Category: Social Media Education

02 Mar

Social Media Use of Student Athletes: 2015 Survey Results

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:

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12 Jan

Fieldhouse Media at the 2015 NCAA Convention

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education, Social Media Monitoring, Social Media Strategy Tags: , , , , , 0 Comments

2015 is here and it’s off to a fast start. The NCAA Convention is this week in our nation’s capital. Making the trip? We’d love to see you! Mike Koehler – one of our brilliant social media minds who helps us create effective social media strategies for athletics departments – will be serving on a panel about using social media to your advantage in a crisis. While we all hope and pray that a crisis never hits the doorsteps of our department, it’s necessary to have a plan in place in the event that this becomes reality. Social Media can be a critical resource during this time, from listening to response to advocacy. Make it work for you.

Details on the session
Crisis Communication: How to use social media to your advantage
When: Thursday from 1:15-2:15
Location: Woodrow Wilson Ballroom A
Open to all

If you’ll be there, let us know!

 

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.

22 Dec

A look back at 2014

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education, Social Media Strategy Tags: , , , , , , 0 Comments

Thanks to you, 2014 was our best year yet. From January to December, you’ve kept us busy and we’ve loved every minute. How busy? Let’s look:

  • We traveled more than 45,000 miles
  • Visited over 40 campuses and conferences in 15 states (many thanks to Southwest and Delta for getting us to and fro safely)
  • Educated more than 25,000 student-athletes, coaches and administrators about how to use social media well
  • Helped programs from every level – NAIA up to the Power 5 conferences – see direct, measurable results from developing and executing effective social media strategies across a variety of platforms
  • Launched Fieldhouse Leadership to help develop leaders worth following in collegiate athletics
So thank you. Thank you for believing that social media education for your student-athletes and staff is worth investing in. That they are worth investing in, so that they can better represent themselves and your department online.. Thank you for believing that there is a better way to tell your story online, that your fans deserve the best content and that your team – with the right road map – is capable of creating it.Thank you for choosing Fieldhouse Media. It means the world to us. We love serving the collegiate athletics community, and are grateful for the many of you we get to not only call clients, but friends.

2014 was special but we’re just getting started. Let’s continue to change the game in 2015, together.

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.

24 Nov

4 ways student athletes can deal with haters on social media

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , , 0 Comments

One of the arguments against allowing student-athletes to use social media is how accessible it makes them to fans. Fan, of course, is short for fanatic. To say that people are passionate about sports would be quite the understatement. Online, that passion and fanaticism can and is taken to extreme, and sometimes flat out disturbing levels. We’ve seen “fans” wish death upon athletes through Twitter, call them racial slurs, tell them they are horrible and should give up their scholarship, and any number of other criticisms you can imagine.

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. This is something the Supreme Court is actually considering.

It’s the ugly side of Twitter for many public figures. In an 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.

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30 Oct

Why Coaches Should Embrace Social Media

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , , , 0 Comments

When we are on campus doing social media education sessions with student-athletes, we also do sessions with coaches and staff. Part of that is to better equip them to have meaningful conversations with their student-athletes about social media use, and part of it is to help them understand how/why they should be active on social media. Slowly but surely, coaches are coming around to the idea that it is beneficial for them to be present on social media. For those who work in social media this seems like a no-brainer, but for many it is still a tough thing to embrace.

One of the topics we hit on with coaches is how powerful social media can be for recruiting. As Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops stated after he was asked why he created a Twitter account in 2012, “Strictly for recruiting. Got to. Gotta reach ’em.”

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02 Sep

On Social Media, Student Athletes Need Models Instead of Critics

Kevin DeShazo Leadership, Social Media Education Tags: , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Student-Athletes have a lot of critics. From fans to media to opponents, even parents and coaches can, at times, be critics. It seems everyone has an opinion on what they should do. When it comes to shaping behavior, what they really need are models. Critics tell them what not to do, while models show them what to do. Critics call them out, models call them up to what they’re capable of being.

At practice, coaches spend a significant amount of time reinforcing good technique, good habits, good decisions. If you continually tell a player to not drop the pass, they end up focusing so much on not dropping the pass that, of course, they drop the pass. There’s so much tension and anxiety around not screwing up.

Instead, we coach them on what needs to happen in order to reach the desired goal of catching the pass. We focus on good route-running skills, timing and proper hand position. When they drop it, we step out and show them how it’s done so that they can see it. They can visualize it. We model the right way to do it. Then we send them back out to practice it over and over until it becomes second nature to simply catch the pass. The fear of dropping it is no longer there.

When it comes to social media, too often we are doing the exact opposite. We are coaching them on what not to do, continually criticizing their poor behavior and decisions. We bring in speakers who are unfamiliar with social media, who only know the negative side of it and try to instill in them a fear of messing up. We have coaches who don’t use the platforms preaching that same message. They only thing they know about social media is what not to do. When that’s all you are focused on, you are bound to slip up.

What student-athletes need on social media are models. Someone to guide them on how to use social media well, to help them develop goals for their social media use. Leaders who can explain what that looks like and why that matters. Someone who uses it often and can show them how powerful social media can be when used with a purpose. They need coaches, staff members, people in the community and business world to follow online who can show them what it means to use social media for more than just talking to your friends. People they can learn from and model their social media behavior after.

As educators, it is our job to model. To preach purpose over fear. To prepare them for success online. We have the opportunity to shape how they view and use social media. Are we taking the best approach?

To quote John Wooden, “young people need models, not critics.

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 130 schools utilizing our services for their athletics department, contact us today.

 

17 Mar

Social Media Education for College Athletes – Is It Working?

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , 0 Comments

This weekend the 2014 Summit for International Association for Communication and Sport took place in New York. It was a fantastic event with an incredible amount of research presented, from social media and image rehabilitation, media coverage of scandals, sports media in the digital age and more. One paper discussed was the research of professors Jimmy Sanderson (Clemson) and Blair Browning (Baylor). Sanderson and Browning examined how college athletes perceive social media training.

It’s worth discussing some of the highlights of their presentation:

Exploring College Athletes’ Perception of Social Media Training

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