The 2022-23 campaign for the UNC Asheville Bulldogs was historic on many levels, with victories at every home game and 27 wins overall, record-breaking attendance, and a nail-biting comeback victory on March 5 at the Big South Championship game that resulted in an automatic bid to the 2023 NCAA Tournament – the Bulldogs’ first appearance since 2016.

Asheville’s contest against UCLA on March 16 in Sacramento during Round One of March Madness had a big impact back home as well, generating impressive increases in media exposure and institutional awareness.

For instance, visits to the UNC Asheville website during the month of March expanded significantly: 

• Direct traffic to unca.edu increased by 260 percent and organic search for UNC Asheville grew by 147 percent
• The key admission page unca.edu/apply increased by 124 percent
• Asheville, Atlanta, and Charlotte were among the top cities of origin

Social media traffic to the main University channels saw similar increases:

• Instagram engagement grew by 5,735 percent, impressions increased 1,332 percent, and brand awareness grew by 278 percent
• Facebook engagement grew by 3,394 percent, impressions increased 455 percent, and brand awareness grew by 229 percent
• Twitter impressions grew by 371 percent 

Year-to-date, the uncabulldogs.com Athletics website saw similar growth in traffic during the month of March:

• Overall, uncabulldogs.com saw a 300 percent increase in visitors from organic search, which included a total of 19,543 new users
• Total pageviews at uncabulldogs.com increased 72 percent
• As with the main University website, Atlanta and Asheville were among the top cities of origin, along with New York

 Most impressive, the search term “UNC Asheville” hit a five-year high on Google that was approximately four times as much compared to any other period in the last five years.

Bulldog Athletics social media channels saw similar increases:

• The general UNC Asheville Athletics Instagram account increased in accounts engaged by 26 percent, while the men’s basketball Instagram account gained 493 followers and increased its total followers by 20 percent, while reaching 44,100 total accounts
• The men’s basketball Twitter account reached 805,000 accounts, a 123 percent increase, and these reached accounts attributed to 46,200 profile visits (a 184 percent increase), as well as a 295 percent increase in mentions that helped gain 274 followers
• The top athletics Facebook page post attracted 269,163 users and had 27,004 impressions.