The press has talked about the CNN-Ashton Kutcher challenge to each get to a million followers on Twitter and Oprah Winfrey has made news in recent weeks as she has started to tweet to her massive fanbase. But here’s a following on Twitter you might only know about if you are a fan of NCAA basketball.
Indiana University Hoosiers and the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky are both storied collegiate basketball programs that are in serious rebuilding/comeback stages in efforts to reclaim their place in the upper tier of Division I basketball greatness.
The Hoosiers are trying to shake off the problems caused by a revolving door of coaches since Bobby Knight left, a problem that went from bad to worse with the coaching violations of Kelvin Sampson. The Wildcats and their demanding fanbase, aka, The Big Blue Nation, have suffered through a couple of the worse seasons in the history of the winning-est program in college basketball.
But both teams have, thanks to new coaches Tom Crean at the helm at IU and John Calipari at UK, turned the corner on their problems. Interestingly enough, leading a program at this level is measured by far more than the number of wins in a season or how a team does in tournament play. Crean and Calipari are clearly called on to build, grow, and nurture their team’s faithful fans and supporters. Being almost as savvy in business marketing as they are in dribble drive penetration, Crean and Calipari have turned to Twitter as a way to connect with the fans.
Although neither coach is racking up the kind of numbers Ashton Kutcher and Oprah do, in roughly a week’s time, Calipari’s following is roughly 15,000 (and shows no signs of slowing down just yet.) Crean’s still working to break 5,000, but will certainly do so by the time the students roll back into Bloomington for the fall semester.
Social Media Marketing Has Rewritten the Rules
The important point here is that social media marketing is just as much about “social” as it is about “marketing”. For the first time in history, the lines between how business reaches consumers and how consumers reach each other have grown very blurry. And this is really exciting. Today’s business guru isn’t a student of business; he or she is a student of “life”. Advertising and marketing no longer looks like or functions like the business world because advertising and marketing today is about the real world.
What a great time for you to be reaching out to clients, growing a business and building a brand. Thought leaders today are those people who are rewriting the rules, starting with the fact that there really are no rules, only opportunities seized or opportunities lost. What a time to become part of a winning team!
Enjoy a laugh thanks to Jimmy Kimmel about Oprah’s venture into Twittering with this YouTube video.
