Why don't sports stars Twitter?

Hi David, and welcome to iStadia!

As we've both seen on another networking platform (in another dimension), a lot of very active online business networkers and marketers don't really get twitter, so there's no surprise that sport is further back. I use twitter, and still feel like I'm going through the motions somewhat. I'm not really engaging, mostly pushing stuff out.

Cheers, Rob

--
Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com

Oh - and here's another sports star for you :)

--
Rob Robson
Co-founder, iStadia.com

Rob Thanks for the feedback. It was your comment that convinced me to hop over to hear and get stuck in! The blog has caused a good reaction as I have had a couple of messages with other athletes who Twitter. And thanks for the link to your Twitter account ;-) Regards David

Sports Starts don't twitter because it's far too early. Why does Stephen Fry have 120K followers? Because he talks about gadgets, he's a geek. Why doesn't David Beckham twitter? Because his fans are reading the sun, not Tweetdeck. You also have to bear in mind, that Sports PR companies have nothing to gain by reccomending that their clients twitter. It makes them redundant. Also bear in mind that sports stars are employees - they represent a club and sponsors and as such are not allowed to have personal opinions. It will no doubt happen. But the reality is, twitter has a way to go before it becomes mainstream. As usual the USA is miles and mile ahead of the UK and other places. There is a thriving sports marketing community on twitter who share ideas and links. But type sports marketing into search.twitter.com or tweetgrid and nothing comes up (except me). http://www.twitter.com/dmfreedom

David It's never too early - but you do make some interesting observations. IMHO SF has 120k+ followers not because he talks geek, but because he shares observations about his world. His linking of Twitpics to his recent journey to Australia and NZ enabled many fans to feel that they were sharing an alternative view of his on-screen persona. You don't need to be on Tweetdeck to follow someone, on my site we have created the coding to enable a particular person to be followed across all the social media, from one page. That capability could easily be built into a teams website. If sports marketing is controlled by the type of Sports PR that you mentioned, then there is a long way to go. Talent has a lot to gain from building long-term engaging relationships with their fan-base, and so do the sponsors and the teams, and let's not forget, there are many sports stars who are not in a team. In the greater scheme of things, Twitter will be a mere diversion on the journey towards organisations (teams, corporates, individual brands) developing truly interactive and rewarding relationships with the customer / fan base.

Don't get me wrong. I am an evangelist for sports using the latest platforms to get closer to the fan-base. Pat Coyle and others in the US advocating Sports Marketing 2.0 are breaking down the barriers, but many sports have a long way to go.

Twitter raises some really interesting questions. Do Sports-Stars ignore fans at the ground with sharpie pens and posters so they can shoot off 140 characters to their followers who are watching on glowing LCD elsewhere? Do they reveal their training regime or diet to competitors? Do they act on their sponsor's behalf to promote products to followers?

The coding to follow twitter across multiple platforms is free and easy to install, that's the nature of social media. Anyone with a $6 bluehost account can set up a wordpress blog, plug in 'Twitter Tools' and off they go. Yes it should be really easy for sports stars, fans, pundits, pr agencies, brands and anyone else to do it. Why aren't they? Why aren't they using SMS text messaging for the same purpose?

The answer I believe is because they are not in that business. Most sports still are not run as commercial operations. It shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is.

Maybe it's precisely because anyone can do it - lord knows CelebrityTweeter.com was created in less than 2 hours and is now ranked on the first page of Google for practically every page - complete with the traffic flow that comes with it. Having been involved in sports sponsorship in the early 90's, it's nice to see (not) that things haven't changed that much in the intervening years. Maybe I'll go and target some sportsmen and see what we can do for them.

Actually, a lot of sports stars and teams do use Twitter to communicate with fans and a worldwide audience. I created the free Sports on Twitter list at http://tinyurl.com/sportsontwitter as a resource for all sports fans on Twitter. The list contains over 100 professional athletes, teams, leagues, media members, sports bloggers and fantasy sports players on Twitter. All accounts are verified as time permits. The best thing about the Sports on Twitter list is that anyone can contribute to the list! See the link on the main page to add a Twitter account to the list! If you think the list is a good resource, please share it with your friends and Twitter followers. Thanks! Brendan