In 2010, the New Orleans Bowl was looking for a new sponsor. R + L Carriers stepped in, sponsoring the event as we were building our social media presence. There was a social media push during the 2012 game, but it was not as robust as the efforts done in 2013. We developed a social media strategy based on work the graphic design team developed, as well as a strategy for full season engagement. That engagement began by highlighting a game each week featuring teams that could play in the New Orleans Bowl. We asked people to vote for the team they thought would win each week on Facebook and Twitter.

Our team wanted to establish our social media feeds as a place they could find information about their football team, or about college football in general.

We then posted the results of the game on the same channels, to let people know who had won. As the season moved its final weeks, we made sure we were featuring teams that were in contention for not just the R + L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, but for any games that could have an impact on the bowls.

Covers of a similar design were created for LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus, and our YouTube channel. We made sure that anyone looking for information on the game experienced similar branding across all platforms. This was also an opportunity to promote the hashtag we were going to track for the event, #RLBowl.

Because we wanted to support all of the teams that could be in future R + L Bowls, we created an infographic to show where each one of them would be playing if they were in a bowl game and when the bowl was happening. This was also a way to pay off the season of tracking these teams, informing fans where they could find their team.

After the teams for the R + L Bowl were announced, we created an infographic that laid out the numbers needed for the game. It also gave people a little background information about the schools themselves. This was at the very beginning of the sports industry embracing the quick creation of infographics for games. All of the information was compiled through research, exploring ESPN, other sports-focused websites, and the schools themselves.

The announcement of the teams. Since we were a sponsor, we were able to have the graphic ready for our social channels as they were announcing it. We wanted to be one of the first places people found out about the bowl, to establish our brand as one to follow for this event.

Once the game was over and all of the tweets and Facebook posts were sent, it was time to crunch the numbers. We put together a presentation for the company to show the impact that the information campaign we executed during the game.

One of the stats we monitored was web traffic to rlcarriers.com for the event. As we mentioned the brand and sent out the link over LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, we saw a 22% increase in traffic over an average Saturday in that month.

We experienced quite a few successes during that game, including a quote retweet from ESPN College Gameday. It was a high profile mention that the team, and the business, saw as win.

Finally, we saw a bump in followers on Facebook and Twitter, the two primary platforms we used during the game.