2009 NCAA Social Media Tip Off! Who Would Win?
Last year, to critical acclaim, we conducted the first ever NCAA Social Media College Basketball Bracket Analysis. As a PR firm that deals with high-tech, healthcare and services companies, we live social media every day and have a love of metrics. Therefore, we asked ourselves what if the schools in the Big Dance had to compete based on their social media prowess, not their hoop skills? I mean, forget guard play, or how the Orangemen may have exhausted themselves with an outstanding Big East Tourney, including a 6OT win.
We carefully evaluated the field of 64 and had the teams face off solely on social media skills and came up with a power ranking for each school. We kept the NCAA seeds and let them face off.
You may question - does this really work? Well last year, the NCAA Social Media Power Rankings were one of the few to predict Davidson's tremendous run deep in the tourney - so mock it at your peril.
How was the power ranking determined? It was determined by (# of facebook users in the School network or fan page (whichever was larger)/number of students at school according to Wikipedia). Note: Yes that includes alumni, but they count as fans in the stands cheering on the team. And if the students didn't join their schools network or the groups were hard to find...we considered that they didn't show up for the game. I recorded it all in a handy notebook and used the Microsoft calculator app to do the math.
Is it mathematically perfect? No. But wait to you see our plans for next year! Do we encourage wagering on games or any other activity which may take this as anything other than entertainment - no.
But now on with the results.
- The Final Four: Ohio State vs. Memphis and Tennessee vs. University of Michigan
- The Final: Ohio State vs. Tennessee
- The Champion: Ohio State. (OH-IO)
- Surprising upsets: A #1 seed goes down for the first time in the first round with the socially network-active UT-Chattanooga Mocs upsetting the UConn Huskies (As a loyal son of Orange I am happy with this)
- Deep in the Dance: For the second year in a row Cornell goes deep in the social media dance, making it to the Sweet Sixteen before being knocked off by Memphis.
- Cleveland State also makes it to the Round of 16, until they are eliminated by the Buckeye Buzzsaw.
Other Cinderellas? - The A&M Aggies get to the Elite 8 (more folks active there than at UT) and Michigan makes it to the Final Four as a 10 seed (the first time that has ever happened).
Tags: ncaa, social media
Posted by Mark McClennan on March 17, 2009 at 8:30 AM
