Twitter

By: Thomas Stone

=__**1. TOP 5 MOST FOLLOWED PRO ATHLETES ON TWITTER**__ =

A spontaneous decision to post one’s thoughts can backfire in an instant, but think of the backfire that can ensue for athletes with thousands of followers. History is clear evidence of the damage a simple “tweet” can cause to an athlete’s reputation.“What kind of person celebrates death?”

This seems like a perfectly legitimate comment, but tweeting this in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death? Probably not the best decision. And it was not.

Rashard Mendenhall’s comment not only received heavy criticism from the public, but Champion, an athletic clothing company, dropped the Pittsburg Steeler running back as an endorser.

 Mendenhall isn’t the only athlete to suffer damage due to a Twitter post. The social media site has caused so many headaches for organizations that several NFL teams have held social media related meetings in the hopes that their athletes will “think before they tweet.” Twitter has gotten some other athletes into some hot water, i.e. Brandon Jennings, Michael Beasley, Charlie Villanuev a

Tweeting those damaging posts are all the more likely as more and more athletes are using their mobile devices to post those instantaneous thoughts. Mobile Analytics show that Twitter posts via mobile devices are up with every passing month, which is sure to worry the heads of sporting organizations around the globe.

While Twitter has caused a number of issues for athletes, it’s also been a blessing for many athletes as they have used the social media site to their advantage. Twitter has been utilized to promote not only athletes and their team, but also to spread the word for causes they care about.

Here are a few athletes who have certainly used their Twitter pages to their advantage. This is a list of the top five most popular athlete Twitter pages:

** 10 of the top 15 are all soccer players from Brazil or Barcelona ** ** #10) Shaquille O’ Neil – 9.6M Followers ** Even in the early stages of his retirement, the former NBA star is just as entertaining as ever. The very quotable O’Neil gives followers an endless supply of memorable posts. He even announced his retirement on Twitter

[|**Shaquille O'Neil Twitter Page**] ** #9) Kevin Durant- 9.6M Followers ** **#5) Ronaldinho- 11.8M Followers** **#4) Neymar- 17.5M Followers** ** 3) Lebron James - 19.9M Followers **

[|King Lebron Twitter Page]  ** 2) Kaka – 22.3M Followers ** <span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;">I’m not exactly fluent in Spanish so I’m not quite sure what the Real Madrid superstar is saying in his posts, but whatever it is people are sure listening. Kaka is currently the most followed athlete on Twitter as his popularity on the social media site is just another example of soccer’s global dominance.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Kaka's Twitter page]

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">** 1) Cristiano Ronaldo – 34M Followers **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This household name for Real Madrid brings in nearly 17 million followers. You will not find any controversial posts from this guy as Ronaldo’s page is filled with friendly reminders about upcoming matches and gracious thank you to all of his supportive fans.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|**Cristiano Ronaldo Twitter Page**]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Incorporating Social Media into Televised Sports ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">by: Same Taggart <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Watching sports on television is an inherently social experience. Typically, fans watch televised games together, and when they don’t, they tend to text or chat while watching. More and more, fans hang out on social media platforms during games, treating their team’s Facebook page, for example, as a chat room. Why then, is the encouragement of fan interaction, through social media or other outlets, not a bigger part of sports broadcasts?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">There are many ways to incorporate social media into televised sports. For example: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">With national broadcasts, the league gets involved, and there are more complications because of inequality in scheduling (e.g. the Buffalo Bills aren’t getting as many //Monday Night Football// appearances as the Pittsburgh Steelers). However, there are still exciting opportunities to incorporate social media there. In fact, the potential impact of including social media in a national broadcast is obviously higher than a local broadcast, simply because of sheer viewership numbers.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** “Ask the Announcer” Segment. ** Invite fans & followers to take part in “Ask the Announcer” segments, which typically appear in both locally and nationally-televised sporting events. Take submissions through the network’s social accounts as well as from the accounts of the teams that are playing.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Show fan & follower comments as they come in. ** Obviously this can’t be 100% real-time because of the occasional need to censor unnecessary/inappropriate messages, but it would be really cool if fan & follower comments were displayed on-screen throughout the broadcast.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Display social media links as much as possible. ** There is typically a ton of space on-screen during a broadcast. Would be a good idea to rotate social media links in unused space. Obviously, the links displayed would be dependent on whether the broadcast was local (e.g. just home team and network) or national (e.g. both teams, maybe the league, and the network).
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** Feature player profiles when highlighting them in-game. ** When highlighting an individual player (e.g. showing stats or key plays), throw in a link to his or her Facebook page or Twitter profile. If he or she doesn’t have one, oh well. But why not reward athletes who choose to brand themselves through social media?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I magine how much social media could enhance watching sports. For example, millions of people watched the inauguration on CNN.com and utilized Facebook Connect to update their statuses and see what their friends were saying as they watched. Pretty soon, that experience will take place on your TV instead of on the web, definitely during sports broadcasts.

=2. Youtube: ESPN Athletes and social media=

=3. Googledocs: <span class="wiki_link_ext">[|Athletes & Social Media] =