1. Student Athletes and social Media

2. Even before they get here ….

3. 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

4. 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,

5. 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.”

6. 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 …)

7. “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.”

8. 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.

14. Email can be an issue as well

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

16. 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

20. Always be aware of others

21. From Purdue This week:

23. Purdue did have to issue a statement: