22,282 Readers Can't Be Wrong

That's the total number of readers on the first 30 CoverItLive interactive blogs for ArkansasRazorbacks.com. Not bad, but add in another 14,682 replays.

It's serious participation. Percentage of that reader count that stays longer than one minute -- 80%.

This past Sunday, average time each reader spent with the page: 41 minutes.

I think that's what the new age advertising types call "engagement."

I've been asked why do you do it? Why spend the time it takes? Why not just assign a student? (well, full disclosure, I have trained one of our students to take some of the load, and he does just great work.)

What's it good for? Too much risk. What about negative comments? How can you manage that and still do media relations.

Let me refer back to the above figure -- this job is about public relations, and with an average readership plus replays of around 1,400 per event, that's equal to or better than home attendance average for most of our teams.

Besides, the media reads it, and they get notes and seem to like it too.

Point of fact, we had 775 at Bogle Park for the softball regular season finale, another 75 on the blog. There were just over 8,205 at the same time at Baum Stadium for baseball, and another 1,456 total readers on the blog.

Adding another 10 to 20 percent to the attendance virtually? I'd say that's reason enough.

But it is not just the numbers, it's the bonding. I've said it before here, I'll say it again -- and BTW, I'm filing a trademark request for it -- the key to the future for any organization is converting Brand into Bond.

Anyone can talk about the value of their brand, the power of a brand, the reputation of a brand. Guess what, with today's social media world, that brand is only what the users of it say it is.

Thus, what is the vital key to strengthening the attachment fans, consumers, etc., to the brand? You guessed it -- anything that allows them to participate, to be a part and to convert the Brand into Bond.

Oh, and about that 743 per event that you've likely done the math on to say -- gee, that's not much. Remember, one of our 30 events was a test with 1 reader and the first softball event with only 35 (but it had 102 replays). It launched with no pre-publicity. No hype beyond placing it on the home page.

Other schools and pro teams have used this with greater success in raw numbers than Arkansas, but if you'll commit to it, be open with the fans, be willing to take a reasonable criticism. On that age old fear that we can't have anything negative on the official website; watch, your fans will take care of that with positive feed back better than you can. Why? Oh, it's that Bond thing -- and I don't mean James Bond.

Short of live video -- which most of these folks also watch from us WHILE they are on the interactive blog -- nothing will keep fans on your site longer and in greater numbers.