By Jenny Falk

MADISON, Wis.–The University has been getting some attention on social media since March Madness began.

Debates have heated up on Twitter between Badger basketball opponents in the big tournament.

UW-Madison student Monica Ruppert said she likes to use Twitter during big events.

“I love the live nature of Twitter and that you can be watching a basketball game or watching the Grammy’s and I love following along on Twitter to see what people are saying,” Ruppert said.

But managing the Twitter voice for a large institution, like the University of Wisconsin, can be a difficult job.

University Communications Social Media Specialist Nate Moll says that he tries to tweet in the voice of Bucky Badger.

“Bucky can poke and have fun and he can like take a book out of your backpack and set it across the room or something,” Moll said. “He can have a lot of fun, but he can also be really serious too.”

Moll tweets about anything, from fun stuff, like March Madness taunts, to the more serious, like coaching people through Office 365 transitions.

“I’m basically playing triage all day, looking at issues popping up, looking for opportunities for other accounts to jump on too,” Moll said.

He said tweeting is sort of like tricking kids to eat their veggies.

“You’ve got to cover the broccoli with cheese, you’ve got to make it palatable, you’ve go to make it a way that people are wanting to consume it,” Moll said.

Moll said one of the most important parts of running the account is keeping people interested in following.

“I want to try to speak to the people that hit that follow button. They followed us for a reason, I want to prove it to them,” Moll said.

With more big games to go for the Badgers in the big tournament… keep an eye on the UW-Madison Twitter page to see what Bucky’s going to say.

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