Two recent articles in Yahoo Sports have raised some very useful questions about just how and why athletes should use social networking tools, or really, if they should bother using them at all.
The first, by Charles Robinson, detailed the way that NFL teams are creating “ghost” profiles — typically in the guise of attractive girls — to “friend” prospective players and then sift through their personal profiles in search of red flags.
I love Twitter. The second I was introduced to it, it was obvious just how significant it could be for our clients when it came to marketing themselves. Athletes, usually relegated to short, closely monitored public sessions by team PR staff, perhaps understandably unwilling to put themselves in contact with the masses, suddenly had a way to interact directly with fans without a media middleman, and build a loyal, always accessible following — all from the safety of a cellphone.
The implications of that are staggering, particularly from a marketing standpoint. For athletes, authenticity — a trait valued by marketers and which normally involves all sorts of branding gymnastics to achieve — became instantly achievable (assuming, of course, one tweeted the right way, and was actually doing the tweeting). There is no better example of this, as Tweeters around the globe know, than Shaquille O’Neal. THE_REAL_SHAQ, in his 1,000-plus twitter posts, musings, ticket giveaways and jokes, has produced the tweeting equivalent of a pointillist’s self-portrait, showing a still-growing legion of a half million followers who he is: utterly likable, and exceedingly real.
SHAQ IS NOT A STRATEGY
To draw conclusions about Twitter and its value to athletes in general based on Shaq’s success, however, would be misguided. Shaquille O’Neal is the Twitter equivalent of the Terminator, a virtually perfect Tweeting machine. If you were to construct the ideal athlete Tweeter, you’d be hard pressed to do better than a seven-foot tall, 300-plus pound teddy bear with the wit of a comedian, a smile that could sell toothpaste, and the generosity of Santa Claus.
