Pickering, B. (2013, April 15). Athletes and Social Media: Untapped Goldmine or PR Landmine?. The Huffington Post. Retrieved July 3, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-pickering/athletes-and-social-media_b_3082184.html
Right from the beginning there is an example of a famous athlete who wants to share his personal and raw experiences with his fans and they immediately react because they want to know what is going on in his life. Because there are so many followers with many athletes it affects also how much people tweet about them whether it be negative or positive. An athlete such as Shaq who has 7 million followers will get many responses to any of his tweets because so many people are viewing them. Rather an athlete who has 600 followers or friends they will have less of an impact on the twitter timeline or trending on Facebook because they are not on it frequently enough to make an impact on social media networks. I had no idea that professional teams restricted athletes from posting on social media before or after games but it does make sense. Either before or after games there is a lot of traffic on social media with people tweeting about being at a game, during the game and how the game ended and it gives the athletes a time where they could be heated after a game or really happy. To even out the playing field for all athletes the restrictions are a good idea.
I don’t know if Steve Spurrier should ban twitter completely from his team because it is restricting them to use it for pleasure and enjoyment but it is also understandable because bad things can come from saying things on social media. In my earlier research blog posts like I have mentioned many times before, this article brings up there should be proper ways to utilize social media and give athletes the proper guidance on how to use it. While athletes are in college they should learn how to properly use social media and will then be prepared on how to use it if they decided to go into professional leagues. Those professional leagues and teams will not have to worry about the athletes that have already had their social media etiquette education.
As Pickering has stated in his article, it is useful for the workforce as well after student-athletes graduate college and if they are restricted from using social media it is prohibiting them for knowing how to use it and when to properly use it as a professional athlete and person. As an athlete is building a brand for themselves, in the workforce companies use social media to build the brand of the company. If we want everyone who graduates college with a degree to know the simple fundamentals of using social media to broadcast their work and company, social media should not be restricted to anyone especially athletes. I feel as though athletes are given a stereotype that they only go to school for their sport and that’s it, but we want all students to be successful in school. The same Catalyst Engagement Study was brought up in this article as well and seems to be fitting by being a prime example in the research that people have done on social media and the influence it has had on athletics.