Tag: social media sports

02 Dec

Why Kirk Herbstreit’s advice to coaches about student athletes using social media is wrong

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

Kirk Herbstreit, in my opinion, is one of the best analysts in college football. He knows his stuff, he relates well to fans, he let’s you know where he stands, and he has fun. I’m a big fan. That said, Kirk – and the media members, coaches and administrators who agree with him – needs to re-evaluate his position on student-athletes using social media. Kirk went on ESPN Radio this morning on the Mike & Mike show. When asked what advice he would give to coaches, he had this to say (courtesy of 247 Sports):

“My recommendation in the future for all coaches – and I don’t know if you could control this – is get players away from social media; college players,” Herbstreit said. “Because what I find is it’s counterproductive. And I know it’s freedom of speech and you guys should get on this topic some time. And I don’t know how you’d control it. But I’ve never seen a team as active as Ohio State on social media and kind of going back-and-forth, whether it’s the fans, or media, or whatever it might be.

“You can say it doesn’t affect you, but at the end of the day it does. I would do everything in my power if I were a coach in today’s climate to say, ‘Hey guys, camp starts August 1 and your phones and social media, they get put on the sidelines until we’re done playing. You’re not going to engage. You’re not going to get involved. Because there’s nothing good that comes out of that.’

“I think in some weird way, that may have had some sort of impact on Ohio State, because those guys, they were tweeting more than they were practicing it seemed like sometimes. Those guys were really, really active – and kind of cute – on social media. And they need to put that away. All teams, in my mind, needs to put that stuff away.”

“It’s not always what they tweet out and what they send, it’s what they read and what people can say to them is the thing I have a problem with.”

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04 Nov

3 Questions for Student Athletes to Ask Before Posting on Social Media

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

Many things keep administrators up at night. One of those things, not surprisingly, is what their student-athletes are doing online. “What are they posting? Who will see it? Will I get an email at 2:00 in the morning about it? Will I wake up to find one of our players on Deadspin for something she tweeted?”

What players post is out of the control of administrators and coaches – no matter what policies you have in place. It’s one of the main reasons social media education is so important. Given how much time college students spend online, and how much of a magnifying glass is on what student-athletes post, we must be intentional to educate, equip and empower them to use it well.

In our leadership sessions with teams and departments, we use a tool to decrease gossip and drama. It’s a visual tool that asks 3 questions. 

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03 Aug

The Social Media “Drill” – Teaching the Power of Positive Social Media with One Exercise

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

Today we have a guest post from our friend Morgan Crutchfield. Morgan is a writer and photographer who studies the dynamics of social media and sports. Find her on Twitter @CentralMorgan. Enjoy!

Social Media can be a scary thing to tackle as a coach; the need to address athletes’ social media usage may be overwhelmed by fear of failure to cover all the issues or intimidation related to opening a Pandora’s Box by talking about social at all. Attempts to create guidelines start to look like exercises that are done with the help of 14ft trampolines in making long lists of don’ts and the ever-changing landscape of apps and platforms seems to create more work and more room for error. But as we learn more about athletes’ relationships with their teammates and peers, we’re learning that a restrictive social media plan is not only not effective for teams, it fails to capitalize on the power of positive social.

While there is certainly value in setting boundaries with your players and possibly even providing examples of social media disasters to prove the point, educating on what not to do should only be a small part of the plan. Because while social media can be a gateway to some exceptionally negative consequences for athletes who use it only as a megaphone for poorly thought-out posts, it can also be an incredibly powerful set of tools to help athletes build both team unity and self image.

Where should you start? Like any skill on the field, wise social media use starts with practice, so I’ve developed a “drill” that will help your athletes understand how to use social media for good and at the same time will utilize the networks they’re on for hours at a time .

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22 Jun

A blueprint for social media success in college athletics

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

Blueprint: a detailed plan of how to do something

We talk a lot about social media use of college athletics departments, and of course how student-athletes and staff use the various social media platforms. We tweet out a lot of links to something inspiring that one department did, or something unique that another program published. These ideas help to get creative juices flowing, to see what works for others that might work for you. The problem is that, without an actual strategy, none of these are really helpful. You don’t just throw graphics or videos or stories up independently of one another. Each has a place in your overall brand story, each serves a purpose in establishing and furthering your voice. You got a lot of RTs on that great pic but what now? That funny YouTube video you posted went viral, but you didn’t have a plan in place to capture that momentum. You are doing social media, but you aren’t really doing social media.

In our visits to over 80 athletics departments and conferences, we ask a lot of questions and learn about where people are succeeding and where they are struggling when it comes to social media.

These discussions (along with our work with athletics organizations and studying the social media industry as a whole) resulted in a presentation that we’ve given over the past two years at a number of events, on creating a blueprint for social media success in college sports.

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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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18 Feb

Fieldhouse Media and the 2015 #SportsConf

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

A bit late on the notice but make some time today and tomorrow to check out the 2015 #SportsConf. You don’t even have to leave your desk to attend! If you can’t catch all the videos (that work thing always gets in the way, we know), you can follow along with the hashtag on Twitter. If you register, you can also go back and watch the recorded sessions. Full details on the event are at www.hashtagsportsconf.com.

The conference is full of incredible speakers from organizations like the Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants, Sporting News, FanCred, New Balance, The Players’ Tribune and more.

Fieldhouse Media founder Kevin DeShazo will be on a panel tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 ET to discuss the Rise of the Millennials: Best Practices on Engaging Today’s Fan in the Feed. (link to watch)

Look forward to digitally seeing you there!

 

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.

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.

13 Nov

How many social media platforms should you be on?

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Strategy Tags: , , 0 Comments

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest. The list of social media platforms you can be on is seemingly endless. Every time a new one pops up and gains traction, brands start foaming at the mouth about how they “engage” on this new platform.

“They already have 40 million users!”

“That demographic is exactly who we need to reach!”

“If you ain’t first, you’re last!”

To be fair, brands should do their due diligence. You don’t want to get too comfortable with where you are and miss out on what could be a legitimate opportunity to add real, measurable value to your fans. But too often, brands have FOMO (fear of missing out). As a result, we stretch ourselves too thin.

To create a presence on a new platform requires us to take time and resources away from our current platforms. As a result we end up being average, at best, on many platforms and great on none. Average, of course, isn’t what we are looking for. Average doesn’t cut it. Your fans don’t want or deserve average.

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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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04 Jun

Noisemaking vs Storytelling

Kevin DeShazo Social Media Strategy Tags: , , 0 Comments

100,500.

According to a recent study by OneSpot, that is the average number of digital words consumed every day by the average US citizen. For perspective, here are the word counts of some of the greatest novels in history:

To Kill a Mockingbird:     99,121
A Tale of Two Cities:       135, 420
The Catcher in the Rye:   73,404
The Hobbit:                     95,022
(source: commonplacebook.com)

Process that for a moment. We read a novel every single day. A novel made up of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram feeds. Of blog posts and news articles, emails and texts.

This is the battle you face in regards to getting the attention of your fans. You are competing, every day, with the great American novel of noise.

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