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Social Studies: Mountain West's Katie Cavender On Playing Big Outside The Power 5

Mountain West Assistant Commissioner/Strategic Communications Katie Cavender (@katiecavender) is in her ninth year with the conference and has always had a hand in maintaining its digital presence. Cavender came on as a webmaster and now singlehandedly handles the MWC's social media presence (@MountainWest). She noted there had been some "poking and prodding" about launching a digital effort for the MWC, but it was not until then-member Utah upset Alabama in the '09 Sugar Bowl that a staffer -- "without telling anyone" -- got the ball rolling on the Twitter account.

On her personality coming across on Mountain West social media accounts:
I have always been a firm believer of not just having a logo talking at people, but rather making it more authentic, more human and more connective. That’s really what the purpose of social media is. We’ve built some comradery with other conferences across the country that have helped foster that and we are sure to leverage our talent for the Mountain West Network.

On coordinating with conference, school and network officials:
We take things on a case-by-case basis. We see what’s coming down the pike and see what makes the most sense for us. We have always found that building our brand has been a key focus, not only in our marketing efforts, but in our day-to-day communications on social. We’re lucky that we have the video component to tell those stories. Finding different touch points for a piece of content also is key. Video also has been a way for us to extend ourselves and reach people quicker compared to more traditional means.

SOCIAL SNAPSHOT:
Must follow: Kevin DeShazo with FieldHouse Media and Jessica Smith, who is a social media strategist for Under Armour. Kevin does social media training and consulting for athletic departments and brands and always has great nuggets of information. Jessica has a blog called Social 'n Sport, and she’ll do a lot of crowdsourcing on ideas. She has really made herself a thought leader.
Favorite App: TripIt is really handy for me to coordinate travel. The Mountain West spans a great deal of geography. We are on the road quite a bit and that has helped keep me organized. Also, I still really love Pinterest. On a personal level, it is way for me to check out. It’s the new way to search the web.
Average time spent daily on social media: 10-12 hours, and that may be a little conservative.

How being outside the Power 5 influences what is posted:
Social media has actually helped level the playing field. For those of us who don’t have the resources that those conferences do, it kind of gives us a voice. While some of those conference rely on more staff or use outside strategic consulting entities, we do a lot of our stuff in-house. That’s the nature of the resources we have. I take pride in making sure we’re producing content and engaging in conversations -- just like those other five conferences.

How the Mountain West stands out on social media:
Well we always make sure we are communicating across the revenue-generating sports. But the thing that we are doing that make us a little bit different is making sure our followers know what’s going on with other sports like volleyball, golf and cross-country. Video has been key. We always have cameras on the ground at all of our championships, and we’ve found really good engagement numbers from those. Also being part of the conversation. Making sure we have a watchful eye, not only on the conversation around us and participating in that conversation to help build that engagement, but also helping build and monitor the reputation of the Mountain West.

Posts that draw the most interest:
Video gets a great deal of interest. Our most-successful social post ever was on Facebook during our baseball championship last year. We had a rain delay in Reno, and baseball players tend to get a little funny during delays and find ways to occupy their time. There were some funny skits between Fresno State and New Mexico. One of the teams did a reenactment of the Civil War, while another team did a reenactment of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight. It was all over the place. We posted it exclusively to Facebook to start, and during a 10-day period, we had over 2.2 million unique viewers on our Facebook page, and without any money to bolster that.

Keys to creating a consistent and authentic voice
:
Communication. That has been a really great thing we can hang our hats on here. There are some social media channels that take themselves too serious. It’s really important to remember we are working in college athletics. It’s about the student-athletes first.

If you know anyone who should be featured for their use of social media, send their name to us at jperez@sportsbusinessdaily.com

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