Due to the fact that it's almost 3 in the morning and I've been doing 2 separate large projects, I'm going to have to keep this post brief.
With the rise of social media as a tool in communication, it is important that professional athletes and teams are able to take advantage of this technological rise. This tool allows for more instantaneous marketing, more customer participation, and quicker customer feedback. With these benefits, many athletes and teams have already gone about setting up accounts of various social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Each platform allows for its user to communicate in a different way, Facebook allows for posts and longer statuses, as well as a chance for direct commenting, Twitter allows for instant and quick updates on news and happenings, and Instagram and Pinterest represent ways to its users to stand out on a visual platform. Any team/athlete that utilizes these platforms well can stand to exponentially increase the exposure they get, as posts and photos that go viral often hit the news as well, getting people who may not be on social media a chance to see what is happening with their favorite team/athlete.
The biggest risk to this is also the biggest benefit, as poorly thought out social media campaigns can come back to bite the poster hard. To make it worse, whenever something is posted online, it is very likely that it will stay there forever, even if the original is deleted thanks to the capabilities of screenshots. Thus, teams and athletes who are not well versed in social media should have a handler who can help them figure out what to post and where to post, or in certain cases, teams of people whose main jobs are to develop ideas to be posted onto the various social media platforms that their clients are on.
Bottom line, social media's ability to instantly connect and expose is a big double-edged sword.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
On Athletes and Twitter:
Since the beginning of time when cave-people worshipped the caveman who could bring back the biggest mammoth, people have always found fellow peers to look up to. Connecting with that, one of the greatest joys of life is when someone you idolize and look up to gives you their acknowledgement, with showing off their private side being secondary.
With Twitter, fans have been given an opportunity to connect with their favorite athletes like never before, and some of the athletes have responded in kind by creating accounts that show off their more personal side that the media doesn't show. Twitter gave fans and athletes a chance to basically interact on a one-on-one basis thanks to being able to tweet to and in certain cases, directly message them. With the unfiltered interaction though, comes a double-edged sword. Since athletes on Twitter don't always have a PR or marketing team helping them out, they may end up expressing their thoughts in a way that is too controversial to the general public, or just releasing information that is TMI.
Twitter is also feared as a distraction for athletes by coaches and leagues, and many of them have instituted rules banning social media during certain times to make sure their players are fully in game mode, as well as making sure they're not accidentally tweeting out the game's strategy. One specific incident that led to this ban was the actions of NHL enforcer Paul Bisonette (@BizNasty), who regularly tweeted with fans during the game, which the NHL heavily frowned upon before formally banning the practice, since social media interactions could be seen as something that is damaging to the game's integrity.
All in all, Twitter is a great resource for athletes and fans to interact, but care must be taken so that what the athlete says doesn't end up coming back to bite them in the ass. Social media, after all, is a double-edged sword.
Since the beginning of time when cave-people worshipped the caveman who could bring back the biggest mammoth, people have always found fellow peers to look up to. Connecting with that, one of the greatest joys of life is when someone you idolize and look up to gives you their acknowledgement, with showing off their private side being secondary.
With Twitter, fans have been given an opportunity to connect with their favorite athletes like never before, and some of the athletes have responded in kind by creating accounts that show off their more personal side that the media doesn't show. Twitter gave fans and athletes a chance to basically interact on a one-on-one basis thanks to being able to tweet to and in certain cases, directly message them. With the unfiltered interaction though, comes a double-edged sword. Since athletes on Twitter don't always have a PR or marketing team helping them out, they may end up expressing their thoughts in a way that is too controversial to the general public, or just releasing information that is TMI.
Twitter is also feared as a distraction for athletes by coaches and leagues, and many of them have instituted rules banning social media during certain times to make sure their players are fully in game mode, as well as making sure they're not accidentally tweeting out the game's strategy. One specific incident that led to this ban was the actions of NHL enforcer Paul Bisonette (@BizNasty), who regularly tweeted with fans during the game, which the NHL heavily frowned upon before formally banning the practice, since social media interactions could be seen as something that is damaging to the game's integrity.
All in all, Twitter is a great resource for athletes and fans to interact, but care must be taken so that what the athlete says doesn't end up coming back to bite them in the ass. Social media, after all, is a double-edged sword.
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