By Jessica Cruz
Social media is a tool not a toy- as an athlete you must use social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as a tool to improve your personal brand. Use it to communicate with fans. Bring positivity to your fans because they appreciate those things.
If you share/ retweet it, you own it as well- whatever tweet
or post you share/retweet, it will be posted on your profile and essentially
will reflect you. It is irrational that many athletes believe that even though it
is not their tweet or post, it won’t hurt them.
Have fun responsibly- post/tweet things that show a positive
side of you. Whether it is personal photos of you with some fans or with your
pets it shows your fans that you’re not just an athlete.
There is an article from a website called Basketball For Coaches which gives the do’s and don’ts of social media for
basketball players. Although this article focuses on basketball players, these
tips are very helpful for any athlete. Here is the link: http://www.basketballforcoaches.com/dos-and-donts-of-social-media/
I completely agree with the three advice points you made above. Probably my favorite strategic branding efforts I’ve seen within athlete is Kobe Bryant. He’s completely smart and calculated athlete, not only with his physical and mental preparation, but on social media too. Kobe Bryant has a 17 million following on Facebook and over 3 million followers on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteKobe Bryant is known for being honest and freely shares his opinions on any subject. Kobe Bryant powers his online brand by owning his social accounts himself. He shares personal photos, news and constantly credits those who inspire him. His success is definitely noticeable and obvious as seen by his 100k+ engagements per post on Facebook. He even made his very own hashtag on Twitter, #CountOnKobe with little effort. He live – tweeted a re – air of his legendary 81 – point game and it was mentioned more than 80, 000 times that day. The hashtag can be found still in use to this day, and is always seen with new results daily.
Here is a look at the hastag, #CountOnKobe: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23COUNTONKOBE&src=hash
Another athlete to admire through social media would be Michael Phelps. He has nearly 1.5 million followers on Twitter, over 7.5 million follower on Facebook and 300k+ followers on Instagram. Like Kobe Byrant, he shares personal anecdotes of his daily life such as his time in training, golf, and his dog Herm. He makes an effort to tweet during the current football, golf or even shark week event. He makes sure he is relatable on social media and thrives for realness in every post that is made through social media.
by Erecca Nacion
I agree with the fact that social media is not a tool. Many athletes especially rookies that are not use to being in the spotlight tend to get into trouble with social media accounts with twitter being a common one. It is a great way to build up your own personal brand to the world, however there has to be a limit to what you can post or tweet about because you are under a tiny microscope in the sports world.
ReplyDeleteJR Smith reputation on the court has fared well with his excellent skills as a teammate and scorer. However, he has been in the line of fire multiple times and has been fined multiple times for many altercations he has caused on Twitter. One of his twitter “beefs” has caused with other NBA players and he has since been fined $25,000 for using hostile and inappropriate language.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1852415-jr-smith-fined-25000-for-twitter-beef-with-brandon-jennings
The NBA and other leagues must have strict social media policies for players that try to misuse social media platforms other than handing out ridiculous fines like suspension. With the fines, hopefully this shows players that they should be aware of what they are posting because it will cause a huge stir in the sports world.