Announcement on Monday (12/12/16)

I don't know anything else about it. Are we giving Fuente an extension already?

[Mod Edit: Added full announcement for context and maximum information.]

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Probably the "Drive for 25" campaign they've hinted at.

"Exit light..."

Oh yes this makes a lot more sense. Forgot about that.

Coach Brooks, some student-athletes, and Belk Bowl director Will Webb are also going to be on hand. I'm guessing they're taking the opportunity to use the bowl game to advertise it.

"Exit light..."

Can you elaborate on that? I haven't hear about it.

I wish I could. No one knows what it is. Logos were on the field for the UVA game, VT Football tweeted that much out and that it's associated with the Hokie Club. The information stopped after "stay tuned."

"Exit light..."

I think I have this figured out y'all. You know how the NFL has the 'Play 60' campaign, and how Beamer had his Herma's Readers sponsorship, right? Well, this new Beamer 25 campaign is designed to get kids to read at least 25 minutes per day. Hopefully, that won't cut in to their 'Play 60' time. Makes sense to me, although I've been way off base before.

"That man was violating a city ordinance, and I was just doing my duty to enforce it." - Mike Curtis

As I mentioned in the other thread, the Drive for 25 is to get Hokie Club to 25K members. Lofty goal.

I think the plan will be to use Beamer as the Face of the Drive for 25, have him go to regions and events throughout the US, convince alums to do more for their university's athletics.

The drive for 25 was detailed at a meet and greet with Buzz and the basketball team after the Wooden Classic in Orange County.

πŸ¦ƒ πŸ¦ƒ πŸ¦ƒ

That's sounds awesome and makes way more sense. I was kinda worried it was a nascar thing. Which is fine for them and all, but doesn't really affect the majority of us

"The Commonwealth of Virginia has officially named UVA's field Beamer Field at Lane Stadium North Branch."

Outspoken team cake advocate. Hates terrapins. Resident Macho Man Gif Poster. Distant cousin to Dork Magic. Frequently misspells words.

*insert Lawson transfer joke here*

21st century QBs Undefeated vs UVA:
MV7, MV5, LT3, Grant Wells, Braxton Burmeister, Ryan Willis, Josh Jackson, Jerod Evans, Michael Brewer, Tyrod Taylor, Sean Glennon, and Grant Noel. That's right, UVA. You couldn't beat Grant Noel.

Don't even joke about that, we better hope he doesn't transfer.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Jet Sweep

We've gotten so good at it that he transferred twice, though!

2026 Season Challenge: TBD
Previous Challenges: Star Wars (2019), Marvel (2020), Batman (2021), Wrasslin' (2022)

Beamer is coming back.../s

"Take care of the little things and the big things will come."

I saw Hokie20 posting about an announcement and was thinking big time surprise recruit commitment. This is very likely important news, but I am slightly disappointed right now.

"That move was slicker than a peeled onion in a bowl of snot." -Mike Burnop

Same

Yup

Can everyone check the flight patterns across the entire United States from Blacksburg to ensure that Bud hasn't interviewed anywhere!

What job is open he might take? Cincy just got their guy, Luke Fickell from OSU.

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Richrod coming to VT

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Lol. Every time.

Steinspring announced as HC at So Cal

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If they want to expand the Hokie Club, they don't need to make an announcement, persay. They need a focused, concentrated effort aimed at all students, alumni, and Hokie supporters regarding what it is, what it does, benefits, etc. How about commercials for it at the games, ads on programs, info on the back of tickets, the sides of cups sold at vending, a Hokie Club tailgate. Sell cheap tshirts ala maroon effect and orange effect. Get creative and raise awareness 1000%. Don't we have any marketing people who work there?

They do a lot of those things already honestly.

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I go to every game and don't see any of those things so the visibility needs work if that's the case

I'd imagine this drive announcement is announcing their drive to do some/all of those things you mentioned.

Hopefully it is an announcement about a new social media guy. This has gotten ridiculously embarrassing.

Not to mention the shade they keep throwing at individual FSU fans about the bowl streak.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

The cringe is real...

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM LITTLE BROTHER, THE CUP IS COMIN’ ON HOME!”

Don't we have someone on TKP that is part of the fan focus group this year? They should bring this up.

People have been tweeting Whit about it for well over a year now. He knows about it. You could argue that Whit considers tweets about it just exceptions to a rule but based on what I've seen I'd consider it more of a general consensus.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

Tech doesn't have and can't afford a dedeciated social media guy/team. It's run by some graduate students, an assistant who also runs all the promotions and giveaways and overseen by Pete Morris. Want a dedicated person just for social media the Hokie Club needs to grow to pay for it. Kelsey Appleton is the main writer for the posts.

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This is your response to everything. No. Hokie Club doesn't need us to grow to have a decent twitter presence. Look at what these bowls do. Twitter is not hard. I don't care who actually hits the button, but it's Pete's department and he is out of touch, the money is already there if we're paying him.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

You think the multi million dollar bowls don't pay for a dedicated social media team, one that tweets for more than just that bowl?

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I'm really not sure where you're going with this. We pay Pete now. Pete needs to rethink his (or his team's) social media approach. Does the Hokie Club need more members and money? Absolutely. Is that an excuse to run a shitty, embarrassing, and childish twitter account? No.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

What I'm saying is you get what your willing to pay for. You want a full time social media person it costs money, right now Tech has a part time social media person(Kelsey) and a quarter time social media person(Pete). Pete also runs every media interaction between VT athletics and local, state and national media, overseas numerous other employees and their specially assigned sports and media content and numerous other things. Look at the good things Pete has done: more national FaceTime and voice time for both Beamer and Fuente, he is on a national show almost every week, before Pete what was the social media presence? What I'm saying is you can't call for all these changes and not expect to somehow pay for them.

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That Twitter account tweets a shit ton to be managed by a part time staff (you may think they're part time, but the amount of tweets don't back that up). We don't need to pay more for a good Twitter presence, Joey is spot on below. Fireman, I love your Hokie Club advocacy and we need more of it, but it doesn't take more money for Whit to fix this. Our Twitter account is a like for like match of Pete's personal presence. Compare his personal account with our football account. They are mirror images. His brand and style are the issue. Not frequency. He is in charge of this department, and the responsibility falls on him.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

These are Pete's job responsibilities, per Hokiesports.

Moris oversees an office that includes seven full-time staff members and two post-graduate interns. He is responsible for football communications and media relations, and he coordinates with the rest of the external leadership team to provide content that enhances website traffic, strategically drives marketing initiatives and promotes the Virginia Tech athletics brand.

Call me crazy, but seven full-time staff members - plus two post-graduate interns - seems like plenty to run a Twitter account.

Adding an eighth full-time staff member would do nothing to change the direction of @VT_Football. The account's strategy is ultimately defined (and, in part, executed on) by Pete.

How many of them have social media experience? Based on the number of companies and organizations that have made the news for piss poor social media content I'd say finding someone to run a high quality high content social media account isn't as easy as everyone seems to think it is.

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This is quite the hill to die on.

How many of them have social media experience?

Probably most of them, seeing as they work in the Communications department, of which social media is an important function. And ultimately, Pete is responsible for his own personnel and their growth.

Based on the number of companies and organizations that have made the news for piss poor social media content I'd say finding someone to run a high quality high content social media account isn't as easy as everyone seems to think it is.

We already have someone. His name is Thomas Guerry.

Guerra has a much more important job than running a high content social media account across multiple platforms, now if he could train Appelton's replacement I'd be ok with that.

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Your argument is a walking contradiction. Pete's nine staff members (seven of which are full-time) somehow aren't enough to properly run a single Twitter account, yet Thomas Guerry can somehow do such a great job with @HokiesFB in his spare time?

Oh, and replacing Kelsey wouldn't change @VT_Football one bit.

The content put out on numerous Facebook, 18 twitter accounts, and other social media platforms isn't a spare time job is what I'm saying.

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When the argument just isn't worth it anymore:

Joey I like your reporting but why do you think an entire social media platform is a part time job? In saying VT athletics needs someone whose job is to control every social media platform and it's content this would fix the perceived issue of Pete not getting it and create an industry leading social media platform.

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I'd say finding someone to run a high quality high content social media account isn't as easy as everyone seems to think it is.

This seems to be over-complicating matters to me. I don't think it's honestly that hard to run a good social media account, but perhaps I'm wrong. If they dropped all the tacky posts and used less emojis it would honestly improve significantly. I personally don't think they should hire a full time staff member to JUST do Twitter. That's absurd and that money could go elsewhere. Just get the current staff to do a better job with the account, like I said I don't think it would be that hard to quit posting a thousand emojis per post...

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM LITTLE BROTHER, THE CUP IS COMIN’ ON HOME!”

Because social media goes beyond a single twitter account. There are 18 twitter accounts, numerous Facebook pages, social media contests, and if a dedicated social media person was hired numerous other platforms to be utilized. This social media person could also cross reference information and questions with Hokie Club and Hokie tickets. So say for example the woman's golf team is playing a tournament here in SC, I want to get the local Hokie Clubs and alumni groups out to support them. The social media person should be able to answer questions regarding times of play, where and how to get tickets etc.

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Your solution is a Rube Goldberg machine. We have one Twitter account that is an embarrassment, and your solution is to create a new position to seize control of all social media.

This is a terrible idea for two reasons. One, in general you want the specific areas and departments of the university to control the content of their own social media. Consolidating it under one position, staffed by a person who may or may not understand about any or all of the topics, would probably result in bland, generic content.

Two, it might not even fix the problem, if you hire someone as bad at social media as what we currently have @VT_Football. The answer isn't a director of social media, it's an implementation of quality control over the social media we already have. And we have someone who is supposed to be doing just that.

"I liked you guys a lot better when everybody told you you were terrible." -Justin Fuente

Social media over VT athletics not the entire school. Right now some teams don't tweet but for start times of games/events and final scores. No response to questions or fan support.

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Oh, I know. We should just see if Rich Rod could take over VT twitter, at least until he becomes HC!

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

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We've come full circle.

/thread

"I liked you guys a lot better when everybody told you you were terrible." -Justin Fuente

Again, to me, this doesn't sound like we need a whole new hire/more personnel. More like the current staff should be under quality control like was mentioned below and implement a more effective, efficient system for delivering content and answering questions.

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM LITTLE BROTHER, THE CUP IS COMIN’ ON HOME!”

I unfollowed Pete and it made this year a whole lot better. But it seems that after the ACC championship the VT Football twitter has gone off the rails. Today was the first day I really thought about unfollowing/muting the account.

*whoops - meant to reply to the Pele comments.

I almost unfollowed when the account was playing tic-tac-toe with Belk Bowl yesterday...

But wait the Belk Bowl twitter account is one people point to and say "why can't VT football be more like that", so when the account does do something like Belk Bowl account someone else doesn't like it?

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Well the Belk Bowl is a...bowl. They aren't really representing anything other than Belk, and I doubt that their twitter has any significant impact on the store. But VT Football twitter represents the university, the people, coaches, everything. When they start badmouthing individual players/fanbases and get a little to crazy with the memes and reaction gifs it reflects poorly on the university.

And this is coming from a staunch supporter of the account. I've always said that people are overreacting to the immaturity of some of the posts, but it looks like it's gone waaaay overboard since we've beaten UVa. Being wacky and connecting with the college age crowd is fine, this looks like it's trying too hard.

Trust me, what @VT_Football does isn't connecting to the "college age" crowd.

Oh I know, I'm 22 myself and I cringe at the amount of emojis, memes and aggressive posts the account puts up. A lot of my friends feel the same way as well.

AMEN. I'm 22 and cannot stand our Twitter page. At all. The Cringe is real.

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM LITTLE BROTHER, THE CUP IS COMIN’ ON HOME!”

This is so true, yet it seems like they're trying to be somewhere between a professional/informative account and a "cool" or "fun" account. Part of the confusion of VT's football social media presence is that we have two accounts, VT_Football and Hokies_FB. When they split, they should have made a clearer internal distinction between the two. We know that Hokies_FB is intended for recruiting, but the amount of sort of odd, "hey look at me, VT is cool!" kind of posts that come from VT_Football just seem confusing. I'm not going to gripe about the account or anyone who runs it; I feel it could be done better and more consistently but it's not as massive a deal as some are making it out to be. There just need to be clearer responsibilities. VT_Football should handle announcements, news, game information, and stats. Hokies_FB should do everything else, because the "non-boring" things would be of interest to the younger crowd, e.g. recruits.

"Exit light..."

Oh I don't know about that Joey, I personally love the team being represented by an account that can't even spell Clemson right

If spelling mistakes should doom a job most of our beat reporters, the main newspapers covering Hokie Sports and every social media account in the world would have lost their jobs.

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But it's not just spelling mistakes, is it? It's constant over the top cringiness (cringyness? cringeyness? I digress-ness).

I get it, Pete has a lot on his hands and I'm sure his team does as well but the quality of that particular twitter account has been falling off for years and any time ANY fan starts to complain they get hit with "well, you need to pony up so we can hire someone better" or "you try running all of the social media for the athletics department." I'm sure Pete is more than capable of running it but his tastes are....eclectic, shall we say. You can have a conversation with the man and tell him the problems without A) replacing him or B) hiring another body to pair with him.

But after they drew the Belk Bowl guys came up with this, which I thought was pretty funny...

Have you ever wanted to laugh at something so badly but your pride just won't let you? Yeah.

-Stick it in

That WAS my last straw. I didn't follow those accounts for that nonsense

This shit gets worse. That twitter account is bragging about that article. How many collegiate football accounts tweet about being mentioned in a best twitter accounts article? I can't embed the tweet because I'm on mobile but they literally said "no 1 twitter in the ACC" LIKE ITS SOMETHING YOU CAN USE IN A RECRUITING PITCH. Jesus.

Edit:

Until we get a banner up:

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

Loved it, nice big middle finger to people who just whine about the account. By the way go look at the other accounts many of the same things people complain about in the VT Football account those also do, lots of emojis, lots of videos of pro players, etc.

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Yes that Athlon Sports article really shoved it up my arse.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

What does OSU or Oregon do that VT doesn't? Lots of emojis in those tweets they must be trying too hard.

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When did I say anything about those accounts? Only thing I said was OSU isn't bragging about being in an Athlon Sports best twitter article.

Oregon also doesn't bombard us with emojis as substitutes for words. You really still trying to fight this? I know you're the VT hero and you can't criticize anything but open your eyes man. That account is a joke.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

You can critique plenty there are plenty of places that VT football and VT athletics could and should do better. The twitter account is some minor changes. But as the article shows not everyone has issues with it and looking through every account on that list most of them look exactly like the VT account and what people complain about.

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Yeah I couldn't give another shit what ATHLON SPORTS thinks about twitter accounts. Notice that real media aren't doing that. There's a reason no one pays attention to what Athlon thinks man. It's click bait at best. Very reminiscent of Bleacher Report slideshows.

I have no idea why my username is VT_Warthog.

Arkansas blew a 24-0 lead in the Belk Bowl.

And those of you who want an example of a good social media team should check out the Cubs twitter. Always hilarious.

-Stick it in

Carolina Panthers Twitter is pretty good as well. I think it's run by the same people who do the Belk Bowl.

Why are we even arguing about VT_Football? It is a genuinely terrible account. Within minutes of a 5.5 earthquake on the Richter scale in Oklahoma this year they posted a comment about Blacksburg being the epicenter of college football and that "tremors start at 12"... We had no idea how severe that event was out there, and our official account pulled that. For the record, that tweet was never edited and still exists.

It's only a matter of time before it posts something truly bad and makes the school look terrible in the process. It's only a matter of time.

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

Ever since I think last season, Arsenal FC's social media team went from being subpar to one of my favorites.

VT Class of '12 (MSE), MVBone, Go Hokies!

Ok, we're just all talk here about our social media mess. Screw it! I've got this!

Even when you get skunked; fishing never lets you down. 🎣

Hope the program's a success. It would be great to get more and more
people involved in the HC and see the department get stronger and stronger.

Have any of the media covering this said they will stream it live? I'd like to listen.

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Just got the following email....

Site links to here: Drive for 25

"When I was growing up, Virginia Tech was a school that was kicking ass and taking names, and it's time we get back to that" - James Franklin

I'm hoping one of the talented TKP members or staff writers gets a well written and informative thread dedicated to this up today. Want to hear opinions on it.

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What's a "micro-site"?

OK, I get that it's a limited website - I'd just never heard of that before.

Whit really laid out the financial shortfall we're in. With 2% of alumni donating to athletics (well behind Clemson at 18% and NC State even at 10%), and overall alumni donations to campus at 9% (well below the average), there's a serious difference between what the scholarship fund requires and what money VT has on hand. They had to close a $3M gap this past year alone just to pay for scholarships.

"Exit light..."

The success we've had in the face of lackluster Hokie Club fundraising for the past two decades is astounding.

I upped my contribution considerably after joining under the recent graduate program a couple of years ago. Hoping others will follow suit.

The Orange and Maroon you see, that's fighting on to victory.

I think I'll join as a x-mas present to myself.

I don't tweet, but from what little I've seen this is the first thing that came to mind...