Six years ago, Thad Matta made the following statement about Twitter and his usage of it as a part of what he does as a coach:
"I don't even know what it is," was intended to be a funny and endearing response to a question about a social media platform that Thad Matta clearly had no intention of engaging with. And while college basketball coaches are in no way required to have a personal Twitter account (or any other social media account, for that matter), the time has long since passed for online media engagement to be something optional for an athletic program to participate in if they wish.
Chris Holtmann seems to understand this. His personal account has a modest eight thousand followers, but during basketball season is frequently updated with pictures and video of both the team and his personal life. It's a smart way to market himself to potential Butler recruits that may not know as much about Holtmann as they might about Bill Self or John Calipari (for his part, Coach Cal has over 1.7 million followers on Twitter himself).
Current mood. pic.twitter.com/m3wxO8NUad
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) May 25, 2017
Because of this, Chris Holtmann will be an immediate upgrade in that area over Thad Matta and his staff. While the official Ohio State men's basketball Twitter account is active and popular, with nearly 73 thousand followers, Thad Matta's staff has been mostly quiet on one of the primary means in recent years to contact and appeal to recruits.
Take Greg Paulus as an example. After the departure of Jeff Boals, Ohio State lost its best social media presence, and Paulus was expected to pick up the slack and make overtures to The Kids These Days. Paulus is fairly active on Twitter and maintains almost 17 thousand followers, but the content is toxic to recruits. Endless retweets, pictures of golf outings, congrats to various non-revenue athletes, and so on aren't terrible per se, but they don't exactly excite the imagination.
First time seeing the Dick Clark Studios @NewhouseSU. Wow! Grateful to be a part of it. pic.twitter.com/NIeg19hreu
— Greg Paulus (@Greg_Paulus) May 22, 2017
Contrast that with Dane Fife, an assistant at Michigan State, where Tom Izzo has been pretty vehement about his dislike of Twitter (or any form of social media, really). Despite that, Fife has created an account that's engaging, has numerous candid pictures of himself with the team, and can act as a platform to sell whatever's "cool" about Michigan State to a recruit. Paulus' account can't do that.
A couple of athletes.... and @thats_G_ pic.twitter.com/7ltCucPdK1
— Dane Fife (@CoachDaneFife) May 5, 2017
Maybe they should've taken a page out of the Urban Meyer handbook. Meyer himself has probably never looked at his Twitter account, yet it commands nearly 1.7 million followers and currently is featuring pictures of himself with the likes of Rascal Flatts and Usher near the top of the page. His wife Shelly is no slouch either, with almost 30 thousand followers and all of the jokes, pictures, and insight that come with being the unofficial Team Mom.
It's a hell of a combined social media effort, and it's part of the reason why Ohio State recruiting is as feared as it is, in addition to a world-class media department backing them up. Urban and company have used that resource in a way that Thad Matta's crew simply never figured out.
Notice too the differences between the content of the official Twitter accounts of the Butler Bulldogs men's basketball team and that of Ohio State. The Ohio State account puts out some really terrific stuff on the media front, with slick graphics and video that are endlessly shareable. But for all their glitz, they've only posted just over 1,500 times. The Bulldogs, with probably a tenth of the resources that Ohio State has for media production, have amassed almost 50 thousand followers themselves while tweeting a staggering 16 thousand times.
Happy Birthday to Assistant Coach @ryanpedon. Live look as he studies the dessert menu, deciding between chocolate or vanilla birthday cake pic.twitter.com/lZnaKm7GZS
— Butler Basketball (@ButlerMBB) May 3, 2017
That's putting in some work, and it's due to the influence of Chris Holtmann.
Just over a month ago, the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel was crowing about how the Butler Bulldogs were improving on their best-ever recruiting class:
The Butler 2017 recruiting class was ranked as high as 11th nationally following the fall signing period. The group includes Thompson, Young (6-7 small forward), Butler (6-4 combo guard), Cooper Neese (6-4 shooting guard), and Christian David (6-6 small forward).
“We are obviously excited about this incoming class,” Holtmann said upon signing the first four in November. “To continue to compete in the Big East, and at the highest level nationally, we must build our roster with consecutive quality recruiting classes that fit our program, and this group of young men fit that description.”
Social media is a huge part of that, and if Holtmann can bring to bear the massive amount of resources that Ohio State can offer him online, he'll be every bit the recruiter that Ohio State fans hope him to be.
