Last week, the University of North Carolina rolled out a new social media. Instead of increasing access to student athletes, the policy has coaches and/or administrators serving as the social media director for their team (read more here & here). Seems a bit extreme pulling folks more astute with X’s and O’s and game planning to monitoring 140 character messages.
Aside from tapping our resident sports guys, we also tapped into the psyche of a pair of UNC alumni to see what they thought of this new plan. For those of you counting at home, there are four contributors to this post, a first for PRBC.
True Engagement Rebecca Denison – Class of ’09
I spent four years walking around campus just hoping I’d get to catch a glimpse of guys like Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green. At Carolina, tests and presentations were often rescheduled because the team had made it to the next round of the tourney. I will forever bleed blue and cheer for Roy’s boys.
When guys like Marcus Ginyard started to join Twitter, I was thrilled because it was probably the best way for me to get to know UNC players and show the team support. Censoring and monitoring these guys only takes away the authentic interaction they have with fellow classmates who may not get the chance otherwise. Yeah, that sounds a bit lame, but wouldn’t you want to interact with a basketball legend one-on-one if you could?
Beyond this loss of authenticity, the spirit behind the new rules is also an issue. UNC’s undergraduate journalism program is considered one of the best in the country, and to have the school’s athletic department enact a policy like this is just plain embarrassing.
Unofficial Ambassadors Aven James – UNC Class of ’06
UNC recently unveiled an updated social media policy that has been called “harsh” – and while the UNC alum in me might agree, the B2B PR pro has to admit the policy just makes good business sense. And let’s be honest – isn’t college athletics really a business these days?
Though I admittedly haven’t seen the whole policy, it addresses a number of issues we’d advise a client to touch on:
● Responsibility & Good Judgment: Student athletes, whether they like it or not, are representatives of their University. As such, they need to exercise good judgment when posting on public forums and refrain from comments that could negatively impact the “organization.” And the “organization” needs to pay attention to what’s being said.
● Audience: Students and fans are an important audience for UNC athletics. They’re the “consumer;” the buyer of UNC’s “product.” Therefore, UNC has a responsibility to consider what posts/comments might alienate its fan base.
● Consequences: A sound social media policy should address the consequences for “bad behavior.” UNC has experienced first-hand the risks associated with social media and they’ve created a policy that, they hope, will mitigate them.
All that being said, the devil is always in the details. With the ability to monitor and even remove posts, UNC could take the policy too far – and if they do so, miss out on an opportunity to engage its fan base via social media.
Pro v. Student Mike Schaffer
Congratulations, NCAA! The University of North Carolina has helped you further blur the line between enrolled student and paid employee. In Chapel Hill a coach or administrator will be monitoring players’ social media accounts for violations. Yes, that’s a public university chipping away at the students’ individual rights – sounds a little fishy to me.
How much control over a person does their university have over them? Should they have access to student-athletes’ social media accounts, as the policy demands? And why just student athletes? What about student government, student media or student workers? Seems like the college is flexing their muscles to protect their revenue generating assets.
Do you actually think the star point guard will be judged on the same scale as the back-up women’s coxswain?
I’m all for educating players on how to be on their best behavior online, on the field and in daily life. However, the UNC plan, as it’s been presented, is all about “Big Brother Watching.”
Learning is Learning Jeff Esposito
It may sound crazy, but this policy is a good thing. While my co-contributors raise some valid objections, they are missing the silver lining in this grey cloud. College is a place for kids to get an education and foundation for a future career. Sure some of the players affected by this new policy will play with balls for a living, but the vast majority of the student athletes will not.
Either way, they need to learn the professional implications of being a dumbass on social media. We’ve all heard horror stories of people getting fired and some of us even monitor what is being said about a company online and may see dumb things posted co-workers.
Sure getting to know these athletes may be cool, but they are representatives of a brand. How many brand reps do you know that really give 100% behind the scenes access? Twitter is big business and if that means some big brother so be it.
The athletes who do turn pro will have stricter regulations from their respective leagues. Just as Chad Ochocinco how much a tweet can cost.
Well there you have our in-house experts’ perspectives. What do you think of the issue?
Aven James
Rebecca, Mike, and Jeff are PRBC regulars. You can get their contact info and details, as always, right here. Aven James, a first time PRBC contributor, is a Senior Account Executive at Bliss PR (yes, Elizabeth Sosnow’s firm – another PRBC regular) where she focuses on media relations in the B2B and professional services sector.
We’ve all gotten them – those dreaded auto direct messages – Those automatically generated messages that you get as soon as you follow a new person on Twitter. I am guilty of having used them for about a week around 18 months ago, until I realized it was a pretty crappy way to interact and didn’t actually save me any time or anything else.
Yet, no matter how much we all complain about them they seem inescapable. Hoping to cast a spotlight on this wretched behaviour I’ve compiled, with the help of some friends, some of the most rude, bizarre, and simply unexplainable auto-dms we’ve received — all neatly categorized for your reading pleasure…with the occasional editorial comment from me… Continue reading →
I recently read a blog post from Dave Fleet that really put words to something that I had been pondering for a bit. The piece was entitled Are you creating social media scorched earth? It focused on companies that burn bridges with customers with one-off social media accounts.
There is no question that social media is the hotness for the 2010-2011 fiscal years for companies. Communications and customer service folks have been utilizing tools and building communities and brand awareness while driving revenue as a secondary benefit. The dollars brought in from people who are generally not seen as revenue drivers has given marketers a set of green blinders. You know the ones, where money clouds one’s thoughts, especially when the entry point into a medium is virtually free and is a direct outlet to customers. Continue reading →
Measurement, measurement, measurement. It’s all we can talk about lately, right? With all the discussions about complex metrics and the ever elusive ROI, some of the more basic concepts of PR measurement have been drowned out.
Once you’ve come to terms with the idea that you absolutely must be measuring, where do you start? One of the first questions you should answer is whether you want to measure in real-time or whether you want to focus on measuring against a benchmark. Both satisfy rather different needs, but they could be paired to create a more robust measurement program as well. There is also some unavoidable overlap because, after all, measurement is measurement.
Real-time measurement
First of all, real-time is more aptly described as monitoring, though there can be some more quantitative aspects involved. The focus here is to gain an understanding of what is being said, where and about what right now. Continue reading →
I fully expect this post will stir up heated emotions. Let the venom spewing begin because I’m going on a ledge here. I’m asking a question, looking for feedback and pointing out my own experience. Feel free to sound off.
Here’s the thought: Beware the identity “lockdown” in your social media identity.
In my undergrad I was subjected to lecture after lecture about the social media “lockdown” I must partake in or risk being ostracized from the job market for a pic of me with a beer, or *gasp* the fact that I have opinions. I, like many of my young impressionable counterparts, cowered and said – okay – immediately playing damage control. Continue reading →
In last week’s #PR20Chat, there was a great conversation about social media contests. I have run four of these contests for my company and I see them as an opportunity to increase buzz and exposure to potential customers. With that said, social-driven contests are not a good fit for every company.
Is there an audience?
Any good contest needs an audience that is interested in the prize offered. Large brands and companies with established social presences have communities that they can tap into. Brands that are out of the limelight, charities and small businesses looking to add a contest to their repertoire need to determine if there is a strong enough community for the contest. Continue reading →
While Tom Humbarger makes some good points for guidelines for corporate Tweeting under getting started and being honest, human, responsive and nice, I do think he misses the boat in his section on getting the message out. Continue reading →
One of the core functions of the public relations profession is publicity. It’s why we chat up reporters, pitch, spin, network, etc. We build stories and buzz around products that are not always sexy. So it is funny to me, that we sell ourselves short when it comes to social media.
How many times have you said/heard “Social media is easy” or “It’s not rocket science?”
If you are like me, you don’t have enough fingers and toes to count. These phrases and similar ones that we commonly state belittle the work that we do in social media. Continue reading →
Imagine for a moment Bizarro Social Media land. If the folks who dreamt up Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. had taken that alluring left turn instead of going straight on with their vision and concocted (or Cogcocted) something entirely different than the fertile playgrounds, erm – rather platforms, we’ve got today.
Under these horribly delicious and highly inconceivable conditions we might have ended up with sites like…
