GEORGIAGeorgia

TECHTech
Track andASSOCIATION
Field Twitter
ATHLETIC
Analysis and Improvements

Chelsea Driscoll
Emily Moore
Patel
ANNUALIshaan
REPORT
Anupama Sekar

2013-2014

FROM
THE ADS DESK
Introduction
Dear Yellow
Fans,
Knowing
that Jackets
track and
field is not a
ticketed
our
primary
goal
when
As I look back onsport
my rst full, year
as Georgia
Techs Athletic
Director,
Im so
impressed
by
both
the
onand
off-the-
eld
dedication
of
our
coaches,
staff
and
developing these recommendations was
student-athletes, in addition to the amazing support of our proud Yellow Jacketss
to
fansgrow
and alumni.their audience through Twitter.
On the eld of play, nine of our 17 athletic programs were represented in the

Our team was approached by the Georgia Tech Athletic Association (GTAA)
NCAA postseason during the 2013-14 athletic season. Among the highlights
to develop recommendations that would improve their social media
were baseball winning the 2014 ACC tournament title and advancing to
presence. We decided to focus specifically on the Georgia Tech Track and
golfbecause
title for Bruce
team which
Fthe
ieldNCAA
(T&F)Regional,
teamsanother
TwitterACC
page
it hasHepplers
a significantly
smaller follower
advanced
matchother
play at
the 2014
NCAA Championship,
and womens
base
thantomost
sports
on campus.
Knowing that
T&F is not a
basketballs
seventh
to the goal
NCAAwhen
tournament
in the last
eightrecommendations
years.
ticketed
sport
, our trip
primary
developing
these
Golfer
Schniederjans
was named
ACCTwitter
Golfer of
thesaying
Year, rst-team
was
to Ollie
grow
their audience
through
. By
growingAllan audience,
we
meanand
increasing
of students
responding
to tweets, being
America
is currentlythe
theamount
No. 1 ranked
amateur golfer
in the world.
aware of, and attending the events of the T&F Team.

In the classroom, Georgia Tech student-athletes continue to set records. Our Graduation Success Rate
(GSR) rose to 79 percent, an all-time high for Yellow Jackets Athletics. Football was also recognized in the Top 10 percent
academically among all FBS programs. Ten of our combined 13 GSR sports saw their rate increase or remain the same,
while four programs earned APR Public Recognition Awards for a top 10 percent national performance (golf, womens
swimming/diving, womens tennis and volleyball). We had 159 student-athletes selected to the ACC Academic Honor Roll,
including track and elds Elizabeth Lacksen for the sixth time, and 2014 golf graduate Bo Andrews for the fth time.

By saying growing an audience,

we mean increasing the amount of
tweets,
being
This Annualstudents
Report was created for responding
our fans and alumni. It reectsto
the many
successes our teams,
coaches and studentathletes enjoyed in 2013-14. The Annual Report is a guide to not only our academics and athletics, but also a brief
aware of, and attending the events of the
snapshot of our nances. I hope that you enjoy this annual publication.
T&F Team.
We look forward to another successful year in 2014-15. I want to personally thank all of you who support the Yellow
Jackets athletic programs through your generous donations, your purchase of season tickets and in so many other ways.
Your continued support is critical to our success.
is a veryour
special
place,
honoredtotodetermine
be a part ofwhat
the rich
Yellow
InGeorgia
orderTech
to achieve
goal
, weand
firstI am
needed
a fan
of Jackets
Georgiatradition.
Tech T&F would
want to see on Twitter. To answer this question, we compared the T&F Twitter accounts of Georgia
Tech
State University (FSU). We chose FSU because of its significantly larger following
Thankagainst
you andFlorida
Go Jackets!
and engagement on Twitter. At the time of this report Georgia Tech had 850 followers, whereas FSU
had
7,420. In addition to our analysis of the past years Tweets of each team, we consulted outside
Sincerely,
research from two independent studies on Twitter users to put our data in the context of a
professionals analysis of the social media platform.

Mike Bobinski
Director of Athletics

T&F
Twitter
Report
2013-14
ANNUAL
REPORT

WHATS
INSIDE
Report Outline
PAGE 2
AIntroduction
Message from Mike Bobinski
PAGE 3
Mission
ResearchStatement
Goal
PAGE 4
GTAA
Board
Branding
PAGE 5
Head
Coaches / Administration
Engagement
PAGE 6
2013-14
Audience Athletic Highlights
PAGE 7
Media
Coverage
Conclusion
PAGE 8
NCAA Postseason
PAGE 9
Total
Person Program
Mission Statement
PAGE 10
Academics
Mission Statement
PAGE 11
Financials
Mission Statement

Research Goal:
Research
Goal:
Research
Goal:
Grow
the audience
of Georgia
PAGE 12
Alexander-Tharpe Fund

Tech Track and Fields Twitter

MISSION
STATEMENT
The Georgia Tech Athletic Association forms the front porch of the Institute and
serves as a gathering place for students, alumni, fans and friends. We provide
our student-athletes with the opportunity for academic and athletic success and
personal growth. We promote diversity and equity. The integrity of our mission
is enhanced by our commitment to adherence to the rules of the Institute, the
Atlantic Coast Conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
This environment we create allows our student-athletes to compete at the
highest levels, and creates enjoyment for our supporters. We embrace our proud
traditions and strive to enhance the future opportunities for our student-athletes,
coaches, and staff.

2013-14
ANNUAL Report
REPORT
T&F
Twitter

We constrained our analysis to posts that we

deemed successful for each team. A Georgia Tech
post was successful if it had more than 1 favorite,
and a FSU post was successful if it had more than
20 favorites. The difference in our definition is due
The Georgia Tech Athletic Association is a non-prot organization responsible for maintaining the intercollegiate athletic program at Tech. The
to FSU having a much larger following on Twitter.
Athletic Association is overseen by the GTAA Board of Trustees, chaired by the President of the Institute, and composed of eight faculty members,

GTAA
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Branding

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

three alumni members, and three student members. The roster below reects 2013-14 Board membership.

After analyzing the post data we learned that only 59.2% of Georgia Techs successful posts contained images.
We compared this to FSU, whose successful posts contained images 89.4% of the time. We also noticed that
the images FSU uses are of higher quality than the images Georgia Tech uses. You can see an example of that
Chair: Dr. G.P. Bud Peterson (President)
here:

OFFICERS

Vice Chair: Dr. Sue Ann Allen (Faculty Athletics Representative)

Secretary: Mr. Bill Todd
Treasurer: Mr. Steven G. Swant
Director of Athletics: Mr. Mike Bobinski

FACULTY MEMBERS (VOTING)

Dr. Sue Ann Allen
Dr. Reggie DesRoches
Dr. Usha Nair-Reichert
Dr. Greg Nobles
Dr. Colin Potts
Mr. William Bill Todd
Dr. John Tone
Dr. Debby Turner

ALUMNI MEMBERS (VOTING)

Mr. Michael Anderson

TheMr.
image
Lawtonfrom
Mac Georgia
Nease III Tech is blurry and poorly framed, whereas the image from FSU is crisp and focuses on
the Ms.
athlete
Based on these findings, we recommend that Georgia Tech T&F post images of a higher quality
Janice.Wittschiebe
more frequently. This will help create a stronger brand, while also providing a captivating experience for
followers. In order to provide higher quality images it may be necessary for Georgia Tech T&F to hire a talented
(VOTING)
student photographer to attend the meets.

STUDENT MEMBERS

Ms. Shayla Bivins, SAAB President

Mr. Dillon Roseen, Undergraduate SGA President
Next,
we turned to hashtags in the Twitter posts as they are an integral part of the Twitter platform. Hashtags
Mr. Arren Washington, Graduate SGA President

are used to make finding related tweets easier and to spread awareness of events. Georgia Tech used a
hashtag on successful tweets 65.3% of the time while FSU used them 90% of the time. Looking further into
successive tweets at events, Georgia Tech underperformed. Duke and FSU are excellent at using #GoDuke and
Mr. Mike
Bobinski, Director
of Athletics
#Noles
consistently
to brand
their athletic programs Tweets. The same cannot be said for Georgia Tech as
Mr. Joe Irwin,
Georgia Tech Alumni Association
Liaison
currently,
#TogetherWeSwarm
and #GoJackets
are used interchangeably and not in a consistent manner.
Mr. Pat McKenna,
Vicestronger
President, Legal
Counselas it is fewer characters and commands attention in a way that
#GoJackets
is the
hashtag
Mr. Brittany Miles, Editor,does
Technique
#TogetherWeSwarm
not.

NON-VOTING MEMBERS

Ms. Aisha Oliver-Staley, Director Of Afliate Organizations

Dr. Bill Schafer, Vice President, Student Affairs
Mr. Al Trujillo, Georgia Tech Foundation Liaison

To strengthen the branding of the GT Track and Field

Twitter, we suggest improving the quality of photos
and being perfectly consistent in using #GoJackets in
all athletics-related tweets from now on.

T&F
Twitter
Report
2013-14
ANNUAL
REPORT

MEDIA
Engagement
REGIONAL & NATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE

Atlanta is the nations ninth-largest media market and the third-largest in the ACC behind only Chicago (third) and Boston (seventh). More than 100 of Georgia Techs athletic
events were televised during the 2013-14 season. Every year, Yellow Jackets athletics are televised from coast to coast on the ESPN family of networks as part of the ACC
television package. Prior to the start of the 2014-15 season, Georgia Tech in partnership with IMG College inked a deal with WCNN to be its new agship radio network
(680 AM/93.7 FM/1230 AM, 98.9 FM).

Post frequency is an essential component of user engagement on

Twitter. The nature of Twitter posts is to become buried quickly
in users feeds, to overcome this, increasing post frequency allows
for more time at the top of a users feed.

User engagement is important to keep users of any social platform interested and active. Our group
wanted to know what makes a user engaged in a post and whether engagement leads to more followers.
According to a study conducted by Clavio and Walsh on a large NCAA school, the most important elements focused
on the users admiration for an athlete, the athletes expertise and individual content, and unique information that
is provided. As a result, we believe that it would be beneficial to have athletes more involved with the account.
One possibility would be to have an athlete post to the Twitter account for the day so that followers can better
relate to the athletes.

SOCIAL & DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Georgia Tech athletics is on display across the globe and is accessible 24/7 via various forms of media, including our social media networks (Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram,
YouTube),isouran
new
Georgia Tech
Game Day App,ofand
the of
cial site of the Yellow
Jackets,.RamblinWreck.com,
features
uniqueiscontent
that
Post
frequency
essential
component
user
engagement
on Twitter
The nature ofwhich
Twitter
posts
to become
cant
be
found
anywhere
else.
buried quickly in users feeds; to overcome this, increasing post frequency allows for more time at the top of a

users feed. We decided to look at Twitter posts during invitationals hosted by Georgia Tech and FSU. Both
invitationals were two days long. We looked at post frequency starting the day before the meet, during the meet,
and after the meet. Georgia Tech had 1 Twitter post before the event, 12 posts during the event and 2 posts after
the event for a total of 15 posts. FSU hosted a similar event, but posted twice as often. FSU had 6 posts before the
event which highlighted athletes and new recruits, and had 20 posts during the event and 4 posts after the event,
for a total of 30 posts. This showed us that Georgia Tech is missing valuable opportunities to build anticipation for
events beforehand and provide insightful recaps and pictures after events. Having a more thorough schedule of
posts for large events will be of great benefit to the T&F Team.

RAMBLINWRECK.COM

Backed by a robust content strategy aimed at curating

content across all sports, RamblinWreck.com continues to
be the best source for up-to-date information, schedules,
statistics, features and digital content.

INFOGRAPHICS

Georgia Tech is one of the college athletics leaders in

producing high-quality, information-rich infographics.
Georgia Techs #SWARMSTATS contain easily digestible
tidbits that can be shared across GTs various platforms.

GAME DAY APP

The Georgia Tech Gameday App is packed with robust

social, on-campus and stat-driven features that enhance the
gameday experience by delivering free live game audio and
much more.

Georgia Tech is missing valuable

SOCIAL MEDIA
opportunities
to build anticipation for
events beforehand and provide insightful
recaps and pictures after events.
Twitter: @GTAthletics | Facebook: /GTAthletics | Instagram: @GTAthletics | YouTube: RamblinWreckTube

As social media continues to evolve and saturate our daily lives, our goals are:
to be among the nations trendsetters in collegiate athletics;
provide unique, engaging and quality content;
build an online community; provide the best customer service; and
to share and spread the ideas of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the GTAA.

2013-14
ANNUAL REPORT
T&F Twitter
Report

57

Relationship
Relationship development
development leads
leads
NCAA POSTSEASON
PLAY retention of the fan
to a stronger
Audience
base which can be achieved
through
through using
using active
active tweets.
tweets.
Ultimately, the best measurable metric of success would be to increase the number of followers on the Twitter
account. For that, we need to create incentives and opportunities for the followers to connect with and see
value from the page and its offerings. The main audience here and the easiest to target are fellow Georgia
Tech students, and we can reasonably assume that the age range can fall between 18-24 years. This age
range is very familiar with how social networking operates, and yet has specific needs to be met in order for
them to see value.
Quite a bit of research has already been done on the specific area of social media and college sports. The
previously mentioned study by Clavio and Walsh showed that only 14% of college students followed a sportsrelated Twitter account for their school, and 36% followed non-official Twitter feeds connected to the athletic
department. This not only shows that there is a large body of students disconnected from the sports social
media, but that there is a large opportunity to use analytics to engage them, by starting with the 36% who
follow some sort of connected account.
There are 4 main reasons why students choose to follow accounts (Witkemper, Hoon Lim, Waldburger 2012):
Information:
gaining knowledge about an event, person, or idea
Pass-time:
getting quick updates when bored
Fanship:
genuine interest and concern about the team
Entertainment:
being stimulated with emotions, humor, or active participation

10 of Georgia Techs 17 athletics programs were represented in the

NCAA postseason during the 2013-14 athletic season.

Of these, information and entertainment were found to be the strongest motivators for following.
BASEBALL NCAA Oxford Regional

Twitter is an exciting space to be in because of the variety of analytics that can be explored with the
BASKETBALL NCAA First Round
data on types of tweets, followers, favorites, and other activity. We WOMENS
highly recommend
using Twitter Analytics
to learn what works to engage your audience and what does not work. The Witkemper, Hoon Lim,
MENS
COUNTRY
NCAA South Regional
Waldburger study discusses the importance of building brand strength
byCROSS
focusing
onfamiliarity,
awareness,
and relationships. Relationship development leads to a stronger retention of the fan base which can be
WOMENS
CROSSas
COUNTRY
NCAA
South Regional
achieved through using active tweets. Some general rules that classify
a Tweet
active
include:
asking and
answering questions, promoting others, and infusing personality and excitement into the tweet so that the
audience finds it relatable, rather than an unknown virtual presence.FOOTBALL Music City Bowl
GOLF NCAA Championship Match Play
MENS SWIMMING NCAA Championship
WOMENS TENNIS NCAA Second Round
MENS TRACK NCAA Championship
WOMENS TRACK NCAA Second Round

68

2013-14
ANNUAL
REPORT
T&F
Twitter
Report

FINANCIALS
Conclusion
FISCAL YEAR 2014

REVENUES ($67.7 MILLION)

In summary, these threeFY14
items
are what we
Other
Institutional Supporton growing
believe will have the biggest impact
$1.812M
$2.034M
the Georgia Tech TrackA-T and
Twitter
& EndowmentField
Draws
GTAAs long term nancial health is dependent on maintaining and growing
$11.801M
accounts
follower
base, leading to more user
our endowment base which
supports facility enhancements,
scholarships,
and the Total Person Program. On a very positive note, the overall GTAA
Student Fees
engagement
hopefully
greater attendance.
$5.074M
endowment base grew
during the 2013-14 scal yearand
by approximately
The Georgia Tech Athletic Association completed scal year 2013-14 with
a net operating loss of $348,000. This will be covered by our GTAA Fund
Balance (TABLE A), which essentially serves as a contingency account to
offset any annual shortfall or fund signicant emergent expenses.

$5 million to a net value of nearly $110 million. Included in that total, the
balance in the Facility Quasi-Endowments (TABLE B) grew $2.5 million to a
new total of $34.2 million.

ACC Distribution
$19.061M

Ticket Sales
$10.531M

1. Build brand strength and increase visibility

TABLE
A (GTAA FUNDuse
BALANCE)
through
of higher quality photos and consistent
FY12
FY13
FY14
use of
#GoJackets.
Beginning Balance
$5,579,000
$4,905,000
$2,527,000
Sponsorships
$8.068M

Club Seats & Suites

$4.130M

Plus investment
earnings (loss)

($96,000)

$422,000

Guarantees
$250K
TECH Fund
$5.003M

$2,461,000

($711,000)
($950,000)
($489,000)
2. Increase
user engagement
by posting more
FY14 EXPENSES ($68.1 MILLION)
Net Income (Loss)
$133,000
($1,850,000)
($348,000)
attention to the posts before,
Endingfrequently,
Balance
$4,905,000 paying
$2,527,000 most
$4,151,000
during,
and after events.
TABLE B (FACILITY QUASI-ENDOWMENT
ACCOUNTS)
Less Draw

Beginning Balance

FY12

FY13

FY14

$23,767,000

$27,909,000

$31,742,000

Other
$16.886M

Personnel
$23.056M

3. Grow
and$2,960,000
learn more
about your audience on
($126,000)
$5,046,000
Twitter
by building
a
meaningful relationship with
Additions
$4,668,000
$3,589,000
$3,101,000
to accounts
followers and using analytics to understand what
Draw to fund
($400,000)
($2,716,000)
($5,650,000)
debt serivce
users
like
to see in their posts.
Ending Balance
$27,909,000
$31,742,000
$34,239,000
Proj. investment
growth (loss)

Debt Service
$13.292M

FISCAL YEAR 2015

Capital Repairs
$1.561M

Scholarships
$9.019M
Travel/Postseason
$4.298M

Beginning in FY 15, the GTAA will receive approximately $5 million in new

funding from the ACC resulting from television revenue generated by the new
college football playoff, the addition of Notre Dame to the conference, and
the conferences new Orange Bowl agreement. This new funding will provide
the GTAA with exibility in the annual budgeting process and an increased
ability to address operating needs for the athletic program. The additional
funding along with strategic cash management increases the likelihood of
GTAA nishing FY 15 with positive net income.

Please let us know if we can answer any questions you may have.

2013-14
ANNUALReport
REPORT
T&F
Twitter

11
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