There is a version of social media management that means posting. And there is a version that means running an operation. Four seasons of work with the Naismith Trophy taught me that the gap between them is enormous, and most organizations do not realize which one they are buying until the season is already underway.
The Naismith Trophy is the highest honor in collegiate and high school basketball. Prestige on that level does something counterintuitive though: it does not build an audience for you. It raises expectations without raising reach. What the Naismith Trophy needed was not a social media presence. It was a strategic communications partner who could manage a multi-platform operation, lead a content team, and show up at every level of the game.
It started before the first tip-off
Every season began with a comprehensive playbook that I wrote. It set the strategy, the content standards, the sponsor integration guidelines, and the team structure before a single game was played.
That document was the reason everything else worked. When you are moving fast during March, you do not have time to decide what your voice is or how a sponsor gets integrated. Those decisions have to already be made.
From there, I led a team of 21, including team captains, returners, and interns, with weekly Zoom sessions, team check-ins, and daily content oversight across every platform. Three teams covered men’s college, women’s college, and high school. Managing that was a job in itself, and it was one of the parts of this work I enjoyed most, because a lot of those students were getting their first real experience in sports communications.
Access was the product
The 2025-26 season put me and the teams on the ground for the Naismith Golf Tournament and 42 regular season and NCAA Tournament games, including the Final Four.
Alongside that, I regularly engaged top national basketball journalists and analysts including Debbie Antonelli, Paul Biancardi, Brandon Clay, John Fanta, Fran Fraschilla, and Terrence Oglesby, gathering video responses and expert commentary that got woven into the content strategy all season long.
Those relationships are not something you build in a week. They were the reason the content had authority instead of just volume.
For sponsors, we built and managed campaigns for Jersey Mike’s, Werner Ladder, Molecule, AXIA Time, Branded Bills, and Sharpie, growing each one’s visibility well beyond prior benchmarks. We also launched the program on Threads in its inaugural year and significantly expanded paid advertising on X.
The numbers from 2025-26
- 74.3M impressions, exceeding the goal by 90 percent, or 35.3M over target
- 14,375 new followers, up 88.1 percent in audience growth
- 2.1M engagements, exceeding the engagement goal by 15 percent
- Instagram impressions up 168 percent and Facebook reach up 187 percent
- Ad spend down 26 percent, meaning more reach and more content for less money
That last line is the one I would underline. Beating a reach goal by 90 percent is good. Beating it while spending 26 percent less is the difference between a campaign and an operation.
We are fortunate to have Michelle lead our social media activation. She brings a first-class approach to content creation and strategy, an idea machine who constantly adds value through fresh thinking and more efficient processes.
Eric Oberman, Client President, Naismith Trophy
What this means for you
If social media is treated as an afterthought inside your organization, it will perform like one. That is not a talent problem or a platform problem. It is a structure problem.
The organizations that see real returns treat social as a serious communications program: a written strategy set before the season starts, a team with defined roles, standards everyone works from, and someone accountable for the whole thing rather than for individual posts.
Four seasons in, the strategy still got rewritten every year. That was the job.
Bee Young Comms is here for You!
See the full Naismith Trophy case study and the rest of our work on our Work page. To learn more about what Bee Young Comms can do for you or your team, contact us today.