The Closer: What is the NCAA Thinking? Chapter 45

Last week, ESPN's Jay Bilas unearthed a pixelated NCAA gold mine. Better yet, he revealed this finding on his Twitter. You would think that four years after Ed O'Bannon first filed a lawsuit against the NCAA about player-likeness being used for monetary profit, the college sport governing body would have cut all ties with anything having to do with college athletes and making money. Apparently, that wasn't the case.

Under Further Review: Three Phrases To Avoid In Your Twitter Bio

Since I assume that many of you reading this are on Twitter, then I think it is also safe to assume that many of you have seen the phrases that I am thinking of.  You look at somebody's bio, maybe to see what they actually do and maybe to see how your friends describe themselves.  Space is precious in that 160 character bio, so it is best to fit as much useful information into those 160 characters as possible especially for personal branding purposes.  Here are three space-wasting phrases to avoid in your Twitter bio:

Full Court Press: Who to Follow on Twitter

To follow up my previous post expressing the importance of intelligent Twitter-use, I’ve decided to include some suggestions for the best people to follow in the sports business community. These are just a few of the many smart, entertaining, and informative industry professionals that are very active on Twitter (in no particular order).

Full Court Press: Professionalism on Twitter

Since Twitter emerged into our lives in July 2006 and became a staple in the mobile device landscape, it has developed into much more than a way to communicate with our friends. It’s a source of information and breaking news. It replaces the need to look at a variety of sources for local and national news because it’s all housed in one convenient location. For sports enthusiasts, you don’t have to find the box score or log onto ESPN.com when you want updates. If you follow the “right” people on Twitter, you can access interviews, scoring updates, video replays, and post-game recaps all in one central location on your smartphone.

HIO: Promoting Team Loyalty Through Social Media

On social media, whether a team is promoting the score of a game or a community charity event, groups of audiences will view the content differently. Social media is a broad swipe, sending bits of content to any and all followers or fans. It is impossible to distribute content that will hit only one target audience. The hope is that messages will appeal to a large base.

HIO: Twitter & Athletes - Tips for Athlete Marketers/Agents to Manage the Risks

Professional athletes, and celebrities in general, understand the power of Twitter: it is a revolutionary way of connecting with an interested audience, allows marketers to quantify the fan base, and it gives a complete view into the athlete's life. While these are fantastic, there are countless examples of athletes using the micro blogging platform recklessly. 

Athletes and Twitter: What Can I Say?

We currently live in a very social media driven world and an even more social media driven sports entertainment industry. Twitter is the quickest and most effective way to receive the up to the second updates on your favorite leagues, teams, and players. Remember the days of turning on SportsCenter every morning and night to get that day's news on all your favorite sports? Not anymore. As long as you have a twitter account you can now receive updates by the seconds on the leagues, teams, players, and so much more that you choose to follow. Not only to you get the updates faster, but you also now can choose to only get the news you want to read. Waiting through a whole hour long episode of SportsCenter for the report you want to hear is a thing of the past. A wise, fictional, character once said something that correlates to the social media world perfectly. "With great power, comes great responsibility."

Under Further Review: How to Use Twitter Effectively

Obviously the title of this post infers a step-by-step instructional guide on how to tweet, follow, be followed and what have you.  That it is not.  I’m talking how to use Twitter to build yourself, “build your brand” if you will.  I’ve heard it over and over again, and lately the reality of it has started to sink in. 

I’m one of those people who actually listen to guest speakers and try to get something out of it.  Even when the speaker speaks for an impressive two hours and fifteen minutes straight without stopping or asking a question, I still try.  Some of you Drexel people will know what I’m talking about in that one.  One of the reoccurring themes of guest speakers’ speeches is that it is never too early to start building your online brand.  Personally, I see Twitter as the possible way to start.


It may just be me, but I feel like Twitter always gets a bad reputation.  Many see it as an extension of Facebook and say, “Well I don’t want people to know what I’m doing all day long, so I’m not getting one.”  Alright, well that person clearly missed the boat here.  I’ll spare you the preaching about not tweeting pictures of your alcohol, drugs, or whatever else you feel makes your Friday night so much “cooler” than the next person’s.  We’ve all heard that close to a million times.  Here are five survival tips for Twitter that you don’t hear every single day.

1) Listen

Listening is a key.  Contrary to popular belief, you can actually learn on social media, especially Twitter.  You learn in real-time, and assuming you follow people that you like, you learn about things that you want to learn about.  Crazy, I know.  You could go on and tweet the most ridiculous things that come to your mind, but if behind the scenes you are paying attention to what is going on in the world, then at least there’s some good coming of it.


2) Read

Follow people who distribute content like articles, blog posts, anything mentally stimulating.  Then read them.  In theory you should be following people whom you value what they say, so the links you see on your feed should be for things that interest you.  Twitter offers the perfect platform to discover things that you’ve never read about before or to read deeper into things that you like. Use it that way. Look at it as an opportunity for personal development.


3) Socialize

After all, Twitter is social media.  Twitter directly connects you to people who have jobs at every level.  It connects you to people in your dream job and people moving up the ladder.  It connects you to people on the same level as you.  Talk to people.  Reach out to new people.  Find one thing in common with someone, all you need is one fact that links the two of you, and reach out.  There’s some kind of underlying stigma that some people always feel when I suggest this.  It’s really not weird.  It’s not awkward.  The person may even be flattered that you reached out to them.  Socializing is how you create opportunities for yourself and opportunities are how you move up in the world.  Don’t you want to move up?


4) Challenge

Challenge yourself to be better.  Challenge yourself to open your eyes to more of the world.  Twitter allows you to do these kinds of things every day and for free!  Take advantage of it.  Challenge your mind with new ideas.  Challenge yourself to see both sides of an argument.  These are things that you could be doing every single day.


5) Discover

Discover new things in the area you live in. Go try new things.  Use Twitter as a way to get out and see things.  Go explore and use Twitter as your guide.  This kind of power is at your fingertips 24/7 yet many of us let it go to waste.

I've written odes to Twitter in the past, and this current one will probably not be my last.  It’s a tool that is underutilized by a vast majority.  It really can do good for people, and people need to realize.  You can be that person that goes on once a week to complain about people you saw on the train.  You can complain about your boss.  But you’re missing the point.  Here is a tweet that I retweeted last month that I think sums it all up well:

Many of us want to get ahead in our respective fields, yet so many people do not have a plan.  Twitter isn’t a plan, but it’s a damn good start.  Brand yourself.  Get your name out there.  Don’t wait for networking events or your next set of classes or the list of Drexel employers offering co-ops to come out.  Start now.  It’s something that you can do all day every day.  That’s how you begin to get ahead of the competition.  Trust me; it can lead to many opportunities that you never thought were possible.

L.A. Kings Winning With Tweet Game



From SportsBusinessJournal.com

In the latest edition of “things Ryan finds cool” we go back to the NHL to see how the Los Angeles Kings are changing the social media game for pro sports, one Tweet at a time. Chris Botta’s SportsBusiness Journal article this week takes a look at the franchises’ official Twitter page, “@LAKings: irreverent, entertaining, sarcastic and controversial.”

Three years ago, LA ranked 29^th out of 30 franchises in website engagement (calculated as “average time spent per user.”) According to the most recently league data, the franchise now ranks first in the league. The Twitter page has also added over 37,000 followers since April 1 of this year. This can largely be attributed to the social media staffers, who use Twitter as a fun way to engage with the fans. Over the years, official social media pages have given just facts and figures—consistently dry and lacking for engagement. The Kings are changing that by breaking the rules. Who’d expect to ever see smack talk from a team’s official Twitter? Certainly not me, but the Kings are giving fans just that. Twitter is aiding in adding some heat to their playoff series, on and off the ice (Ahahaha, I get it; the games are in Phoenix and LA. Hot. Funny!)

Regardless, I think this is good. Heaven knows the league needs something to talk about come Stanley Cup Finals time (I certainly don’t care about New Jersey or the Phoenix Red Jackets right now.) I like a little smack talk, especially when it’s witty. Just reading last night’s Tweets during Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals made me chuckle—it’s akin to reading fans Tweeting about the game (but with less cursing and anger.) 

For example, “Not great at math, but #LAKings getting a whole bunch off PP time. They kind of need the practice anyway.”  @LAKings 10:41p.m.

It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s original, and it’s giving us all something to talk about. That’s a mix fit for royalty, don’t you think?

How Sports Teams Can Leverage Instagram

The saying "a picture says a thousand words" is a true, if not overly used expression. But as Facebook's recent acquisition of photo-sharing social media platform Instagram proved just two weeks ago, a picture, or rather a way to share a picture, is worth a billion dollars. 

It's surely frustrating for sports franchises, having new platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest pop up just when it feels like they're really getting the hang of Facebook and Twitter. Staying ahead of the social media curve is important though, and that means we will surely see many teams popping up on Facebook's new baby in the near future. In fact, some teams like the Celtics, Knicks, Bulls and Eagles have already jumped on the opportunity to create some more brand exposure and build stronger relationships with their fan bases. 

We can all agree it's a pretty sweet app with a simple, attractive layout, but how can teams use it? It's pretty simple, really. Use it for whatever you want to promote. New facilities, a new ad campaign, a particular event or promotion. Instagram can serve essentially as a digital billboard in a way that not even Twitter can. Below, check out a picture from the Eagles' Instagram account (@philadelphiaeagles), with the caption "Jeremy Maclin participating in our first #Google + hangout #philadelphiaeagles".

-Written by Dan Mullin