#CollegeSlam

Though it's April, March Madness is still in full swing. And, as my social media professor put it, there is nothing more social then March Madness. For one, you have the brackets. Before the tournament even starts, everyone is on various blogs talking about who will be the upsets, who will win the whole thing, and who will choke. Then, everyone fills out their brackets and watch them soar to victory or (like mine) crumble terribly (thanks Kansas...). However, it's not just the brackets that are social. Whenever you see an LED with anything actually advertising the tournament, it says #MarchMadness. They want to make sure the buzz in running on twitter. I know I was personally tweeted about my bracket and the games on the first day. And even if you weren't watching the games, you knew if there was an upset because it was all over twitter and Facebook.

However, the the hashtag for March Madness wasn't even my favorite part. I was flipping through channels tonight and came across the Slam Dunk and 3-point competition that accompanies the Final Four. The whole entire show is social interactive. ESPN has teamed up with twitter for this show. Though they have judges their scoring the dunks, they allow the viewers at home to vote for their favorite dunks. Using the #CollegeSlam and the hashtag of the players name, you can submit for score out of 10 for the dunks. It really is social genius. And trust me it's working. On twitter right now, #CollegeSlam is the number two trending topic and beneath that are all the players names. This is great for ESPN because that could cause people to tune in that may not have already been watching. And this is definitely going to make the sponsors happy too. Every where you look in that stadium there is some kind of sponsors logo. More tweets means higher trends which means more viewers and for sponsors, more exposure. Everyone's happy.