I am originally from Sarnia, ON, a little boarder city to Port Huron, MI. In Sarnia, we have Lambton College, better known for their CPET and nursing program, and as of lately, their up and coming Men’s Varsity Basketball. I’ve been working with the team for 6ish seasons now and I have become very involved in their social media presence. I was first handed a camera and told to “photograph practice”. This then turned into a new found love for sports photography. My work has been published hundreds of times on the Facebook and Instagram pages, and the local newspaper. I however am not the only one (especially being away at school, they need someone like me to help them out). This is where Tyler Bennett comes in. He has become the full time social media coordinator at Lambton and thankfully gets to deal with all the money, programming, editing, and advertising I once had to do.
When asking Bennett if he would help, he jumped at the opportunity. I asked him, how much time he devotes to social media per day, he informed me that 1-2 hours is spent for sure but that the profiles are always open in the background just incase. These accounts get around 10ish messages a day that he answers. When asked the typical salary of someone in his position, the answer was around $56,000 a year based on 25 hours per week. Long story short, sometimes that 1-2 hours is more like a full work day.
“A lot of the content has templates that allow for quick distribution, so I would say that roughly 25% of the content is created on a regular basis”, Bennett writes. I would agree, most of the content involves changing a time, place, or a cut out of a player (which has already been created), making it an easy click and it’s done in 10 minutes flat. Some other things, like Pub Nights or Special Events take a little bit more time and creativity. All logos, layouts, and pictures have permission to be used in the marketing until a new one is needed, which we would then need to gain access to them.
“Most of the created content focuses around written articles and social engagement pieces, while score marketing and such are templates,” he continues. This means, the work he is creating is made in order to bring people in and get the motivated to attend the games or events. For example, one posted may be made for a home opener or a final home game and include Lambton’s logo, the Varsity logo, those hosting (say a sponsor), and the Who, What, When, Where is answered. This is the posted on our top viewed social medias, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for people to see in hopes that they remember and then attend the event. These are different than our “we won” posters that show a photo from the game (hopefully mine), the score and against who. That information is then expanded upon in the caption where Coach Grant normally has a quote about the game, highlights are touched upon, or shoutouts are mentioned.
According to Bennet, with 166 posts to date on Instagram, and 2090 tweets on Twitter, they are the main platforms in which they use to reach the intended audience. Following that, Facebook is used for more video-focused posts, like highlights or clips from the games; things people want to see and make them go “Hey, I want to go to the next game because they did __.”
Holding up the social media presence of a post-secondary education facility is one thing, but keeping that and the athletics in mind is another story. Tyler, if he knows it or not, has a hand in bringing players to the school. If a possible recruit sees we have no social media presence, they then may believe we have minimal fans, minimal exposure to paying teams, and it goes downhill from there. The social media presence has significantly improved since Bennett has been apart of the program and it makes the team look more professional, more innovative, more serious, and a great environment for growth, not only as a player but human beings.
Feel free to check out the pages Tyler runs! He’s pretty good at what he does!
https://www.facebook.com/lambtonbasketball/
https://www.facebook.com/LambtonCollegeAthletics/
https://www.instagram.com/lambtonbasketball/
Hayley's Social Media 