Univ. of Memphis Digital Media Coordinator Gary Paczesny (@GaryPaczesny) is in his second year overseeing the online presence for school's athletic programs after seven years at Notre Dame helping start what is now called Fighting Irish Media. Having seen how social and digital media have developed over the last decade, Paczesny is interested in what lies ahead. He said, "Social Media is one area that’s not going away. We talk about our athletic department and how we reach our contingent of fans. As groups of fans change and get older and the new generation comes through, how are people consuming our message? Maybe now we’re still putting stuff in newspapers but in five years that might now be the case. We may have to reach fans through other means."
Biggest surprise in how social and digital media have grown:
How rapidly information flows. When Twitter and Facebook launched -- especially Facebook -- there was information flow, but it wasn’t the way it is now. When breaking news happens, you can immediately go to Twitter and find first-hand accounts of what’s happening.
Duties beyond sports:
I’m constantly monitoring what’s happening around the world, including the Twitter feeds for the AP, West Wing Reports and reporters within the White House press corps. That affects how our message is driven. If there is a global event, I want us to be able to react to it if necessary. Do we have to change our messaging? Do we have to anything we’re doing or how we’re doing it? I want to be cognizant of what’s going on.
Staying ahead of trends:
It’s more difficult than people envision. The big craze is the mannequin challenge that you see on a lot of social and digital sites. There are things that I couldn’t predict were going to be big hits or take off. I would want to be a trendsetter, but I’ve seen 50 or 60 of those videos today alone. Do you go about doing one? Do you not do one? Do you let the team do one? These are the debates you have with yourself on a daily basis.
Challenge of managing every Memphis team account:
Those are the challenges. All of our teams want to have a voice on social media, and they all have different recruiting and or team-related goals, so it’s trying to work through those, but also using our main account to draw traffic to softball. I try to take some time to really understand what the end goals were for these teams as a whole, but also on the digital and social landscape.
Long-term planning:
We really look at a seven-day window. I’d love to have it 10-12 days out, but there are such movements and shifts. This week alone we have three men’s basketball games and a road football game, so it’s trying to manage the schedule, but not get inundated by it. After winning our hoops game last night, we may now try a different social push for Wednesday’s game. There are things that we try to adjust and keep moving as we go throughout our week.
Having leeway being in a Group of Five conference:
I look at some schools that are in the Power 5 that are trendsetters, like Oregon State, Nebraska, Miami. They are out there trying to push the envelope as much as we are. They all have different philosophies. Everybody uses Clemson as an example -- they push great content. But they’ll be the first to tell you they don’t always respond to fans as a means to communicate. We try to communicate with our fans, answer questions, alert people about what’s going on. This year, we started using Facebook Live. We tried it for our first football game -- we have this thing called Tiger Walk -- that was really the first time we thought about using it. Now, people are demanding it.
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