PRBreakfastClub

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While sipping my morning coffee and catching up on reading, I come across another article about football players abusing Twitter.  Clicking on the link and expecting to hear what happened to the Redskins player

I am shocked to see Texas Tech in the headline.  Seriously, another player has crossed the line on Twitter? Don’t they read or watch the headlines?

Apparently, Texas Tech isn’t having a good season to date.  (Yes, I love football but it’s the Big 12 and I’m SEC.) Two of the players have resorted to texting highly inappropriate comments about their head coach or their team, leading to a snowball effect with the media.

My question to the players – do you know your audience in certain Social Media outlets?  Not surprisingly it’s sports writers, journalists and fans.  It might as well be a mini press conference with the fans watching.

A rivals.com article quotes: “One of these days, players are going to realize Facebook and Twitter are public statements akin to sitting in front of a microphone or issuing a press release, and then we won’t know anything.”

This statement should be on a post-it on everyone’s computer while using Twitter.  Would you feel comfortable standing in front of cameras saying exactly the same thing you write on Twitter? How many times do we have to see people lose their jobs or players get fined before we think twice on what we post?

Controversy over this statement has been going on for quite some time, and even among our group of PR Breakfast Club members.  You shouldn’t feel like you are being censored, but there may be is a better way of expressing your opinions and not putting yourself in jeopardy?

Therefore, could football players learn from Social Media and PR pros or should we learn from their mistakes?

• 10 February 2012 : Doing It Right & Doing It Wrong
• 9 February 2012 : 5 Ways that Bloggers Are Like the Cool Kids in High School
• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had

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