Kevin DeShazo | When 140 Isn't Enough

Do you need to use social media to teach social media?

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:58:00 -0500

I got a message from a college athletic administrator recently, asking about another person who provides social media education/training for student-athletes. After learning that this person had spoken at their conference meetings, he was concerned that he couldn’t find anything about her on Twitter.

This is a topic I’ve pseudo-touched on in the past, but feel it needs to be attacked directly.

Do you need to use social media in order to teach others about social media?

The easy answer is, of course, no. If somebody is going to pay you, you can do whatever you want. It doesn’t mean you know what you are talking about, but clearly neither do those paying you. Who are you to stop them from wasting their money?

About a year ago, I saw somebody who works in the marketing department for a large (BCS) athletic department tweet out that they had just had a terrific social media education session for their student-athletes. They included the name of the person who had done the session - a name I was familiar with, and knew that they didn’t use social media.

I responded to the staff member, saying it was great that they were being proactive with social media education for their student-athletes, and asked if they knew the Twitter handle (username) of the educator they had brought in.

“You know, I don’t think he’s on Twitter. But he comes highly recommended.”

I asked if they had any job openings, and he told me they did. I asked where to apply, and he directed me to a website and asked if I had experience.

“You just brought in a social media speaker that doesn’t use social media. It doesn’t appear as though experience is pre-qualifier for you all.”

Was I being a jerk? Potentially. I’m just not a fan of somebody devaluing my industry. And that’s exactly what somebody who “teaches” social media without using social media is doing. And this particular person has a client list that would blow you away.

And it’s not the same person that an administrator recently asked me about. There are four people that I know of who offer/provide social media education specifically for student-athletes, that don’t actually use social media.

My wife is a photographer. A few years ago, I bought her a DSLR camera for our anniversary. After a month, she quickly realized that she had a passion for photography.

She started taking pictures of friends for free. As she started to learn more and improve, she decided that photography is what she wanted to do, and turned it into a business. She started charging a fee in order to build her portfolio.

Over the past few years, she has poured hours into her craft. She’s studied under some of the best photographers in the world. She’s upgraded her equipment. She’s developed her style. As a result, she now charges what an actual, professional photographer should charge. Her talent validates her pricing.

Daily she hops on Facebook or Twitter, where any number of stay at home moms are now claiming to be photographers because they went out and spent $500 on a new camera. You probably see the same thing.

Rather than learn and develop their craft, these moms create a Facebook business page and immediately start charging $150 for a session and a CD of every picture that they took. To compare, my wife charges $150 for a session. A CD of images from the session is $800.

The mommy photographer is devaluing the photography business. Devaluing those who actually understand lighting, composition, white balance, and any other photography-related words that might as well be German to me.

Back to social media.

If you don’t use social media, what do you really know about social media? You know what other people have written about it. You have no stories of your own, no experiences of your own. No success and failures of your own.

It’s one thing to read an article on having an impact online, it’s quite another to actually interact with people online.

I can tell you what Mashable says about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat. Or I can tell you what I’ve experienced based on my interactions on these platforms.

There’s no such thing as a social media expert, but there is a such thing as a social media fraud.

What do you do when you are looking for a new financial advisor, plumber, mechanic? You Google them. You find out if they are a legitimate, reputable business/person. You don’t walk up to an electrician and ask him to do your taxes.

I don’t do media training, because I have no clue what the best practices are when talking to the media. That’s not my area of experience.

For some reason, people ignore this with social media. If you are going to pay somebody thousands of dollars to speak on a topic, take the 5 seconds to Google them and see if they have a Twitter account.

You wouldn’t pay your plumber to be your accountant. So why would you pay this person to talk to you about social media?

There are plenty of people who are capable of discussing social media with your student-athletes. People who use social media every day and know what it means to have an impact online. I have a few that I recommend to schools whenever my schedule doesn’t allow me to visit them myself.

The truth is that social media isn’t that complicated. But if you hope to have any impact on how your student-athletes and staff use social media, the person you bring in needs to actually use social media.

Is monitoring student-athletes on social media illegal?

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:11:00 -0500

Over the last year, a number of states have introduced legislation designed to protect the social media privacy of student-athletes. California, Michigan, New Jersey, Delaware, Arkansas, Utah, New Mexico and Illinois have passed legislation - Illinois, which was passed last week, awaits Governor Quinn’s signature. Legislation is pending in several other states.

As some who educates student-athletes on social media use, I’m a fan of these bills/laws. As Deadspin noted in a number of articles here, here and here, these bills are needed. Companies have been started with the sole purpose of monitoring the social media activity of student-athletes.

Most of them work by way of an app that student-athletes are forced to install on their social media accounts, which then gives said company access to every bit of information on the account - whether or not it is password protected/private information. Email address, phone number, birth date, posts, pictures, videos, friend lists, relationships, calendar of events - all of it.

They don’t need passwords for their app to work. They just need the student-athletes to download/install it.

Yes, it’s as creepy as it sounds. Can you imagine if your 19 year old daughter or son was being forced to allow some stranger to have access to his/her Facebook account? Not good.

Along with social media education, my company provides this type of service through a platform called FieldTrack. We actually just won an award as Innovator of the Year for FieldTrack.

The difference in our monitoring service? We don’t (and won’t) monitor private accounts.

I have zero right (or need) to have access to what a college kid posts on their private Facebook or Twitter account. I’ve actually lost out on business because some schools wanted me to monitor private accounts. I’m 100% ok with that.

Our focus is solely on public Twitter accounts. One reason is that college students are using Twitter more than Facebook, and typically with public accounts. The second reason is that there is just too much private information on Facebook.

The laws I mentioned earlier prevent schools from the following:

Requesting or requiring a student to disclose the username and password to any of their social media accounts, in order to gain access to the student’s social networking profile or account by way of an electronic communication device.
Requesting or requiring a student to log onto a social networking site, email account, or any other internet site or application, by way of an electronic communication device in the presence of an agent of the institution so as to provide the institution access.
Monitor or track a student’s personal electronic communication device by installation of a software application upon the device, or by remotely tracking the device by using intercept technology.
Access a student’s social networking site profile or account indirectly through any other person who is a social networking contact of the student.

In normal terms, let what is private be private.

Given that we only monitor public Twitter accounts, we are not impacted by these laws.

I’ve discussed this issue with The New York Times, USA Today and a variety of other outlets.

Bradley Shear, a social media attorney based in Baltimore, has been spearheading this legislation, even working with Congressman Eliot Engel of New York to have a bill introduced at the federal level (called SNOPA). He has been quoted in respected publications (too many to list here) around the country on this issue.

I contacted him when these bills started coming out, wanting to get his insight and make sure that FieldTrack was compliant. I explained that we only monitor public Twitter accounts, that we literally cannot even put a private account into the system, and that if an account becomes private after we’ve started monitoring it, it immediately gets kicked out of the system.

His response (and I’m paraphrasing, given that it was over a year ago), “Absolutely. You get it.”

As a result I’ve trumpeted his work, quoting him many times. I’ve not said he endorses the product - he didn’t - but referenced our conversation in blog posts and in conversations with administrators, as well as with my own attorneys. Had he suggested that my service was illegal, it wouldn’t make much sense for me to ever reference or link to him.

I have also talked with some of the legislators who have introduced these bills, explaining how my service works and getting their “ok” on the issue.

In writing on this issue Mr. Shear has kept my name, and my company’s name, off of his blog. He has instead focused on the companies that do offer to monitor private accounts. Recently, and without real reason, that has changed.

As Utah, Arkansas and New Mexico have passed social media privacy bills, he has written blog posts claiming that these states have “banned student-athlete social media monitoring firms.” He has tagged me and my company in these posts, going so far as to state that these laws “appear to negatively affect Fieldhouse Media” (and other firms).

It’s one thing to get criticism from an anonymous hater. It’s different when it is from somebody who is in the public eye, someone who labels himself a “trusted media analyst.” As a result, I felt it necessary to respond.

On Monday (My 13) I posted a comment on this blog post by Mr. Shear, correcting his misinformation and asking that he refrain from making false assumptions about my company. Mr. Shear has yet to approve my comment.

As a result, I am posting my comment here. I didn’t copy/paste/save my comment - I wrongly assumed he would approve it - so I’m paraphrasing.

Mr. Shear
Given that you are making false assumptions/accusations about my company, I feel it necessary to respond so that those who happen to read your blog know the full story. As an attorney, I assume you prefer to deal with facts - all of the facts.

1. You use a quote from the recently passed New Mexico bill, where it states that it is unlawful “to demand access in any manner to a student’s, applicant’s or potential applicant’s account or profile on a social networking web site.” If somebody has a public Twitter account, they have given access to the approximately 2.4 billion people in the world with access to the internet. Even people who don’t have a Twitter account have access. If I ask for their Twitter handle and they have a public account, I’ve not “demanded access.” If they have a private Twitter account and I ask for their username, I still have not demanded access. The only way to get access would be to force them to allow me to follow them. This isn’t difficult to understand. Honestly, I’m a bit concerned, given your influence on this issue and these bills, that you either don’t understand it or worse, are choosing to ignore it.

2. I’ll use your own words here. “Monitoring the public social media posts of student-athletes is legal. In fact, it may be advisable, to check up on a student-athlete’s public online posts in the same manner as his/her real world activity.” (link) I’ve mentioned to you (and discussed this publicly many times) that my firm only monitors public Twitter accounts. In your own words, what we do is not only legal, but may even be advisable.

3. The New Mexico bill has a phrase similar to that of bills passed in other states, claiming that “Nothing in this section prohibits a public or private institution of post-secondary education from obtaining information about a student, applicant or potential applicant for admission that is in the public domain.” Again, my firm only monitors public Twitter accounts. We never, in any way, have access to private, password-protected information.

Again, I appreciate your efforts in getting legislation like this introduced. Unfortunately, it is needed. That said, please refrain from making inaccurate assumptions/accusations about my company. Thank you.

Thankfully the schools we work with - and even those we don’t work with who have called to ask about the issue - understand the truth. As I stated earlier, I respect Mr. Shear and appreciate his work on this unfortunately necessary issue.

I’m also proud of the work that my company does, and the alternative we’ve provided for schools when it comes to monitoring the public social media activity of their student-athletes and coaches/staff.

When necessary, I’ll defend that work against blatant misinformation.

Are we making too much of Twitter rants on athletes?

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:21:00 -0500

Christine Brennan of USA Today recently wrote on the hate that athletes receive on Twitter. Her main argument was that the media and sports fans have made far too much of these rants.

The topic of social media rants against athletes, specifically student-athletes, is something I’ve written about before.

Brennan’s piece, however, misses some serious points.

In discussing Twitter attacks on Andrew Wiggins, the 18 year old basketball phenom who chose this week to play his college basketball at Kansas, she chose to focus on the number of Twitter followers of those attacking Wiggins.

”One fan who attacked Wiggins on Twitter had 183 followers. Another had 222. Three others had 296, 394 and 525 followers, respectively.

That doesn’t mean that exactly that many people read each particular tweet. More might have seen the comments if they were re-tweeted or after a search for what was being said about Wiggins’ decision, but it’s also true that not every follower of each account saw each tweet, Twitter being a river that just keeps flowing along.

So, to put things into perspective, these so-called worldwide social commentators would have reached more people if they had stood up at a high school assembly and just started screaming.”

How many Twitter followers these idiots (I won’t call them fans) have isn’t the issue. They aren’t trying to be “worldwide social commentators.” They are sending tweets with Wiggins’ Twitter handle, meaning they want Wiggins to see the tweets. Hateful, awful, violent, racist tweets. And he does. Whether or not the world does is irrelevant.

Brennan goes on:

“Twitter should be treated as the fleeting entity it is, where attacks come and go so quickly they almost demand to be ignored, especially by 18-year-old athletes making up their minds about where they want to go to college.”

Suggesting that high school kids ignore Twitter is pretty lazy, at best. “Hey, all of your friends, along with 200m other people - including some of the most successful and influential people in the world President Obama, Warren Buffett, The Pope - use this platform, but you should ignore it.” It’s 2013. Social Media, for better or worse or both, is a part of our lives.

Does the media writing about these trolls make it worse? To a certain degree, I’m sure it does. Is that reason enough to ignore it? Absolutely not. It’s unrealistic.

As I mentioned earlier, some of the tweets directed at Wiggins were direct threats of violence, racial slurs, and worse. This is, unfortunately, the reality of some high profile users.

I’m sure you remember the horrific situation that unfolded in Steubenville, Ohio, where high school football players were found guilty of raping a young girl. Two girls later took to Twitter to threaten the girl who was raped (seriously). As a result, those two were charged with Twitter harassment. They plead guilty, and were sentenced to 6 months probation.

These threats that are being tweeted to Wiggins and other athletes, depending on state laws, could potentially be criminal. To suggest, as Brennan does through her piece, that these threats, “demand to be ignored,” is unacceptable and irresponsible.

If we’re being honest, those who use Twitter heavily (myself included) make it out to be more important than it is. That’s not to suggest Twitter isn’t important (I have a career because of it), but we tend to put more value on it than the general public.

That doesn’t mean what happens on Twitter isn’t real life. Or that we should, “view it as the fleeting entity it is.” It’s hard to dismiss something that caused a nearly 1% dip (or $136.5billion) in the Dow.

To bring home her point, Brennan brings in Robert Johnson. Johnson is a “pop culture ambassador” that doesn’t use Twitter. Says Johnson, “Because you hear something is trending on Twitter, you get a sense that’s what everybody’s thinking,” Thompson said. “It isn’t what everybody’s thinking. It’s what people who are tweeting are thinking. That isn’t everybody.”

There are roughly 450,000 NCAA student-athletes. Per my research, 72% of those have a Twitter account. Of those using Twitter, 5% of have received hateful/critical tweets from fans. That’s 16,200 student-athletes, 18-24 year olds, who have had hate spewed directly at them. Not on a message board, not on sports radio, but directly to their Twitter account that they check every day.

Thompson is right. Not everybody is tweeting and thinking this. But over 16,000 kids receiving this kind of hate is not ok (I would guess more than 5% of pro athletes and public figures have received hateful tweets).

And the only way to have any kind of impact is to 1) educate these kids (and pro athletes) on how to deal with it, and 2) to out those who believe this type of behavior is acceptable.

Twitter trolls don’t appear to be going away any time soon. It’s unfortunate and it’s ugly. They are certainly a minority, but that doesn’t make them any less real.

We can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. By covering/outing/discussing the situation, the “professional journalistic media” helps bring a necessary light to a dark issue.

A fun night talking social media with University of Northern...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:30:44 -0500

A fun night talking social media with University of Northern Iowa student-athletes. A fun group.

Enjoyed time this week discussing social media with Lynchburg...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 07:33:45 -0500

Enjoyed time this week discussing social media with Lynchburg College student-athletes.

Had an incredible evening last night and was humbled to be an...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:07:24 -0500

Had an incredible evening last night and was humbled to be an honoree for Innovator of the Year from the Journal Record for FieldTrack, the platform we offer to athletic department’s to monitor the social media activity of their student-athletes and staff.

Failure and Success: My business story

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:50:00 -0500

Yesterday I left the office around 3:00. I went home and my boys had built a fort in the living room. We played in the fort, read books, laughed and watched cartoons. On many levels this was a pretty typical afternoon for us.

I’ll be on the road for 6 of the next 9 days, so I try to come home early whenever I am in town.

In all honesty, life is pretty decent at this moment. Work is fun and my company is growing. My wife stays home with the boys while also running a successful photography business. We are blessed.

But it wasn’t always this way.

Out of college I took a job in healthcare staffing with a terrific company. I earned two promotions in two years, served in leadership positions, and was living what is apparently the American Dream. Eventually, I got tired of it. Tired of the chaos and frustration of the corporate world, tired of being treated like a number rather than a human. Truth be told, I felt I was better than where I was. Pride is an ugly thing.

So I left, and started a healthcare staffing company with a friend. This is where the phrase “don’t go into business with your friends” probably pops into your head. Listen to it.

I had my MBA, had managed a successful team, read tons of business books and blogs, etc. I thought I was the ultimate entrepreneur. I was pretty much the next Steve Jobs.

And I failed. Failed company, failed partnership, broken friendship.

In roughly two years, very little money was made. It was humiliating.

Defeated and depressed, I sat alone in the office and buried myself in books and blogs. From Seth Godin to Michael Hyatt to Jason Fried. I read all the leadership materials I could find, convincing myself that I wasn’t a failure. That I was a good leader, a successful business owner.

But I was a failure. The stress of it was killing me. I lost a ton of weight (I’m not a big guy to begin with). I had no idea how we would pay for bills. To support my dreams, my wife was working a full time job. Still, I didn’t know if it would be enough.

Then I had an idea. I loved sports. I loved social media - something I had gotten involved in while still in the corporate world. Those two seemed to be the perfect marriage. I was doing some work on the side with a social media strategy firm, Smirk New Media, but there was an itch for something else.

And I kept coming back to student-athletes and social media. Article after article kept popping up in my Twitter feed about student-athletes getting in trouble/creating controversy on social media. Every headline and discussion around the topic was negative.

They shouldn’t be on Twitter.

They are too immature/stupid.

Warn them of the risks!

Why isn’t somebody telling them what not to do online?

Something in my brain clicked. Everybody is missing the point. Social Media isn’t the problem. The ones writing about how student-athletes shouldn’t be allowed to use social media? They were spreading their messages/articles through, of course, social media. I did some digging and realized that many of the people and companies claiming to educate student-athletes on social media, didn’t even have a Twitter account. Seriously.

No wonder there’s a problem.

Meanwhile, I’m watching people make careers out of how they use social media. Grow companies by implementing social media strategies. Some were literally changing the world through social media.

So when did social media become the bad guy for student-athletes?

I approached my wife and told her I had an idea. I wanted to start a company that educates student-athletes on how to use social media. Not to warn them and scare them and lecture them on what not to do. That’s a boring idea and a boring life to lead. And it doesn’t work.

No, I wanted to help them understand how powerful social media could be. I wanted them to see the potential that social media brings. I wanted them to realize that in almost any field they will go into, social media will play a role. That they can make an impact now and in the future. And by teaching/encouraging positive use, I believed they would change the way they viewed and used social media.

I was fired up.

But we were almost two years into making no money. We were at the lowest of low points. My wife was exhausted from carrying the load. “Can’t you just focus on one business?”

She was right. But I fully believed in this idea. That this need must be met.

You know when you know.

We talked with and sought counsel from friends. Eventually, I shut down the healthcare staffing company (translation: I stopped answering emails).

And in a leap of faith, I started Fieldhouse Media.

This was late summer of 2011. I knew nobody in college athletics. Literally nobody. And speaking publicly? Nope, never done that.

None of that mattered. It was terrifying, but it didn’t matter. I knew social media. I knew the impact it could have on these student-athletes and, as a result, teams and athletic departments. I just needed a chance.

Before I even had a website up, I found myself on a local TV station talking about the industry.

It’s now been almost two years since I started. I’ve been on roughly 30 college campuses. I’ve spoken at CoSIDA, the NCAA Convention, and the Collegiate Athletics Leadership Symposium (twice). I’m up for Innovator of the Year for a monitoring platform we built that is changing the way athletic departments approach the monitoring of their student-athletes on social media. I’ve been in The New York Times, USA Today, ESPN.com, Dallas Morning News and more. I’ve spoken to crowds of over 3,000 people. It’s been an absolute whirlwind where more often than not, I find myself just trying to keep up.

So what’s the difference? Why am I succeeding in this business when my last one failed miserably.

Work. I’ve realized the value of work. Looking back, I was more concerned with being called CEO, President, founder, etc. I loved the idea of having a company, but I had no clue what it took to build and run one. In the corporate world, when you have a bad month, you still get paid. Every mechanism is put in place for you to succeed, you just follow the instructions. Running your own business doesn’t quite work that way. Have a bad month? You don’t get paid. Two bad months in a row? Trouble. Three bad months? Mentally, you shut down. You panic. Resistance sets in. With Fieldhouse, that’s been different.

When things are good, I’ve worked. When things are down, I’ve worked. Stayed focused. Fieldhouse didn’t make money for a long time. I knew deep down that the company was needed. It took serious commitment.

Building a business is not easy. You have to get after it on a daily basis. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Mission. With the healthcare staffing company, my goal was to make money. That’s it. Make money so that I can live better. Sure, I wanted to help people/organizations along the way, but I wanted money. With Fieldhouse? I want to help people. I believe in my message and believe it adds value to student-athletes and athletic departments. Of course making money is necessary, but I’m more passionate about helping people.

That mindset changes the way you do business, changes your conversations with potential clients. You approach each day with a different perspective. I don’t care about being known. Trying to help people is less stressful than trying to make money.

Fieldhouse Media has also partnered with The Mentoring Project. A portion of our fees go to TMP, helping develop/train mentors for fatherless boys around the country.

Advocates. Through social media, I built an audience around the message. I connected with athletic administrators (ADs, SIDs, and more) that knew and understood social media. I shared my message and vision with them, and they became advocates. I used social media to connect with and build relationships with influencers. I used it to build a platform. What better way to show my social media knowledge than by building the Fieldhouse Media brand through social media?

Faith. I had no idea if this thing would work. Of course, you never know. People always ask me where I see it going. I have no clue. If you would have told me 2 years ago that I’d be sitting where I am now, I would’ve laughed at you. But I 100% believed in what I was doing, and that somehow it would work.

Is it easy? Good gosh, no. It’s absolutely terrifying. My life depends on a set amount of people each month paying me to fly to their campus to speak to student-athletes. That’s slightly stressful.

But I love it. It’s April 11, and I’m currently booking sessions as far out as October. Daily I get emails and tweets from student-athletes thanking me for my time and for bringing a new perspective. What’s not to be excited about?

Building and running Fieldhouse Media has been a humbling, thrilling experience. It’s scary. It’s fun. It’s a challenge. And it certainly isn’t boring. There’s absolutely no way I could have done it without the friends that I’ve made in the industry. There are too many to name, but I am beyond grateful for those who have believed in me and advocated for me.

Had I started it 2 years earlier, I don’t think it would’ve worked. I really don’t. I needed to experience failure. To not be so wrapped up in being called CEO, President, business owner, whatever. I think I needed to change why I worked. I needed that two year period, as painful as it was for me and my family.

Do I now know what it takes to build and run a business? I’m not sure. I hope I never think I have it figured out, or that I’m somehow an expert. I’m learning more and more every day. And I’m having a lot more fun doing it.

I wake up excited every day. Excited to build, to dream, to connect. It isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it.

And I approach each day with this quote from Steven Pressfield in mind:

On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.

Had a great time this morning talking social media with...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:48:10 -0500

Had a great time this morning talking social media with @PiedmontLions student-athletes.

Johnny Manziel quits Twitter. Is it the right move?

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:36:00 -0500

Yesterday news broke that Johnny Manziel, the most public figure in college football and last year’s Heisman Winner, was self-imposing a Twitter ban. His reason?

“With how the media has been with me for a while, I just shut everything off. As of [Monday], I said I was done with [Twitter] for however long.”

He also mentioned that he wanted his personal life to be more private.

This isn’t a post to bash Manziel. Whether or not he wants to use social media is up to him. His reasons, however, show a lack of understanding of social media and are worth discussing.

1. The Media
Manziel has been in the news a lot recently. Most of it, surprisingly, has nothing to do with his Twitter account. He has been in Mexico enjoying Spring Break, being a typical college student. People around him have snapped pics of him partying or posing with girls, and those pictures made it to national media outlets and blogs. Shutting down his Twitter account won’t prevent that. The media spotlight on him isn’t going away.

2. Privacy
You want to keep your personal life private? Don’t tweet about it. Nobody makes you tweet about being in a casino after a football game. Nobody makes you tweet support to controversial star Marshall Henderson. Nobody makes you fight with fans on Twitter.

Outside of fighting with people on Twitter, none of these actions are necessarily bad. The issue is that Manziel has to realize the microscope he now lives under. Every move is criticized. As a result, you have to change the way you operate. He hasn’t exactly done himself any favors with the way he tweets.

Social Media has changed the game for celebrities/public figures, but it’s something they must figure out how to handle. It provides them a great opportunity to control the message, if they are proactive and actually develop a plan for how they use it.

College athletes are no different. They are having to figure out how to be a PR pro at a young age. Consistent education must be a key component for that if we expect them to be successful.

When speaking with student-athletes, one of the things I tell them is to add value on Twitter. Don’t just add do the noise. Live your life, don’t tweet your life. Go out and be a college student, do what you are going to do, but you don’t have to tweet out every detail.

Twitter can be a terrific tool for student-athletes, if they understand how to use it well and in a positive way. Manziel has an opportunity to build a significant platform online that can benefit him offline, but he has to understand how to make good decisions when it comes to how he uses social media.

Is getting off Twitter the right move for him? That’s his call. If and when he comes back, I hope that he takes some time to evaluate how and why he uses the platform (and that somebody helps him with this process), then takes the necessary steps to use it in a positive, non-controversial way.

Had a great couple of days discussing social media use with...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:15:05 -0500

Had a great couple of days discussing social media use with student-athletes at Southern Illinois University.

UT commits feeling pressure online

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:06:49 -0500

UT commits feeling pressure online:

Enjoyed the chance to chat with ESPN.com about the pressure high school recruits are feeling from fans on social media.

An infographic looking at the social media use of...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:56:39 -0500

An infographic looking at the social media use of student-athletes, based on a survey we did of nearly 300 NCAA student-athletes. Full result of the survey here.

Fieldhouse Media featured in USA Today article on social media and student-athletes

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:02:10 -0600

Fieldhouse Media featured in USA Today article on social media and student-athletes:

Enjoyed the opportunity to chat with George Schroeder of USA Today as he looks at how athletic departments are attempting to handle student-athletes on social media, in light of the Manti Te’o catfishing situation.

4 Ways Student-Athletes Can Deal With Haters Online

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:06:00 -0600

I shared this on the Fieldhouse Media site, but wanted to post it here as well.

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. Just this week, Kansas basketball player Elijah Johnson was the victim of some horrific Twitter abuse by an Iowa State fan (using the term “fan” loosely here):

image via fivewidesports.com

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. A teenager in London wasarrested for abusive tweets during the Olympics to diver Tom Daly.

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

Student-athletes at all levels will deal with some form of hatred online. Some will be harmless, some will be abusive and demeaning. Here are 4 ways student-athletes can handle the online haters:

1. Ignore it. This seems simple enough, but the reality is it’s difficult. When you open up your Twitter app and see a notification that somebody has tweeted something to you, you want to read it. It could be a friend, a fan, a family member, or a hater. Being a competitor, you want to respond when somebody calls you out. When somebody challenges you. But why give value and attention to somebody who doesn’t deserve it? Jon Acuff, in his new ebook The Hater Handbook, has this to say about ignoring online critics:

A stranger. Someone I’ve never met. Someone I’ll never meet. Someone whose sum total investment in my life thus far has been the forty-seven seconds he spent writing a Facebook or Twitter comment…You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone. You don’t need to prove that you’re good enough. He doesn’t get a vote in that.

2. Retweet it. A number of student-athletes, and other public figures, have taken this route. Rather than responding to the person and engaging in a battle nobody wins, they’ll just retweet the abuse. Why? Three reasons. One, it lets people see the hatred they deal with online. Two, to expose the person attacking them online. It’s easy to tweet something abusive to a student-athlete, thinking nobody else will see it. If they retweet it to their 5000 followers? The game has changed. Third, they let their fans and supporters deal with it. Prior to their football game against Oklahoma in 2011, Oklahoma State quarterback Brandon Weeden received this horrible tweet from a “fan” of OU:

It’s horrible all the way around, made significantly worse by the fact that members of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball team had died in a plane crash just two weeks earlier (not to mention the plane crash involving the men’s basketball team years earlier). After Weeden responded with the above tweet, OSU and OU fans alike went after the kid, eventually ending up in his being dismissed from the college baseball team he played for (yes, this was one student-athlete abusing another online). Weeden knew that responding to the hater himself wouldn’t do any good, so he let his fans take care of it for him. And they did.

3. Block them. The “block” feature on Twitter is terrific, and one that I don’t think enough student-athletes utilize. Don’t want somebody reading your tweets? Block them. Tired of getting abused or attacked by a user? Block them. When you block them, they won’t see your tweets (unless they logout and manually go to twitter.com/yourusername) and, if they try to tweet something to you, you won’t see it. They’ll have to create a new Twitter account if they want to continue attacking you online. This also frees up your mentions/replies, allowing you to see messages from those you actually want to interact with. On those who are supporting you and tweeting you positive things. In other words, those who actually deserve your attention.

4. Delete your account. To the point that you just can’t deal with the online haters? Delete your account. In my opinion, this is a last resort. It lets the haters win. It tells them that they got to you. That they’ve overpowered the positive reasons you use Twitter. That they are louder and more impactful than your supporters. With Twitter growing in popularity among young adults, deleting your account can be a difficult thing to do. It’s where your friends are.

Hiding behind a computer screen or an iPhone keyboard gives people an extra dose of courage (and idiocy). Internet tough guys will tweet out things that they wouldn’t dare dream of saying to your face – or to anybody else, for that matter. They don’t deserve your attention or direct response.

Ignore the critics. Ignore the haters. Haters are looking for a response. A reaction. It’s difficult, but don’t give them what they want. Nobody wins in a Twitter argument. Instead, focus on those who add value to your online experience. Focus on staying positive and engaging with those who do the same.

What did we really learn from Michigan catfishing their student-athletes?

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:48:00 -0600

Speaking at the KeyBank Global Leaders Forum in Toledo, Ohio recently, Michigan AD Dave Brandon discussed how the department had hired a communications firm to create a fake online persona of an attractive female to “friend” Michigan student-athletes on Facebook, in order to get access to what they were posting. Heightened by the continued controversy surrounding Manti Te’o and his fake online girlfriend, word quickly spread across Twitter that Michigan had catfished their players.

Reactions were mixed. Some cheered it as a terrific move, while others thought it was odd and were uncomfortable with it. In my conversations with athletic administrators in recent days, opinions were just as varied.

The first question is, did Michigan really catfish their players? According to Urban Dictionary, catfishing is “the phenomenon of internet predators that fabricate online identities and entire social circles to trick people into emotional/romantic relationships (over a long period of time).”

As the Twitter firestorm heated up, Michigan clarified their approach, stating that they did not catfish anybody. Brandon blogged, “An individual from the consulting firm ‘friended’ certain student-athletes on Facebook. The football and men’s basketball teams were ‘friended’ by a female, and the women’s basketball team was ‘friended’ by a male. An online trust was formed. Some of the resulting online discussions were not what some of the student-athletes would want a prospective employer to read.” By this description, I would argue that players were not catfished. At this point, it’s semantics.

The real question is, what was the point?

The lesson learned from this situation is that college students will, many times without hesitation, friend a stranger on Facebook. This comes as no surprise. My personal approach on Facebook is to not friend anybody I don’t know.

That’s a strategy I share with student-ahtletes and encourage them to adopt when providing social media education and training for athletic departments. There’s too much private information on Facebook. If I don’t know you, you don’t have a right to have access to that information.

That’s my strategy, but it doesn’t mean friending people you don’t know is wholly wrong. Brandon stated that, “an online trust was formed between players and consultant.” Isn’t that what social media/social networking is all about? After enough communication, a trust is developed. I have a number of people that I interact with online that I trust. I’ve gained/earned business by interacting with athletic administrators online.

People meet and fall in love online every day. It’s not my cup of tea, but there’s a reason that online dating is a $2 billion industry. Should you be careful with who you interact with online? Absolutely. Shaming guys for friending an attractive woman, or even attempting to engage in an online relationship with her isn’t the answer, or the right approach.

On Brandon’s blog, he also noted that some of the information that was posted from player to consultant was information that they wouldn’t want employers to see. If they had to “friend” the student-athletes to see the information, then employers wouldn’t see it unless they friended them as well. In other words, the information/posts were not viewable by the general public. That doesn’t make some of the interactions between student-athlete and consultant any less inappropriate, but again, these are private interactions.

The firm stated that they friend players in order to see what inappropriate content they post. Seems harmless enough, but was friending them necessary? You can find all the inappropriate posts you need on their Twitter accounts. When I’m preparing to visit an athletic program to speak with their student-athletes, I find and take screenshots of inappropriate tweets. I don’t friend them on Facebook. I don’t follow them on Twitter. I don’t add them on Instagram. Within 5 minutes, I can find their public Twitter handles, scroll through tweets, and find a shocking amount of offensive material. I show these tweets during our session (with their names blurred - as the idea is not to humiliate anyone). I do the same thing with Instagram pics (that they post publicly). Laughter quickly turns to horror when they realize that some guy from Oklahoma was able to find these tweets in 5 minutes without ever interacting with them. The message is clear: What you say online defines you. It’s not just you tweeting back and forth between your friends. It’s there for the world to see.

Lesson learned. Without having their privacy invaded.

If you’re going for shock factor, what’s more shocking: that somebody they friended dug through their account for information that most people can’t see, or that somebody they’ve never interacted with found inappropriate posts that everybody can see?

Did the communications firm go too far by friending these players? In doing so, they were able to access their private information (email address, birth date, phone number, calendar of events, etc). Do you need to invade their privacy to educate them about privacy? In general, people view everything online as public. Treating it that way is wise, but there are privacy controls (we have a tutorial we share with student-athletes on how to make their Facebook profiles private). With that comes an expectation of privacy. Lawmakers in California, Delaware, New Jersey, Michigan, Kansas, Maryland, Oregon, Utah and Texas agree. Each of those states have either passed or introduced laws to protect the online privacy of students.

One of my initial questions upon learning about this situation was what if the firm Michigan hired had used a male to “friend’ female student-athletes on Facebook, gaining access to their private info and what they are posting? All the talk had been around the football team friending an attractive female, but our defenses are more likely to go up when young women are involved. Brandon’s blog states that the firm did, in fact, have a man friend female student-athletes online. If I were the father of one of these girls, this would not be something I would at all be comfortable with, or happy about.

I should note that this is in no way to question the motives of the communications firm. It’s just to note that this is an odd, uncomfortable and unnecessary approach. Especially given the readily available access to publicly posted information by student-athletes.

Another question to throw out there: did Michigan do the same exercise with coaches? We’re left to speculate, but it’s highly doubtful. If it’s a university concern that players are engaging in inappropriate relationships online, isn’t it also a concern that coaches might be doing the same?

There are dangers online, and they should be discussed. Is friending or engaging in an online relationship one of them? Of course not. What’s dangerous is sharing personal information with strangers.

Social media education is crucial for student-athletes, and Michigan undoubtedly deserves recognition for being proactive on that front. However, teaching student-athletes about social media is more than focusing on the dangers involved. It’s about understanding the opportunity that social media provides you in establishing an online identity. More than that, it’s about realizing how and why appropriate social media use can benefit student-athletes.

Let’s move out of the current fear-based approach, and look to educate student-athletes in a way that encourages and enables them to use social media in a manner that represents themselves, their team and their university in a positive way.

Had a terrific time this past week discussing social media use...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 22:41:02 -0600

Had a terrific time this past week discussing social media use with student-athletes and coaches from Coastal Carolina University.

Enjoyed the chance to be a part of the Social Media and the...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:42:00 -0600

Enjoyed the chance to be a part of the Social Media and the Student-Athlete panel at the 2013 NCAA Convention.

Enjoyed being a part of the Social Media and Student-Athletes...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:40:00 -0600

Enjoyed being a part of the Social Media and Student-Athletes panel at the NCAA Convention. Great discussion.

Enjoyed my time in Texas, talking social media with Mary...

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 15:02:00 -0600

Enjoyed my time in Texas, talking social media with Mary Hardin-Baylor student-athletes and coaches.

Awesome day talking social media with Lipsomb University...

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 12:56:00 -0600

Awesome day talking social media with Lipsomb University student-athletes and coaches. Beautiful campus.