Social Media Use of Student Athletes: 2015 Survey Results

March 2, 2015 Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education, Social Media Strategy Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Over the last few weeks we’ve been compiling data on our third annual survey looking at the social media use of collegiate student-athletes (can see the results from our 2013 survey here and 2014 here). This isn’t a perfect science but it does allow us a good look into how college athletes use social media. This helps us be more effective in our social media education and training sessions, and also provides valuable insight as we help athletics departments craft social media strategies.

This year we had nearly 1000 student-athletes participate. We owe a huge thanks to the administrators who passed on the survey and encouraged their student-athletes to take it, and of course to those who took the time to fill it out.

Here are the results of our 2015 survey on the social media use of student-athletes:

Participants: 927

Level of competition:
NAIA 4%
Division III 10%
Division II 6%
Division I 80%

Male: 65%
Female: 35%

Twitter:
73% have an account
43% check it more than 10 times per day without tweeting
19% check it between 5 and 10 times per day without tweeting
93% send 5 or fewer tweets per day
37% have more than 500 followers
50% have between 100 and 500 Twitter followers
70% have a public Twitter account
5% have posted personal information (phone number, address, email address)
20% have tweeted something inappropriate (profanity, racial, sexual, drugs, alcohol, violence)
13% have received hateful tweets from fans
22% have responded to hateful tweets from fans
78% say they follow a brand on Twitter

Facebook
94% have a Facebook account
63% said they use Facebook less than they did one year ago
14% check Facebook more than 10 times per day
56% check it 5 or fewer times per day
92% post between 1 and 5 times per day
69% have more than 500 Facebook friends
7% say they’ve posted something inappropriate on Facebook
92% say they utilize the privacy settings on Facebook
68% say they “like” a brand on Facebook

Instagram
81% have an Instagram account
67% have their Instagram account set to private
31% check it more than 10 times per day without posting
43% check it between one and 5 times per day without posting
94% post between 1 and 5 times per day
8% say they’ve posted something inappropriate on Instagram
81% say they follow a brand on Instagram

Snapchat
89% have a Snapchat account
57% send 5 or more snaps per day
41% have posted something inappropriate to Snapchat
36% have received snaps from someone they don’t know
7% say they follow a brand on Snapchat

Which social media platform do you use the most?
Instagram: 33%
Facebook: 29%
Snapchat: 21%
Twitter: 13%

Other platforms being used
Tumblr: 11%
Yik Yak: 37% (48% said that they have posted to Yik Yak)
Vine: 29%
Google+: 16%
LinkedIn:
Kik: 10%

43% say they spend more than 1 hour per day on social media
25% say they spend 30 minutes per less on social media each day
37% say they’ve posted something on social media that they regret
8% say they’ve witnessed teammates being cyberbullied
13% have posted something inappropriate to Yik Yak
48% say they believe Yik Yak is anonymous
6% say they’ve checked social media during one of their games
3% say they’ve posted to social media during one of their games
52% say they’ve met someone offline that they first interacted with on social media
16% have used social media to network or connect for a job/internship
45% say they’ve had no social media training
50 % say they’ve had at least one hour of social media training

 

Fieldhouse Media is an award-winning firm dedicated to helping athletics departments get the most out of their social media efforts, from educating student-athletes and staff to providing an overall strategy. To find out more about us or to join the more than 70 schools utilizing our services for their athletics department, contact us today.

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