It is that precious and most treasured time of the year—no, not Christmas—football season.
During this time of the year, weekends are not the time to relax, they are a time to strap on your colors and cheer on your team to victory come rain or shine, hell or high water. Fans explode with play-by-plays on Twitter and Facebook, they voice their anger and frustration, they celebrate their victories and mourn their losses, and they practically worship their players.
Now more than ever, athletes are being followed on social media. Every post they make, every hashtag they use is received by tens of thousands (in some cases millions) of followers all over the world. This kind of influence over the web can be extremely beneficial and extremely harmful. Many athletes have not perfected the proper use of their social media accounts and are unaware of the impact they can have on their audience.
Example… 3rd string QB for Ohio State. His account has since been deactivated.
The new social media tactic of marketing for the individual has inspired many athletes and celebrities to broaden their fan-base and influence the public. In just a short amount of time it has sky rocketed the popularity and reputations of many athletes, even pushing them a step ahead professionally. ESPN has began to investigate the influence social media will have (or already has) on the NFL draft in the coming years. For some players like Tim Tebow and Chad Johnson, their positive presence on social media will prove to have a helping hand in catapulting their career.
However some athletes are victims to their own social media faux pas.
The “catfishing” scandal of Manti Teo that exploded all over the news and multiple social platforms, is just an example of how one wrong move can create an unbelievably negative reputation over social media.
College recruits are being monitored on Twitter by teams who are interested in them. Just this past year, there have been recruits who had their scholarship offers revoked because of what they posted on social media.
The power social media has on sports does not stop at football and the draft. Athletes like the soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, basketball player Kobe Bryant, and tennis celebrity Rafael Nadal have proven to use social media to dominate in their field and promote their brand.
Example…
Join us in lifting up our friend Seth, who is recovering from a bone marrow transplant. We’re praying for you, buddy! pic.twitter.com/137f0noTEM
— Tim Tebow Foundation (@tebowfoundation) August 4, 2014
Despite an athlete’s reputation, the pure talent of the player will remain the deciding factor of their success. Seeing how athletes portray themselves over social media is a great indicator of how well they will handle their future fame and disputes.
Who do you think are some athletes who are doing it right?
Article Sources:
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidlariviere/2014/05/01/high-profile-athletes-need-social-media-but-must-use-it-wisely/
- http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/trending/post/_/id/16881/nfl-rookies-still-adjusting-to-social-media
- http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1731067-how-social-media-has-transformed-college-football-recruiting
- http://blog.hootsuite.com/top-athletes-social-media/
Hello Sarah, Nice post on a relationship in between social media and sports/athletes. No doubt that social media is one of the best ways to connect with fan base but it is really important for sports person to understand what type of message they broadcast keeping in mind negative impact also.
Hi Sarah,
This was a good read. I don’t follow many athletes on social media except for the players from the team I support – Arsenal Football Club. A lot of football [read: soccer] clubs seem to have set guidelines for their players on social media use; funnily enough, the most active player on social media from Arsenal was a certain Lukas Podolski and fans loved him for it but some also criticized him for it; either way, he failed to deliver on the pitch and he was shipped off to another team!
Like you said, it’ll be performances that’ll make or break a player. There seems to be a pattern among footballers in terms of the content they post on social media – it’s all very safe. The ones who do step out of line i.e. posting something controversial, they usually get reprimanded.
I’d be interested to know how many players are actually influential in terms of driving action from tweets that require so. By action I obviously don’t simply mean re-tweets/shares/favorites/likes etc.