Mat Ka
nan, Director of Media Relations for Western Michigan Athletics and a member of the CoSIDA New Media/Technology Committee, writes on his experience in addressing WMU student-athletes this month on social media training.
Earlier this summer, Kanan penned a
CoSIDA.com article on WMU's football video web series "Inside the Lines." He gave a step-by-step approach on setting up the interviews and videos, and discusses reaction to the series from two perspectives - the fan and the media viewpoint. You can follow Mat via Twitter (
@kananmj). The official WMU athletics website is
www.wmubroncos.com.
In college athletics, the first official day of the fall season doesn’t wait until the third week of September. It occurs in August when the student-athletes begin to trickle back to campus for preseason camps. That is also the time that media relations staffs begin to reacquaint themselves with their teams by meeting with coaches, introducing ourselves to the newcomers and holding training sessions.
In the past these media training sessions dealt with how to respond to questions during a post-game interview, eye contact, keeping things “in the family,” but now social media is at the forefront, and education is key.
Western Michigan University hosts a class designated UNIV 1030. It is a way to allow incoming student-athletes to become better acclimated to college life. This year’s instructors, members of the academic services staff within the athletic department, allowed me to speak to the class about social media. It was eye opening.
My goal, after listening to many experts speak about the subject at this past summer’s CoSIDA Workshop, was to educate this young men and women on how their voice can be heard beyond their inner circle via social media and with that power comes great responsibility, to steal a quote from the 2003 version of the Spiderman movie franchise.
I am grateful that I was able to insert some of the information provided by Kevin DeShazo, President of
Fieldhouse Media during this summer’s workshop into my own presentation. Being able to show these students that their age group or demographic, 18-24 years of age, is the major influencer in social media today was extremely helpful. I let them know they have voice and their voice as an impact but that it is up to them what type of impact they have.
After educating them on the number of people their age on social media, I wanted to provide a shock to their collective system. I didn’t think they knew exactly how much social media infiltrates their lives. I pointed out that one person had social media on their actual clothing (a freshman volleyball player had a QR code on her t-shirt). She had no idea.
After using the t-shirt as an example of how social media is everywhere, I wanted to show how it is everywhere online as well and I provided examples of twitter posts that shed a negative light on those responsible, ending with a post from someone in that room (names were covered). I wanted to reiterate that their words have impact but it is up to them on what impact they will have, and that even though everyone has freedom of speech, we also face the consequences of that speech.
There were points of the presentation that educated the group on how poor choices on social media have negative outcomes, but the bulk of my presentation focused around the fact that there are multiple ways to have a positive impact through social media during times of triumph, adversity, question, motivation, support and engagement. I provided examples of each area using WMU student-athletes because I wanted to bring it home for our own student-athletes and I was proud of these young men and women using social media positively.
I was able to adjust the presentation, which will be provided in some variation to all WMU student-athletes this year, and deliver again to our entire football team two weeks later. I can honestly say it is the first time in eight seasons I have seen players leaning forward in their seats during media training. They were engaged … and, of course, they took to social media to give their opinions.
Zach Terrell (
@Zach_Terrell1) tweeted "Great reminder & lessons learned about social media today! You never know how you might impact someone positively/negatively with your words."
Jon Henry (
@JON_H_E_N_R_Y) tweeted "These young athletes trying to get recruited dont understand they can't be on twitter talking the way they do. #TrueStory #Don'tGetIt."