads the department’s social media efforts, oversees all photo, video, and design content coming from the UCF Knights and UCF Football, and works closely on content strategy for the 15 additional varsity sports with the athletics communications team.
Watch The Webinar On Demand
Watch Eric break down how the UCF team develops and manages content for 15 varsity teams in this Inside Look webinar:
Fans of College Sports: Pass It On
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