experienced crisis management professionals
Like many leaders before her, Florida Atlantic University president Mary Jane Saunders would like a do-over. Several telling comments in a recent interview revealed the administrator’s lack of experience when it comes to media relations, especially social media.
In an interview covered by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Saunders lamented the influence of Twitter and the blogosphere on her downfall.
If your athletic department or school is growing to the place where you have more than a dozen or so social media accounts under your umbrella, it might be time to put together a website social media directory to help fans navigate your social media stable. There are some pros and cons to social media directories, but if done well, they will help you on a number of fronts.
I was honored to be a part of the #WeOwnSocial webinar sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America and the National Association of College Marketing Administrators with Mark Hodgkin (Big East Conference) and Andy McNamara (University of Oregon). We talked about how to facilitate collaboration in college athletic departments when it comes to social media, and shared some best practices to date.
Towards the end of the webinar a question was asked about resources for learning more about social media tactics, and we didn’t really have time to answer the question thoroughly. I decided to put together a list of blogs, books, and Twitter follows you can tap to learn more about how to use social media effectively. This list is short and sweet, but please add your favorites in the comments. First, a couple tips.
Cody Snyder is frustrated. A distance runner for the University of Virginia, he wrote a piece published in the CavalierDaily.com on what he calls the unfair restrictions put on student-athletes who use social media. He invoked the #FreeAthletes Twitter hashtag, which up until now has only been used to promote stories of an assortment of imprisoned Arabic athletes.
When it comes to spotting a potential crisis, the most overlooked triggers are blind spots. In the highly touted book, Blind Spots, researchers Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel write about the science of why we fail to do what is right and the organizational ramifications of ignoring blind spots. The core principle of the book is, “we are unaware of the gap between how ethical we think we are and how ethical we truly are.”
One of the best functions of the new social media darling, Pinterest, is its ability to function as an online catalog. Big brands like Nordtrom have found success using Pinterest as a visual redirect to their online catalogs to stimulate sales. Here’s a look at some college teams using Pinterest to sell their gear.
When Michael Stoner’s new book Social Works arrived in the mail, I was anxious to dig in and read. I soon discovered that I would want to revisit this book regularly. What a treasure chest of information.
A recent survey of college athletics communicators found that 11 percent have had to delete social media posts by athletes or coaches over 15 times in the last year. The added burden of monitoring personal brands in addition to the school’s brand is becoming a distraction to athletic departments.
Student athletes often find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to using social media. University athletic departments expect these 18 to 22 year-olds to not only behave themselves on social media, but to promote the school’s brand with their social media presence as well. In frustration, some athletic departments turn to bans as a way to keep athletes from becoming a liability in the social space. At the same time, athletic departments are under the watchful eye of campus communicators that often think of athletics as the black sheep of the family.
According to the latest social media user statistics from Pew Internet, the 18-29 age group is the largest on Twitter. Some studies suggest that over 80 percent of student-athletes have a public Twitter account and use it regularly. Couple that with the fact that just over 56 percent of schools actually train student-athletes how to use the real-time channel, and you may have a recipe for trouble.
