Managing An Athletes Social Media Reputation

Added by Guest on March 8, 2013.

Our athletes impress on many levels- dedication, sportsmanship, loyalty, dogged determination- to name but a few of the traits common to our most revered athletes.

Nobody, however, could say that Australia’s elite athletes have a great track record in the social media realm. Every month a new scandal erupts, inevitably the result of an ill considered tweet or facebook update. It’s enough to make you wonder why every top athlete isn’t obliged to sign up with an agency like White Echo, as a matter of course.

Managing an athlete’s social media reputation requires a deft and delicate touch. It’s not that athlete’s are necessarily dense- more that when you spend all day, every day in a pool, or kicking a ball, there’s not a great deal of time leftover for honing one’s writing skills. Social media provides a frighteningly easy forum in which to vent spleen, and if you regret what you’ve written and elect to remove it 30 seconds later- too bad. Someone will have seen it, and you can bet they won’t hesitate to share it.

Don’t believe one silly, quickly deleted tweet could possibly do much damage? Consider the stats: the average number of tweets per day is 27 million (and climbing) That’s an awful lot of people hooked into the same social media network. As for Facebook- if it were a nation, it would be more heavily populated than the USA.

So much of an athlete’s image is now hinged on how they present themselves through social media updates. If you want to ensure the focus remains on your talent- rather than your poorly worded feelings about the Canadian swim team- enlisting the services of a professional social media management agency is the best way to keep your reputation intact.