Use Social Media to Follow March Madness 2014

More than ever before, social media has made it incredibly easy to follow March Madness 2014. Selection Sunday is this Sunday March 16th and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament gets underway with the play-in games on Tuesday March 18th. The Tournament itself begins Thursday March 20th around 12:00 Noon EST.

With that, March Madness will be officially underway. I love this time of year and to recognize our clients and friends we’ve just rolled out our Second Annual prize giveaway. I couldn’t wait until next week! Just Like our Facebook Page to sign up to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card, then share with all your friends using the hashtag #TFGMadness to increase your chances to win.

Image by: Gabriel Suits

Articles are being posted everywhere describing in great detail the time we spend watching games, attending parties and pretending to work while we watch games and catch up on scores with our smartphones, tablets and computers. Here at The Friedman Group we’re all about the tournament and I’m just hoping to get a couple hours of work in every day until April 7th when it’s all over.

This year, there’s even more excitement about the bracket challenges many of us participate it at work and elsewhere. Warren Buffet has teamed up with Quicken Loans and Yahoo Sports to offer the Quicken Loans Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge. Feeling lucky? All you have to do is submit a perfect bracket to win the billion dollars. Not feeling so lucky> The 20 highest scoring imperfect brackets win $100,000 and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

College basketball fans around the world have found social media to be a way they can keep up with their favorite teams. And when they can’t watch the games live, they can keep up with the action just by looking at their smartphone or tablet and checking their favorite social network. Here’s some ways you can stay engaged with the NCAA Tournament while remaining mobile.

This year, the NCAA March Madness Live app will broadcast live games. Games broadcast on CBS can be seen on the app and Saturday’s Final Four games (televised on TBS this year) will also be available online and on your mobile device via the NCAA March Madness Live app.

There are lots of ways to keep up with the Tournament scores, including the ESPN SportsCenter app on iTunes and for Android devices.

You’re going to find Facebook pages dedicated to March Madness and Pinterest boards for the visual amongst us. YouTube will also be filled with highlight clips throughout the Tournament.

Interested in filling out a bracket or hosting your own competition? There are many options to choose from including the bracket challenge hosted by CBSSports and Coke Zero just to name two.

Twitter is going to be buzzing with March Madness info and millions will be using and following the #MarchMadness, #ESPN, #CBSSports and #NCAA hashtags to keep up with everything they can. For some of the best tournament information, I’d suggest you have a look at @MarchMadnessTV the official home of March Madness TV, TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV.

Some of my other favorite people and teams to follow on Twitter are:

• ESPN Basketball Insider Jeff Goodman @GoodmanESPN.
• Being a student of history and a fan of Duke basketball I follow @dukeblueplanet to keep up with everything Blue Devil.
• I can’t mention Duke basketball without mentioning another one of my favorite teams, the Kansas Jayhawks. Follow Kansas Basketball at @KU_Hoops and “Rock Chalk Jayhawks!”
• This year I’m also looking for Wichita Stateto shock everyone, so I’ll be following them on Twitter too.
• Jay Bilas is an ESPN Analyst, former Duke player and President of Hair Club for Men. Follow him at @JayBilas to get his take on the tournament.
• Rob Dauster @RobDauster is the Head Writer for NBCSports.com’s college hoops coverage at College Basketball Talk and always has some great insight to share.
• ESPN.com Senior Writer Andy Katz @ESPNAndyKatz covers college basketball for ESPN while populating his Twitter stream with the day’s breaking news, trivia and his own analysis.
• Are you interested in the smaller conferences? Looking for the next upset pick in your bracket challenge? Check out The Mid-Majority @midmajority in its tenth and final season.
• College basketball reporter/analyst/author for Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports Seth Davis @SethDavisHoops believes “Everyone is entitled to my opinion.”
• Need some serious stats on your favorite team? Check out Sports Illustrated and SI.com writer Luke Winn @lukewinn. The guy is a statistics machine!
• While we’re talking about statistics gurus, check out Ken Pomeroy @kenpomeroy for team metrics and statistical analysis you’re not likely to find elsewhere.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of March Madness social media sites. It’s just some of my personal favorites. I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Tell me who you follow on any of the social networks to get your March Madness fix.