The madness of March is almost here so it’s time to crank up your contests and creativity and tap into what has become a huge digital audience hungry for engagement and information.
Here are eight ideas to consider for March Madness:
1. Local celebs and their brackets: Ask local celebrities to share their bracket and feature in a story like this one. This article runs down who celebrities picked and you could do the same with local folks. You could also ask a high school basketball coach to fill out their bracket and record the video. The engagement with your local sports editor/director would be fun.
2. Everything you need to know: Tell your audience who’s in the bracket, who’s favored, when and how to watch and more. This Indy Star package offers a great template to work from.
3. Competing teams: Have two teams in a market that will be playing each other or at least making the tournament? This is a neat way to do a television promotion (though note the teams featured are baseball).
4. Who wants to party? Many people throw parties for the tournament so put together a package of ideas on how you can thrown the best basketball bash in town. Here’s a neat list from Taste of Home.
5. A contest for pubs: From Second Street Media, the Santa Barbara Independent created a Brew Bracket where readers picked the best pub. Here’s how they did it. Also: If you aren’t doing a Bracket Challenge that your readers can participate in, you should.
6. Know your AP: Make sure to keep up with correct AP style during the tournament. Here’s a helpful package from The AP.
7. Tap into search: Know that people will be searching for schedules like crazy and trying to find out how to stream games. Create a daily story like this that helps readers find that day’s games.
8. What are your traditions? This hilarious video from Buffalo Wild Wings showed just how committed to the tournament fans are. Ask your audience what their traditions are or go to a bar on the Thursday that the tournament kicks off and find out.