Student Athletes and social Media

Even before they get here ….

FieldHouse Media 2014 study of athletes’ social media use A few takeaways: 78% of student-athletes are using Twitter, up from 72% one year ago. (37% check it more than 10 times per day) 78% of student-athletes are using Instagram, up from 65% one year ago. 94% are on Facebook (which is no surprise), but 85% use it less today than they did one year ago 85% have a Snapchat account, up from 53% last year. (24% send more than 10 per day 10% have sent an inappropriate snap (profanity, nudity, drugs, etc) Twitter is the most popular public platform for student-athletes, but also the platform where most have posted something inappropriate (18 percent) 38% spend more than 1 hour per day on social media 40% have had no social media education or training. This is down from 51% last year, but still unacceptable

How Student Athletes Use Twitter Analysis revealed that student-athletes used Twitter in 3 primary ways: keeping in contact with friends and family communicating with followers accessing information Source: International Journal of Sport Communication, 2012, 5, 503-521

We’ll sit down with the athletes and show examples of good and bad uses of social media,” Arkansas Chris Freet says. “And we’ll warn them that anything they do can be recorded and posted online without them knowing about it.”

How do They deal with negativity? Ignore it Delete the follower Retweet it and let other followers do dirty work Direct response Respond without naming the person (to the person who thinks I …)

“These varied responses underscore the diversity among student-athletes and illustrate that athletic departments cannot assume that all student-athletes will ignore critical tweets. Accordingly, it would be helpful for athletic departments to assess where each student-athlete is with their identity management and identify ways to help student-athletes respond to critical tweets, recognizing that this is likely to be a process rather than an immediate cure-all.”

In recent years, several high profile athletes have gotten themselves in serious trouble because of careless use of social media: criticizing opponents, fans, coaches. Louisville’s Rick Pitino bans players from Twitter during season, so does Boise State football coach Chris Peterson, among others.

Email can be an issue as well

Training should be made available to athletes in the same way that helping them with media interviews

Some common rules shared: Don’t talk about team issues Don’t talk about injuries Don’t share where you are going Do talk about community service Do thank fans Don’t be the “president of your own fan club” Watch what comments you “like” or “retweet,” whom you follow or are friend with

Always be aware of others

From Purdue This week:

Purdue did have to issue a statement: