Using the March Madness Craze to Your Advantage

From your office to your television screen, the Internet and even the White House; the topic of this years March Madness tournament is absolutely dominating conversations across all spectrums.  For us at Utah SEO Pros, we've used this to have a little friendly competition with an office bracket, but for others – Using March Madness is an amazing opportunity to market your company and gain a little more brand awareness – This is also an outstanding way to create a team building exercise in the process.  The best part about this is that it’s a fun topic that almost everyone can relate to, because even if one individual person doesn't have an interest in college basketball, chances are they know someone who does (and can help them out with their own bracket).

One way you could use this well-known event as a marketing tool would be to create a contest on your social media pages.  Sure, you may not be able to give away a billion dollars like Warren Buffet, but you can give away other goodies such as a free massage or even tickets to a local sporting event!  Doing this will not only improve your online reputation, but you will be sure to gain followers by having your fans share, like, and retweet your contest.  All you would need to do is have fans send in their own brackets, and the follower with the highest score once the tournament ends is the winner!

There are also a multitude of ways for March Madness to turn into an excellent team building exercise for your staff; and it doesn't even have to involve basketball if your team doesn't have an interest.  For example, we are an online marketing company, so instead of having everyone come together and guess which team will be victorious this year, we could join and discuss important topics in our industry, learning how to connect each key topic into what makes up our company, much like the bracket to the right.

This not only let’s your staff talk about your business, but everyone is given an opportunity to learn a little more about each other and the company they work for – Make it even more fun with some pizza while you're at it!

It’s not too late to grab some halo effect from March Madness.  But there are definitely some things to keep in mind when emerging your company into all the excitement.  The term “March Madness” is a strictly enforced term that cannot be used in ads or logos – However you may feel free to put another word in between “March” and “Madness”, but even then you have to also be careful with using any image of a basketball in correlation with the term.

In closing, I would consider it essential make the 2014 March Madness tournament into an opportunity to let your company connect with its online followers and employees.  Have an office bracket like us, or bring everyone together for some learning exercises – Then hop onto your social media networks and get a contest going, the tools are endless with an event of this scale.  This will not only show that your company is up to date, but that you have an interest in what your audience enjoys!  Have fun!