While a number of coaches are making the move, many are still hesitant. When doing social media education sessions on campuses, a majority of coaches acknowledge that they don’t use social media. Reasons vary from believing it’s a fad that will go away soon, thinking nobody cares what they are eating for lunch (the most common issue), or simply thinking that they don’t have time. Most of it, however, boils down to the fact that they they don’t understand it and as a result, don’t see the value in it.

If you’re a coach, imagine being able to instantly connect and send information to over 200 million people (rough estimate on active Twitter users). Now, 200 million people obviously aren’t that concerned about your program, so let’s make it a bit more realistic. Let’s use, for example, the Miami Hurricanes. Miami has over 32,000 followers on Twitter. That’s 32,000 people (fans, alums, current students, recruits, media) that have a direct interest in athletics at the University of Miami.

Back to being a coach. Imagine you could directly communicate with over 30,000 people who were legitimately interested in your program. You could share information to get fans excited about what’s happening with your team. Details that get donors encouraged about the direction and the future of the program. Highlight facilities and equipment (jerseys – the kids love jerseys). Give inside access to what it’s like to be a part of your program – information that is interesting to not only fans, but recruits and parents.

You would pay good money for that opportunity, right?

What if you could do it for free?

That’s the beauty and power of social media. An almost endless reach, for free.

I love this from Santa Ono, President at the University of Cincinnati. He’s talking about why CEO’s and university presidents should be on social media, but his points are great for coaches as well.

Coaches are the face of a team. In some cases, a coach may even be the most public face of an athletic department or university. Community interaction and involvement is crucial when it comes to fan support, and social media enables coaches to interact like never before. Some are doing a terrific job of this.

Mike Gundy, head football coach at Oklahoma State, is in the midst of a campaign called #AskGundy. Fans tweet questions using that hashtag, and he takes the time to answer them. The department has said he’ll answer up to three questions each day, for the foreseeable future. Fans are loving it, the media is talking about it, and it’s keeping Oklahoma State football in the spotlight during the offseason. Here’s a recent recap of Coach Gundy answering questions.

Florida’s assistant football coaches have been making headlines for a few months now for their creative social media use. They are using it to indirectly communicate with recruits, while at the same time getting the media to take notice. Here are some recent Instagram photos from WR coach Joker Phillips, who has been extremely creative in using the hashtag #ComePlayWRForTheJoker.

These are terrific ways for a coach to stand out to fans, the media, and recruits.

So why aren’t more utilizing it? I mentioned a few reasons earlier, but I think it boils down to two things: time and value. More specifically, they believe that they don’t have enough time and they don’t really understand social media. If they understood social media, they would understand it’s value to them. Let’s address both of those.

Time
“I don’t have time for this stuff. Between practice and film and recruiting and my family, there’s not enough time in the day for tweeting.” I hear this all the time from coaches. And I don’t buy it.

I’ve not seen an experiment on this, so I just typed out a tweet (140 characters). It took 20 seconds. It was pure gibberish, so let’s say you put some thought into it and it takes you one minute. 60 seconds. It takes longer to fill your car up with gas. Saying you don’t have time is not an excuse.

Walking up to the field/court for a morning practice? Pull out your phone, take a quick picture, and tweet out, “Love the quiet time right before practice. A moment alone to get the mind right before we get down to business.” Seems simple enough, but fans love it. It didn’t distract you from your duties, didn’t impact your ability to run practice, didn’t take time away from your family.

Tim Miles, head basketball coach at the University of Nebraska, is famous for tweeting at halftime of games. After meeting with the team, and as they walk out onto the court to prepare for the second half, he’ll send out a tweet (technically, he has an assistant do it for him. Regardless, he could take the 30 seconds and do it himself).

You can make an impact on social media in less than 5 minutes per day. We always encourage coaches to tweet daily, preferably twice per day (once in the morning, once in the afternoon). Two tweets/posts/pictures. Two opportunities to excite your fans, to give the media something positive to right about, to give recruits something to think about. If we don’t have 5 minutes for that, we need to do a much better job of organizing our time.

Lack of Understanding
Coaches, I’m going to fill you in on a secret: Social Media isn’t rocket science. If you can type, you can tweet. There’s no right way to do it – everybody has a different purpose and a different personality. You just have to start.

Naturally, you first need to create an account. Have somebody from marketing work with you on getting a good profile picture, header and background. Here’s a great example from Vanderbilt’s James Franklin.

Next, start following people. Follow people in your athletic department, follow your student-athletes, follow reporters that cover your team and reporters that cover your sport nationally. Then find and follow other coaches. After you’ve followed 50 or so people, spend a couple of days just reading and learning. Watching TV? Open up your phone (or computer) and check Twitter. What are other coaches tweeting about? Learn from them. Mimic them – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Once you’re comfortable with it, start sharing. Share insight into who you are not only as a coach, but as a person. As a husband/wife, dad/mom. Share the successes of your players, of student-athletes on other teams in your program. Share insight into games you’re watching – as a coach, you have a unique perspective on in-game action. Let fans see that (of course, don’t be critical of other coaches and players).

As time goes on, start interacting with people. Fans, media, other coaches.

Social media allows you the opportunity to impact conversation in a new way. It gives you power and influence and allows you to tell your story, and the story of your team and university. Take advantage of it.

Oh, and when it comes to tweeting about what you ate for lunch? You’re right, nobody does care. The solution is quite simple: don’t tweet about it.

What are some other ways coaches can use social media, and what coaches do you see using it well?

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 40 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post Should College Coaches Use Social Media? appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

Launched in 2012, FieldTrack provides athletic departments with a non-invasive alternative to monitoring the social media activity of their student athletes and coaches. Explains DeShazo, “I looked at some of the other options available and, as a parent, these weren’t services that I would be comfortable being used for my child. So I got with our development team and said there has to be a better way to do this. There has to be a non-invasive way to approach monitoring. A way that will lead to better communication between staff and student athlete, a way that will facilitate education. With FieldTrack, we’ve done that.”

A web-based platform, FieldTrack monitors the public Twitter accounts of student athletes and staff, searching for potentially offensive and inappropriate words that could damage the reputation of the student-athlete, team, and university. Unlike other platforms, FieldTrack has no apps for student athletes and staff to install on their accounts, and never accesses private information. FieldTrack also works as an app on iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android devices, giving administrators a real-time view of what is happening online.

“Our development team put together an incredible product that looks great, is easy to use, and provides a valuable service to an athletic department. The most satisfying thing is seeing the impact that FieldTrack is having. Programs that are utilizing both FieldTrack and our on-site social media education sessions, are seeing a 41% daily drop in offensive/inappropriate tweets. Student athletes are realizing the power of social media, and the need to create a positive online identity.”

About Fieldhouse Media:
Founded in 2011, Fieldhouse Media is a leader in social media education and monitoring for student-athletes. With the perspective that social media is a valuable and powerful tool, Fieldhouse Media partners with athletic departments to educate student-athletes on how to use social media in a positive way. Through FieldTrack, they monitor social media activity to help protect the online image of student-athletes. Fieldhouse Media has partnered with over 30 university athletic departments, and has been featured in the New York Times, ESPN.com, USA Today and a number of other national news outlets. Founder Kevin DeShazo has presented at a number of events, including the NCAA Convention, CoSIDA, and the Collegiate Athletics Leadership Symposium.

To learn more about Fieldhouse Media, contact them at:

info@fieldhousemedia.net
405.535.6943

The post Fieldhouse Media Earns Innovator of the Year Award appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

image via salon.com

Since that time, California, Delaware, Michigan and New Jersey have all passed and signed bills to protect the online privacy of students/student-athletes. In the last month, New Mexico, Utah and now Arkansas have joined them. Several other states (Oregon, Kansas, Texas, Maryland, Iowa, Illinois and Hawaii, to name a few) have similar bills pending. Even the federal government is getting involved, as they have reintroduced the Social Networking Online Protection Act (SNOPA).

Each bill is a bit different, but they each attempt to solve the same purpose: protect the social media privacy of student-athletes. They are geared toward Facebook, where once you have access to a person’s page, you have access to sensitive, personal information – but also apply to other networks like Twitter and Instagram. The bills make it illegal to:

• Request or require a student to disclose the username and password to any of their social media accounts, in order to gain access to the student’s social networking profile or account by way of an electronic communication device.
• Request or require a student to log onto a social networking site, email account, or any other internet site or application, by way of an electronic communication device in the presence of an agent of the institution so as to provide the institution access.
• Monitor or track a student’s personal electronic communication device by installation of a software application upon the device, or by remotely tracking the device by using intercept technology.
• Access a student’s social networking site profile or account indirectly through any other person who is a social networking contact of the student.

For athletic departments, this means you cannot:

• ask/require a student-athlete to turnover their login information (something I don’t believe schools are doing),
• ask/require a student-athlete to log onto Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc in front of a coach or administrator, so that the coach or administrator can then see what is on the student-athlete’s profile,
• require a student-athlete to ‘friend’ a coach or administrator on Facebook (or require them to let you follow their private Twitter/Instagram account)
• use a monitoring software – internal or 3rd party – that requires the student-athlete to install software on their account that gives you access to their password-protected information
• use Facebook friends of a student-athlete to gain access to a student-athlete’s information

Do these bills ban the use of monitoring firms?

Many are asking what these bills mean for firms that provide social media monitoring services for athletic departments- like us, with our FieldTrack platform. Some claim that these bills ban such services, which is not true. These bills actually have no impact on our services. Why is that?

First, we do not require a username and password. Second, on the topic of requiring usernames: if an individual has a public Twitter account and you ask for their username, you are not demanding access. They’ve already given access to the approximately 2.4 billion people in the world with internet access. Third, each bill has some version of the following sentence:

Nothing in this section prohibits a public or private institution of post-secondary education from obtaining information about a student, applicant or potential applicant for admission that is in the public domain.

As one social media attorney has noted, “Monitoring the public social media posts of student-athletes is legal. In fact, it may be advisable to check up on a student-athlete’s public online posts in the same manner as his/her real world activity.” (emphasis added)

FieldTrack, our monitoring platform, only monitors the public Twitter accounts of student-athletes (and coaches/staff). Fieldhouse Media fully supports these bills. We never have access to password-protected, private information. We are also the only firm providing social media monitoring for athletic departments who is not impacted by these bills, as we are the only firm who refuses to monitor private, password-protected content.

Why? We believe in the right to privacy online. You should treat every post as if it is public, but that doesn’t mean everything is public. There are privacy settings in place for a reason. We encourage student-athletes to utilize them, specifically on Facebook where individuals can have access to sensitive information like your email address, phone number, birth date and more. We created this tutorial to help student-athletes make their Facebook page private.

As we’ve said a number of times, monitoring is a necessary and beneficial service – if it is used to facilitate and complement education. But you can monitor without invading privacy. It’s that approach that earned us a 2013 Journal Record Innovator of the Year award for FieldTrack, our social media monitoring platform.

School around the country are using FieldTrack and, coupled with our social media education/training, are seeing changed behaviors from their student-athletes. Programs using both services are seeing a 41% drop in daily inappropriate/offensive tweets. All without invading their privacy. Administrators are realizing the difference, too. They appreciate an alternative to the “creepy” methods of firms they have used in the past. Student-athletes feel the same way.

It’s unfortunate that other companies have chosen to operate invasively, creating a culture of fear and distrust. Monitoring doesn’t have to be a negative thing. It doesn’t have to be the social media police. It can be a valuable tool for both the athletic department and the student-athlete, if it is done with the right approach and mindset.

Have questions about these bills and/or about FieldTrack, our social media monitoring platform? Contact us.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 40 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post Debate Heats Up Over Social Media Privacy of Student Athletes appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

Here is an infographic looking at the results of that survey. Thanks to Kyle Porter for his graphic design work.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 30 universities utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post Social Media Use of Student Athletes [infographic] appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

Given that the focus of Fieldhouse Media is on student-athletes, I wanted information and statistics specific to this group. Earlier this year, I distributed a survey to a number of collegiate athletic administrators, to then forward on to their student-athletes. I owe an immense gratitude to the administrators who encouraged their student-athletes to participate – nearly 300 student-athletes responded. Some were from major BCS programs, some were from mid-majors, while nearly half were from DII or DIII schools.

Something to keep in mind while reading these results are the recent data provided by Football Scoop on college football coaches use of social media, and CoSIDA on how athletic departments are approaching the topic of social media and their student-athletes.

A few takeaways from these results (some of which I was admittedly surprised by).

• In February 2012, 20% of 18-24 year olds were “using” Twitter on a typical day. In this survey, just one year later, 72% of student-athletes have a Twitter account. 97.4% of student-athletes with a Twitter account are tweeting daily. That’s significant.
• In light of the Manti Te’o situation, it was interesting to see that 4.6% of student-athletes admit to engaging in romantic relationship with somebody online, and 25.9% said they have met somebody in person that they first interacted with on social media.
• Nearly 1 in 5 (17.6%) have used social media to network/connect for a job or internship. That’s encouraging.
• 50.9% say they’ve received no social media education/training (in the CoSIDA survey, ~56% said they don’t provide social media education)

The biggest takeaway, which isn’t surprising, is that student-athletes are embracing social media. 93.5% have a Facebook account (and 99% of those that have one post to Facebook daily), 72% have a Twitter account (with 97% tweeting daily), 64.8% have an Instagram account (94% post daily). Throw in Tumblr, LinkedIn, Google+, Snapchat and the numbers are stunning.

Knowing this, how is it that more than half of schools fail to provide some form of social media education for their student-athletes? We can write article after article about how irresponsible college kids are and why they shouldn’t be on social media, but at some point we have to realize that we’ve failed in educating them – not just in how to use social media well, but in educating them at all.

These are numbers we can’t ignore. If educated on how to use social media in a positive and appropriate way, about what it means to be intentional about building an online presence, imagine the good that could come – for both the student-athletes and the athletic departments.

Key data points

Number of student-athletes to fill out the survey: 283
Female: 197 (69.6%)
Male: 86 (30.3%)

Breakdown by DI/DII/DIII:

Twitter
Percentage of student-athletes with a Twitter account: 72.2%
Of those with a Twitter account:
97.4% tweet at least once per day
64.1% have a public account
23.1% admit to having tweeted something inappropriate (racial, sexual, violence, profanity, drug/alcohol use)
70.51% check Twitter between 1 and 10 times per day (without posting)
29.5% check Twitter more than 10 times per day (without posting)
57.8% have between 100 and 500 followers
3.9% have more than 500 followers
5% have received critical/hateful tweets from fans (nearly half of those have responded to hateful fans)

Facebook
Percentage of student-athletes with a Facebook account: 93.5%
Of those with a Facebook account:
99% post to Facebook at least once per day
85.2% check Facebook between 1 and 10 times per day, without posting
96% utilize their privacy settings on Facebook
22.3% admit to having posted something inappropriate (racial, sexual, violence, profanity, drug/alcohol use)
70.3% have more than 500 Facebook friends
2.9% have less than 100 Facebook friends

Instagram
Percentage of student-athletes with an Instagram account: 64.81%
Of those with an Instagram account:
94.3% post at least once per day
60% have their account set to Private
14.3% admit to having posted something inappropriate (racial, sexual, violence, profanity, drug/alcohol use)

Other
19.4% use Google+
20.4 use LinkedIn
52.8% use Snapchat
11.1% use Tumblr

4.7% have engaged in a romantic relationship with somebody online
25.9% have met somebody in person that they first interacted with on social media
17.6% have used social media to network/connect for a job or internship

How many hours of social media training/education have you received?

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 30 universities and athletic conferences utilizing our services, contact us today.

The post Social Media Use of Student-Athletes [survey results] appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

Click here to read the story, and head to my personal blog for some thoughts on why I disagree with the approach of the Michigan situation.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 25 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post Fieldhouse Media Featured in USA Today Column on Social Media and Student-Athletes appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

image via fivewidesports.com

Tweets like this are unacceptable. I’m no legal expert, but I firmly believe that legal action should be taken when somebody threatens to take a gun and 30 bullets to a team bus. A teenager in London was arrested for abusive tweets during the Olympics to diver Tom Daly.

It’s the ugly side of Twitter for many public figures. In a recent article on Mashable, Bill Voth of Spiracle Media, who works with a number of professional athletes, had this to say about the topic, “Trolls are getting louder and more powerful, and I think ultimately this is one of the biggest threats to Twitter itself.” He’s right. Student-athletes are humans (and, for the most part, kids). Nobody deserves this type of abuse. If something isn’t done, it may drive public figures away from the platform.

Student-athletes at all levels will deal with some form of hatred online. Some will be harmless, some will be abusive and demeaning. Here are 4 ways student-athletes can handle the online haters:

1. Ignore it. This seems simple enough, but the reality is it’s difficult. When you open up your Twitter app and see a notification that somebody has tweeted something to you, you want to read it. It could be a friend, a fan, a family member, or a hater. Being a competitor, you want to respond when somebody calls you out. When somebody challenges you. But why give value and attention to somebody who doesn’t deserve it? Jon Acuff, in his new ebook The Hater Handbook, has this to say about ignoring online critics:

A stranger. Someone I’ve never met. Someone I’ll never meet. Someone whose sum total investment in my life thus far has been the forty-seven seconds he spent writing a Facebook or Twitter comment…You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You don’t need to prove that you’re good enough. He doesn’t get a vote in that.

2. Retweet it. A number of student-athletes, and other public figures, have taken this route. Rather than responding to the person and engaging in a battle nobody wins, they’ll just retweet the abuse. Why? Three reasons. One, it lets people see the hatred they deal with online. Two, to expose the person attacking them online. It’s easy to tweet something abusive to a student-athlete, thinking nobody else will see it. If they retweet it to their 5000 followers? The game has changed. Third, they let their fans and supporters deal with it. Prior to their football game against Oklahoma in 2011, Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden received this horrible tweet from a “fan” of OU:

It’s horrible all the way around, made significantly worse by the fact that members of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball team had died in a plane crash just two weeks earlier (not to mention the plane crash involving the men’s basketball team years earlier). After Weeden responded with the above tweet, OSU and OU fans alike went after the kid, eventually ending up in his being dismissed from the college baseball team he played for (yes, this was one student-athlete abusing another online). Weeden knew that responding to the hater himself wouldn’t do any good, so he let his fans take care of it for him. And they did.

3. Block them. The “block” feature on Twitter is terrific, and one that I don’t think enough student-athletes utilize. Don’t want somebody reading your tweets? Block them. Tired of getting abused or attacked by a user? Block them. When you block them, they won’t see your tweets (unless they logout and manually go to twitter.com/yourusername) and, if they try to tweet something to you, you won’t see it. They’ll have to create a new Twitter account if they want to continue attacking you online. This also frees up your mentions/replies, allowing you to see messages from those you actually want to interact with. On those who are supporting you and tweeting you positive things. In other words, those who actually deserve your attention.

4. Delete your account. To the point that you just can’t deal with the online haters? Delete your account. In my opinion, this is a last resort. It lets the haters win. It tells them that they got to you. That they’ve overpowered the positive reasons you use Twitter. That they are louder and more impactful than your supporters. With Twitter growing in popularity among young adults, deleting your account can be a difficult thing to do. It’s where your friends are. 

Hiding behind a computer screen or an iPhone keyboard gives people an extra dose of courage (and idiocy). Internet tough guys will tweet out things that they wouldn’t dare dream of saying to your face – or to anybody else, for that matter. They don’t deserve your attention or direct response.

Ignore the critics. Ignore the haters. Haters are looking for a response. A reaction. It’s difficult, but don’t give them what they want. Nobody wins in a Twitter argument. Instead, focus on those who add value to your online experience. Focus on staying positive and engaging with those who do the same.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 25 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post 4 Ways Student-Athletes Can Deal With Haters Online appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

Other firms exist that monitor the social media activity of student-athletes. Those firms have been the subject of much scrutiny and negative press. We knew that, but also believed that there was a different way to do it. A way that complemented our social media education sessions. A way that didn’t operate from a place of fear and intimidation, but a place of encouraging proper use. We knew that there was value in monitoring the public social media activity of student-athletes. We knew that we could use it to help them understand the reputation they were creating for themselves, as well as their team/university/family.

And we knew we didn’t have to invade their privacy to do it.

The dashboard of our FieldTrack monitoring platform

A player/staff profile in FieldTrack

Universities have bought in. We’ve heard from a number of athletic departments tired of the old, ineffective way of monitoring. Legislators have brought the fight, stepping up in places like California, Delaware, Michigan and New Jersey to ban the invasive monitoring practices of other companies, making it illegal for colleges and universities to utilize their services. Lawmakers in Texas and Kansas, as well as other states, are introducing similar bills.  A bill at the federal level was reintroduced yesterday. The landscape is changing.

And our way is working. Programs who are utilizing our on-site social media education in addition to FieldTrack are seeing a 41% drop in daily offensive/inappropriate tweets (education is included as part of our monitoring package). 41%. These are student-athletes and staff members who are seeing the value of creating a positive online identity. Individuals who are realizing that what they say online can have a significant impact, good or bad. Individuals that are challenging their teammates to think before tweeting. And they are succeeding.

FieldTrack is a web-based program, but also works on your iPhone, iPad or Android device.

Whether we receive the award or not, we are honored and excited to be a finalist for Innovator of the Year. As somewhat of a celebration, we’re giving away free 30 day trials of FieldTrack.

If you’re interested, please fill out our Contact Form, and put “FieldTrack Trial” in the message box.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 25 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

The post Innovator of the Year Nomination and a Giveaway appeared first on Fieldhouse Media.

image via Yahoo! Sports

Much has been made of the Manti Te’o situation. With him being the face of Notre Dame football this season, that is to be expected. I wanted to wait until we heard his side, which we now have, before choosing to write about it, and what it means for student-athletes on social media, and how universities/athletic departments approach it.

This post won’t be about whether or not his story is believable. It won’t be a story judging his character.

For those unfamiliar, (former) Notre Dame LB Manti Te’o was the apparent victim of an internet hoax referred to as Catfishing – when a person pretends they are someone they are not, usually on social media, in order to deceive someone. Most of you will remember his trying season, when in the span of a few hours he lost his Grandmother and girlfriend. It was an incredible narrative. Now it turns out that his girlfriend, who he “met” online, was in fact not real. Never existed. Fittingly, news of the story as I was sitting on a panel at the NCAA Convention, discussing student-athletes and social media.

Needless to say, it has been a stressful week for Te’o and the Notre Dame administration. For student-athletes and administrators, there are a few takeaways from this situation.

1. Acknowledge reality. This is not an isolated incident. Michael Roth, a former South Carolina baseball player, has written a blog post about his experience in a Catfish hoax, as well as a similar experience happening to a teammate. Here is another story involving student-athletes at the University of Washington. NFL players have now come forward acknowledging they were duped by a woman with a fake online identity.
   Social media is about connecting. Connecting for business, common interest, being a part of the same city, any number of reasons. Sometimes, this can turn into a romantic relationship. In the digital world we live in, it’s not abnormal. What once happened on AOL Instant Messenger or in chat rooms, now takes place on Twitter and Facebook. We cannot ignore reality.
2. It’s about trust. As Kathleen Hessert points out, it’s about trust. Who can/should we trust online? I have a lot of “Twitter friends”. People that I talk with often, online. Some are business owners, some work in corporate America, some are pastors, musicians, etc. Some are athletic directors/administrators. Some of these relationships have resulted in business – which, of course, takes the relationship from online to the “real” world. Like I said, social media is about connecting. Student-athletes talking to strangers online is fine. It’s about making wise decisions in how far you take those discussions. In being careful with who they trust to be more than just someone they casually interact with online.
3. Don’t overreact. Administrators shouldn’t use this as some sort of validation that banning their players from social media is the right course of action. It isn’t. This is not Twitter’s fault. It’s not the fault of Facebook, where the relationship began. This type of activity can happen in any number of places online. You can’t expect your student-athletes to live in some sort of bubble.
4. Educate. At the end of the day, we have to have a commitment to education. As Jason Belzer wrote in Forbes this week, this could be a tipping point in regards to the NCAA and social media:With the massive public relations crisis that Notre Dame is now facing as precedent, other universities face a simple choice: invest additional resources in training and monitoring student athletes usage of social media or simply tell them they must leave their Twitter and Facebook accounts at the door upon entering campus.

   On the topic of monitoring, it wouldn’t have prevented this. To suggest otherwise is a stretch. Monitoring is a service we provide, it’s something that I fully believe there is value in. But it would not have prevented this situation. Let’s say, for example, that Te’o tweeted something inappropriate to this girl. An offensive word, something sexual. With our monitoring system, Notre Dame would’ve received notice of that (assuming his account isn’t set to Private). Then what? Are they expected to investigate this girl? Of course not. Sadly, student-athletes say inappropriate sexual things to people on Twitter often. It prompts a conversation with the student-athlete, but not an investigation into the person they are interacting with.

   Athletic departments will have to evaluate how they approach social media education. They must have a renewed dedication to training their student-athletes on how to use social media well. On how to protect themselves online. Because this type of activity isn’t going to go away.  A guy gets a tweet or Facebook message from a stranger. The profile picture shows that it’s an attractive “woman”, and the relationship begins.

Right or wrong, it’s not our place to judge Manti Te’o. The point is that it happens. Adults, teens, students, student-athletes, men, women. Let’s not ignore it. Let’s not laugh about it (there’s a reason that online dating is a $2 billion industry). Let’s not create an atmosphere of shame. Let’s have discussions about it. Serious discussions. The more discussions we have, the more aware our student-athletes will be. The more they can and will hold each other accountable. Discussions also raise awareness among staff. They know what questions to ask.

Let’s re-evaluate our approach and renew our commitment to educating our student-athletes about social media use.

Fieldhouse Media is a firm dedicated to helping student-athletes and coaches use social media in a positive, appropriate way through education and monitoring. To find out more about us or to join the over 25 schools utilizing our services for their athletic department, contact us today.

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The 2013 NCAA Convention takes place Wednesday-Saturday, Jan. 16-19 in Grapevine, Texas (Dallas metroplex area). As in the past few years, the NCAA is holding a social media session during the convention will be streamed live and also have a CoverItLive blog component.

This year’s social media session, entitled “Social Media and the Student-Athlete,” takes place on Wednesday, Jan. 16 from 4-5 pm Eastern/3-4 pm Central/2-3 pm Mountain/1-2 pm Pacific.

This is the description of the one-hour session:

Imagine the national evening news interviewing every student-athlete on the topic of the day. Well, welcome to social media, in which the lives of student-athletes can be treated like unending press conferences just a click away from that national microphone.

What can campus leaders do about it? Some NCAA member schools answer with monitoring and restrictions; others with education and empowerment. Join this session to learn what works best for your institution.

WEBINAR/LIVE STREAM EVENT

Wednesday, Jan. 16

NCAA Educational Session – Social Media and Student-Athletes

Time: 4-5 pm Eastern/3-4 pm Central/2-3 pm Mountain/1-2 pm Pacific

Location: Gaylord Texan, Dallas Texas (Texas Ballroom D)

Livestream link: https://ncaa.s3.amazonaws.com/web_video/convention/2013/videoindex.html

CoverItLIve Blog link: TBA

Presenters 

• Wren Baker, Northwest Missouri State University Director of Athletics

• Kevin DeShazo, Founder, Fieldhouse Media

• Daniel Hour, University of Washington Manager of New Media & Recruiting Services

Moderator

• Dana Thomas, NCAA Associate Director of Social Media
2013 NCAA Convention webpage  (http://www.ncaa.org/convention)

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