Menu
Media

Social Studies: Army's Ally Keirn On Annual Navy Game, Scaling Back Platforms

Army Assistant AD/Communications Ally Keirn oversees the social media efforts for the annual Army-Navy game (@ArmyNavyGame), which takes place Saturday. She got her start as intern working as the Army-Navy game social coordinator and was later hired full time. Now in her third season, Keirn said the coordinator's duties are to "coordinate all the social media efforts around the game and keep the corporate sponsors happy and on the same page and promoting not just the game itself, but the pageantry and the historic side of it and why it is ‘America’s Game.’” Keirn: “There are a million sponsor pieces with it, and making sure the fans can be involved with all the hype around it. In my new position, I oversee the people who filled that role.”

SOCIAL SNAPSHOT
Must-follow: You get your best ideas outside of sports. My favorite is Ellen DeGeneres.
Favorite App: One of my favorites is Time Hop. In college, I was the one who took all of the photos.
Average time per day on social media: I’m not 100% engaged all the time, but it’s always running in the background.

Responsibilities for game:
Before I got here we had Vine, Tumblr, all these different things. This fall we launched a new website for the Army-Navy game (www.ArmyNavyGame.com), we took away Vine and Tumblr, we added Snapchat because it added a different element. We started doing the Instagram frames. Last year we incorporated different emojis and we’ve had Snapchat “Our Story” the last couple years. Last year, we got good numbers on it. It was viewed over 45 million times.

Scaling back on social platforms:
This position is stationed at Army, but we are a non-biased group for Army and Navy both having input. We both have ideas on how we do social media. We have separate accounts for each of our sports, Navy has one account for all of their sports; Army does "less is more," and they like to get as much as they can and share it with their fans. We’ve refined it to highlight both of our strengths in social media.

Preferred platform:
Army is really focusing on the ones that direct traffic back to our website and different things we are trying to promote. We try to promote through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram more. I’ve integrated Snapchat to our office, and those have been our top-four focus. For Army-Navy, it’s the same -- especially Facebook and Twitter. We’re still going strong on Pinterest, trying to keep that strong for Army-Navy at least a little while longer. One of our corporate sponsors is Nabisco, and they do a lot of stuff through Pinterest, so we are trying to feed that and incorporate as much as we can.

Doing social media for a military academy:
It comes with its own set of challenges. When we meet with teams, we have a special presentation called “Defensive Communication.” It’s very make sure you know what you are saying, why you are saying it, how it can affect you. The election this year is a little different for our student-athletes and the cadets here because whoever wins the election is going to be their Commander-in-Chief, so we were like, "You have to stay away from political talk, even on social media channels." We don’t want something coming out when they come to talk at your graduation, for example, that you said these bad things about them and now they are here to talk. That would be the highlight of their graduation rather than that great accomplishment.

Schools looking too similar on social media:
It’s not the worse, but what we do here is we have a theme each year with our graphics and social presence. This year, we are trying to be more fun and witty and create banter and have simplified graphics that still catch your eyes but are not over-the-top. We’re just differentiating ourselves in a simple way.


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

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPNā€™s Jay Bilas, BTNā€™s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+ā€™s The Dynasty

On this weekā€™s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPNā€™s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Networkā€™s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globeā€™s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJā€™s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJā€™s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazineā€™s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2016/12/06/Media/Social-Studies.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2016/12/06/Media/Social-Studies.aspx

CLOSE