Category: Social Media Education

25 Oct

Should you promote your student-athletes’ Twitter handles?

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

One of the great debates in college sports is whether or not athletic departments should promote the social media handles/usernames of their student-athletes. It came up again this week on a wonderful Google+ Hangout hosted by Derrick Docket of the Missouri Valley Conference, as well as during the #smsportschat Twitter chat last night.

Arguments are intense on both sides of the debate, with some thinking it’s absolutely wonderful and others believing it is an invasion of privacy and will lead to all sorts of death and destruction.

The truth? There’s no right answer. It’s completely up to each department and student-athlete (one non-negotiable: get the student-athlete’s approval). You have to determine what’s best for your program. Let’s look, however, at some pro’s and con’s.

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24 Oct

What kind of legacy are you building online?

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , 0 Comments

Twitter isn’t yet 8 years old (founded March 2006). Facebook is nearing it’s 10th birthday in February.

YouTube is almost 9.

Instagram just turned 3 this month.

It’s pretty incredible how young and new social media is, yet how much of an impact it has had on our world. What that also means is that, for many of us, we are the beginning of our family tree when it comes to the digital age. For student-athletes, we often talk about what kind of identity they are building online. What type of first impression they are creating.

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07 Oct

For student athletes, social media is the new first impression

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , 0 Comments

First impressions. We’ve all been told how important they are in life. Whether you’re gearing up for a job interview, giving a speech or headed out on a blind date, first impressions matter. As with many things, social media has changed the format of first impressions. In the other scenarios, you are (hopefully) prepared for your encounter. You’ve thought through your words, your appearance, every last detail. You know your audience and, as much as you can, you control the situation. With social media, all of this is happening online – many times before offline interaction takes place.

first-impressions

Social Media is the new first impression. صور الكونكر Want to know what somebody is like? Head to their Twitter, Instagram or Facebook accounts. How do they feel about certain issues? How do they communicate in public? What are their hobbies and passions? All of that can be found in a matter of minutes.

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02 Oct

How do we define “inappropriate” for student athletes on social media?

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , 0 Comments

“Don’t tweet something inappropriate.”
“Clean up the inappropriate pictures from your Instagram account.”
“Employers will reject your resumé if you have inappropriate posts on Facebook.”

Inappropriate is a word that is thrown out often when it comes to student-athletes and social media. The problem, and something we address in our social media education sessions with student-athletes, is in defining inappropriate. Many times, this is impacted by your age.

What’s inappropriate to a 40-year-old hiring manager is most likely not considered inappropriate to a college student.

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01 Oct

How to make your Facebook profile private

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

People want access to student-athletes. Whether it’s following them on Twitter, friending them on Facebook, or calling them. But what access should be allowed? When you ‘friend’ somebody on Facebook, you allow them to see a significant amount of personal information, including: email address, phone number, birthdate, friends, relationship status, family history, calendar of events. – not to mention every picture and video you appear in.

If you don’t know somebody, they have no right to view your personal information. It’s my personal strategy to not friend anybody on Facebook that I have not met in person. If you want to connect, follow me on Twitter. That’s as much access as you need until I determine otherwise.

It’s something we tell student-athletes in our social media education sessions. On private social media platforms, don’t friend/add people you don’t know. There’s no award handed out for the person with the most Facebook friends.

Some schools monitor their student-athletes’ social media activity, while others outsource it to firms like us. It’s an understandable strategy, but shouldn’t cross the line of invading privacy. With our monitoring service, we never access private information of student-athletes. Never.

Delaware, California and New Jersey have passed laws to prevent this, and other states are not far behind.(UPDATE: Oregon, New Mexico, Arkansas, Utah, Illinois, Michigan have now passed similar laws)

When it comes to monitoring, ask yourself, “Would I be ok with this if it were my 19 year old daughter being forced to friend and/or give some random company access to her private information?” The answer, of course, is no.

The problem is that most student-athletes simply don’t understand the available privacy settings or their rights. They should never be asked or forced to give access to their private accounts. For Facebook, here’s how they can make their profile private.

Note: this post has been updated to reflect Facebook’s rollout of Graph Search, effective October 2013

First, login to Facebook, click the on the padlock that now appears at the top right. This brings up the new privacy controls menu.

First up is “Who can see my stuff?”

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25 Jul

2 Questions to Guide Social Media Use of Student Athletes

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

In a recent blog post, I wrote about how social media education is more than just what to tweet and what not to tweet. That it’s about leadership and character development. About helping student-athletes understand the impact of their decisions, both online and off. About giving student-athletes a purpose for using social media well, beyond simply avoiding a meeting with the coach or compliance department. When you strip it all down, for student-athletes (or anybody) to be “successful” on social media, they have to answer two questions:

Who am I?

What do I want to be known for?

That’s it. Those two questions direct and guide not just how you use social media, but how you live your life. Like an athlete, your strength comes from your core. These questions get to the core of who you are, guiding how you approach relationships, your work, your family . Social Media is just one piece of that puzzle. An extension of you.

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30 May

Social Media Education is More Than, “Tweet this, not that.”

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

As social media continues to make it’s way into our everyday life, more schools are realizing the need for social media education – for both their student-athletes and their coaches/athletic staff. They are realizing that their student-athletes are an extremely public extension of the athletic department, with their tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram pics and even “disappearing” snaps available to the viewing public. Clearly this is a good thing, educational institutions investing in education. The problem has been in the approach. Too often, athletic departments have approached social media education from a compliance perspective. “Don’t tweet this, don’t post that, don’t do this, don’t get in trouble, don’t make a scene online, etc.” It’s essentially a surgeon general’s list of risks.

The problem with that approach is that warnings don’t result in productive behaviors. Telling a student-athlete what not to tweet isn’t the same as showing them what it means to use Twitter (or any other platform) well. I know not to take my eye off the ball during my golf swing on Pine Club Golf, but how can I actually improve my swing?

Social Media education for student-athletes is not a session on, “tweet this, not that.” Social Media education is about character development. It’s about understanding what it means to make good decisions on a daily basis, not just online but offline. It’s about realizing the impact that our decisions have, and that we have control over our reputation.

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11 Mar

Social Media Use of Student Athletes [2013 Survey Results]

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Education Tags: , , 1 Comment

There have been a number of studies and surveys done on social media use, most of which are terrific, detailed and informative. Many show the social media statistics of college students but none, at least that I’ve found, focused specifically on student-athletes. 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 oncollege 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)

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19 Jan

Manti Te’o, Social Media and Student-Athletes. What now?

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

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 theNCAA Convention, discussing student-athletes and social media.

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19 Nov

NCAA Speakers Registry

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

[UPDATE: As of January  2013, the NCAA has done away with the Student-Athlete Affairs Grant and discontinued the Speakers Registry] Great news! Kevin DeShazo, founder of Fieldhouse Media, has been added to the NCAA Speakers Registry for social media education. This means that you can now apply for and use your Student-Athlete Affairs Grant funds for social media education.

 

 

Of those listed in the registry for social media education, Kevin is one of only two who actually use Twitter.

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